an Everlasting Pursuit

one

TW; brief scene of non consensual sex near the end

The sun was shining on yet another wonderful spring day. The flowers were coming into bloom, the usual cold mountain range was warming with the welcoming rays. It was a pleasant change; winter always felt like it lasted too long up here. The three or so months we got of decent sun, I always wanted to last longer.

I would've been enjoying the wonderful surroundings if it wasn't for the tight grip on my hand.

"What are you staring at, Ailia?" Darius wondered.

I cleared my throat, turning to him with a fake, sweet smile. "Just admiring the flowers."

He hummed at me, eying my face for a sign of a lie. He had his hair cut just moments ago, the once longer blonde hair was now shaved at the sides and short on top. Darius was a handsome guy, caught the eye of many people, but he was more than what he let on. Although we did not live together, we often had 'sleepovers' at his house. My mother had practically encouraged the bonding moment, a bad twinkle in her eye.

I had been 'courting' Darius for two years. His father was one of the three leaders of my little town, and he was two years older than me. We were supposed to get married when I turned eighteen, which was in February, but I convinced them to postpone it to June so I could have a summer wedding. Our families had jumped at the chance, taking my fake smile as eagerness to have a pretty wedding.

I didn't want a pretty wedding; I didn't want a wedding at all.

I wanted my job back, my freedom and privacy that I had as a teenager. The isolation and uncaring gazes back then were better than the scrutiny I received now. Being betrothed to someone as high up and wealthy as Darius meant I had to look the part. No more working, no more bad hair days and no more bad clothes.

From the moment I found out who Darius truly was, I began to save my spare coins. I couldn't stay here. I had to escape before I was attached to a man such as him. On the outside, we walked hand in hand, with pleasant smiles as we wandered the town to admire the upcoming festivities. But his hand was too tight, my posture too stiff, and his smile too fake.

I had learnt that now. It didn't take me long to see the moment Darius was annoyed.

The first time I had seen him show his true colours, we had been courting for three months. It was the first time I 'slept-over' and the first time someone touched my private areas. I had resisted, and he did not like it. I was sixteen, Darius was eighteen, an uncomfortable age gap to me, but no-one seemed to care so I had learnt to ignore it.

I wanted to tell my mother, to seek guidance on how he touched me and made me touch him, but she would just call me foul words. Darius reassured me it was normal for couples to touch each other like that, so over time, I allowed him to do as he pleased. If I resisted, he would grow angry, and I didn't like it when he was angry. I learned that staying quiet was the only way to come out of it scratch and bruise free.

I remember the first time he gave me a publicly visible mark; a black eye. Before, he had stuck to kicking me or slapping, but this came when I had resisted sex for the first time. We had been dating six months at that point. His touches had grown more needy until the day finally came. I had come home, trying to shield the bruises, but my sweet little Arabella noticed. As a freshly turned thirteen year old girl, she was smarter than she looked. My mother had overheard, and I thought I saw an ounce of shock on her face, but she covered it up with laughing insults.

I had never wanted to get out of there more. So, I saved my money. Our contract of marriage stated I could still work until our relationship truly blossomed; which ended up being only nine months. My mother received an amount for our companionship and would soon be paid 'for her daughter's hand' when I was good and married. I wonder if his parents knew the man they had raised, if they would still allow me to marry him. Were they the same? Were his mother's smiles just as fake as mine?