Dandelions don't die [Ongoing]

ONE - Elizabeth

Broken dreams and rainy days

This wasn't how Elizabeth's life was supposed to go.

Elizabeth had known that her husband Ernest was a cruel, self-centered man. After knowing him more a decade, she had seen his cruelness more often than she could ever admit out loud. But until this day she hadn't wanted to believe just how little he cared about her. 

His wife of ten years. 

She hadn't believed that he would close his home from her, leaving her standing on the cobblestone covered road with nothing but the garments on her back. She hadn't wanted to believe that he could be this heartless.

This wasn't supposed to happen to her.

This only happened to the women that sought comfort in other men's arms, when they wouldn't get it from their own husband. She had done no such thing. She had been a proper wife. She had been faithful, even when her heart and body had been broken again and again by her husband. She had taken everything he had given to her. 

She had been a good wife.

It wasn't fair. But little in life was.

As if it wasn't enough to be evicted from one's own home, Elizabeth was still in pain from the heartbreak she had suffered for the fifth time just a day ago. The bloodied sheets had just been washed and hung to dry by one of the maids. As if it was nothing important anymore that she had again lost a child before it could be welcomed into this world pink, squishy and breathing.

Elizabeth felt her throat closing in agony. This time she had been so sure. She had carried the little one right under her heart for several moons. But her only wish had not been granted.

And now Ernest had decided that it would never be. He had decided that she wasn't worth the waiting. He had already waited for more than ten years. Elizabeth didn't blame him for becoming impatient. She knew he needed an heir. He was getting older. She was getting older as well and soon it would become even more unlikely for her to bear a child.

But apparently that wasn't Ernest's worries anymore.

Georgina - beautiful, young, healthy Georgina - would step into that role. Her stomach was already close to bursting and until today, nobody knew who the father was. But now it all made sense.

Elizabeth's stomach lurched at the thought. She wanted to vomit the meager supper she had had onto the streets.

Georgina had lived with them for the last eight years, since she was a young girl of ten years. Elizabeth had taught the girl in the languages and in the art of running a household. She had watched the girl turn slowly into a beautiful, confident, young woman that would surely steal the hearts of many men. Elizabeth just hadn't expected her to steal her husband as well.

Maybe, they deserved each other, Elizabeth thought bitterly and she finally turned away from the closed doors.

The windows shed some light onto the darkening street as it was starting to drizzle.

She had to get out of the rain.

Practical thinking had saved Elizabeth many times before. It made the invisible wounds in her heart seem less important for a while. She could cry, when she had a dry roof over her head and a warm and safe place to sleep for the night.

The streets weren't safe at night. Not for a woman without a weapon or protection.

Hopefully, her friend Annabelle and her husband would grant her a place to sleep for the night. The lived only a half-hour walk away.