OUR FOREST OF THORNS | tbosas ✔️

013 || In Shades of Roses

CHAPTER THIRTEEN —    In Shades of Roses ..

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          The shock written on Tigris and Grandma'am's faces when he had told them what occasion had placed him in that position of stress haunted Coriolanus with an unmistakable dosage of pride. It was as if all of a sudden he too had realized what was happening to him — dinner with the President. In what world would that not be a significant event?

A hasty glance to the bouquet of roses seated besides him on the backseat of the spruce car Thaddeus has always kept impeccably clean tried to tell Coriolanus that his palm sweating and restlessness was not caused by President Ravinstill and the prospect of him having the absolutely incredulous opportunity to be seated at the same table with him.

This had everything to do with her.

He's had time to think since Tuesday, after the hospital release. Three days, to be exact, in which Coriolanus' mind was stretched between many duties, yet no matter how busy with strategies for the Games — announced to continue as scheduled, without any delays or changes — or preparations for the Tribute interviews, he made time reconsider and reevaluate the strange mystery that was Daphne Ravinstill.

A lot of what had happened between them took a different nuance of meaning in the moments when, as he would lay in bed, fingertips tapping on his lips, he had nothing left to do but to admit that he may have fallen in love with her, somewhere along the way, without even much as realizing how oddly entangled she had become to his heart, how very close he had not only allowed her to get, but beckoned her to. The sheer resilience of these emotions warned Coriolanus that this was not some physical attraction, the sort that could by all means be subdued with just about enough self-control, which at the moment he thought he didn't lack. He's always found Daphne beautiful, but if he had to pinpoint exact moment when his heart swelled, it was not her body that would be the central cause to his frustrations, but her mind, her voice, her words or her actions.

Several exercises of analysis and imagination later, Coriolanus was faced with the reality of it: for a while now, it had been love, that determined type which promised to haunt him forever, should his foolish attitude of ignorance continue to overlook its demands.

There was no guarantee Daphne's patience with him would last forever and he had no actual concrete proof that she wasn't simply acting as an overly dedicated friend by sitting with him in hospital for so long, but for his own emotions, Coriolanus could vouch, because once he started considering it, the thought of her had filled his mind to the brim in an instant, infatuation growing inside him in intoxicating fashion, creating that delirious paradox of feeling full, yet hollowed.

He's read about 'love' before, in the many mandatory books from the Academy curriculum, but never had he actually imagined himself as the clueless victim of that romanticized virus driving people mad through the most pleasant means possible. It was exhilarating, much as it was terrifying, or even humbling — while he had all the right reasons to love her, why should she settle for him? Much as he wanted to believe there was prestige left to the Snow's, he had to be honest with himself that his family's name was only by name still clinging to greatness, and should Daphne see him for the man who returns to a home ripped apart by the war, a man with nothing to eat and with everything to lose at every each step, he feared she would be repulsed into erasing even the faintest smudge of affection she holds for him.