Could Have, Should Have, Didn't - A Narnia Fanfiction

Chapter Nineteen: What Needs To Be Said

Looking down at his hand, Edmund imagined an engagement ring on his ring finger.

A gold band. Simple. But the meaning of it would be so much deeper.

So much responsibility and maturity would come with the ring.

Yet, he toyed around with the idea of being married like it wasn't as big of a commitment as it truly was. Everything around him came across as endlessly blank right now, so much so that he felt a little reckless.

Would this make him happy? Truly?

Next to him, Ivy's big electric eyes filled with tears. Her lip fluttered and her breath rose and fell in stuttering gasps. Small breaths that before he would have wanted to comfort her for.

With his mouth still feeling fixed shut, Ed gulped. "I..." He didn't know what to say.

The answer to the question she asked was a yes or no, but he felt like he needed to say so much more.

To say why he was hesitating.

She was a nice girl, mostly; and yes, he liked her. Somewhat.

But love?— that was a different matter entirely. And the thought of having to help care for Cynthia, a child, made him squirm. He was not ready to raise a child. Not yet, perchance not ever. Not with her.

The shivering stopped briefly beside him, Ivy wiped madly at the tears now flowing down her face. "I'm sorry," she stifled wistfully, "I don't know what possessed me to ask such a thing as that. I'm, I just, I love you Edmund, I don't want to wait a moment longer to show you. I want to feel your love in return."

That was a little gross.

Words spilled around in his mind, some angry, some sad, some unsure, but none reached the surface. Ivy was so distraught about this.

She did love him. He got that.

But... he did not love her. Mostly because he barely even knew her. Up until recently, she hadn't even been eighteen, she'd been twenty-two; she had been a mother; not a daughter— a woman, not a girl.

Biting his lip, Ed stared deeply into her eyes. "I think, I don't know you enough to—"

He was caught off guard by how much closer she had gotten. Her body nestled firmly with his, her face merely inches from his own.

Warmth settled in his stomach.

Except not the kind he got when near Rita. A different warmth. Not like the one he got when defying rules; the one where he felt nervous and excited at the same time. No, this was pure nervousness. Fear.

"I would've told you everything," she breathed, voice low, "Once we were... in a different stage in our relationship." She licked her lips, upping a shoulder, her sleeve loose on her arm.

Almost an invasion, an invitation— one he didn't like.

Until this moment, he hadn't noticed that she hadn't brought a coat, even with the cool weather, hadn't noticed that she was wearing her purple dress from the night they'd gone to the ball.

Hadn't noticed the stronger scent of vanilla and flowers settling around her.

Heart beating wildly, he made an effort to back up on the bench away from her closeness. But he was already at the furniture's edge, he was trapped.

This was not at all good. Not even in the bar had he felt this uncomfortable. She was acting differently. Almost flirtatious. More than she ever had been.

And he didn't like it. He hated it.

"I don't think our relationship will ever change. We're friends—"