𝑾𝑯𝑰𝑺𝑷𝑬𝑹𝑰𝑵𝑮 || 𝑨 𝑩𝒓𝒊𝒅𝒈𝒆𝒓𝒕𝒐𝒏 𝑺𝒕𝒐𝒓𝒚

𝑷𝒓𝒐𝒍𝒐𝒈𝒖𝒆

‎ .˚ * ꒰ঌ✦໒꒱ * ˚.

GENEVIEVE BRIDGERTON HAD always carried within her a hunger-not for confections or trinkets or the fleeting distractions that seemed to captivate other girls her age-but for answers. A quiet, burning hunger that lived in the hollow of her ribs, curled around her heart like ivy, and pulsed steadily in her blood. From her earliest memories, she had been drawn to the things left unsaid, the pauses in conversations, the subtle discomfort that crept into her mother's voice whenever she asked why.

She had been born, it seemed, with a mind that refused to rest.

As a child, her questions had charmed. "Precocious," they called her. "Spirited." At dinner tables and garden parties, adults would smile tightly as she tilted her head and asked something clever-too clever. But as the years crept forward and her questions grew in complexity, those smiles withered into tight-lipped warnings. Eyes narrowed. Topics changed. Her mother's hand would tighten around hers with just enough pressure to convey: Enough, Genevieve.

But still the questions came. Always circling back to one in particular-one persistent whisper in the corridors of her mind:

What is the difference between men and women?

It was not asked with shame or scandal in her voice, only a sincere, aching confusion. Why were boys permitted freedom-to laugh loudly, to climb trees, to ask without fear? Why could her twin brother tear through the woods, wild and wind-chased, while she was scolded for muddy hems and messy hair? What boundary divided them so completely, and why was it guarded so fiercely?

When she voiced this question-carefully, curiously, without guile-it was met not with explanations, but with evasion. Her sisters blushed and giggled nervously, brushing it aside with the gentleness of someone hiding a fragile secret. Her eldest brother scoffed, insulted by her audacity. And her mother-her mother would go pale, press her lips together, and murmur, "That is not a proper thing to ask."

But wasn't it?

In Genevieve's world, girls were praised for silence. For playing sweetly, for sitting straight, for asking nothing. Curiosity, in a boy, was ambition. In a girl, it was trouble. Dangerous. Rebellious. Unseemly. A girl with questions, it seemed, was a girl who might unravel everything.

She didn't want to unravel anything. Not really. She only wanted to understand.

Once, she had come close to something like freedom. Once, in a different season, there had been Benjamin Featherington. Her oldest friend, her kindred soul. Together, they had explored the forests on the Bridgerton estate, chasing dragonflies and ideas with equal delight. There were no rules in the forest. No hems to mind, no voices to lower. Just the two of them-running, laughing, dreaming. Theirs had been a friendship untouched by society's scorn, not yet corrupted by the sharp divide of boy and girl.

Until the fall.

One misstep on a moss-slick stone. A shout. A rush of blood. And then-pain. And after that, silence.

She had awakened in her bed with a throbbing ankle and a fevered forehead. But worse than the injury was what followed: a decree from her parents, sharp as any sword-You are never to see Benjamin Featherington again. As if he had pushed her. As if he had tainted her. They would not speak of it, only that it was unseemly, unfit, dangerous for a girl her age to be traipsing through the woods with a boy. As if that simple joy had made her something less.

She had cried for days. And when the tears dried, something hardened inside her.

Since then, three years had passed. She was fourteen now. The world still called her a child, but she felt something shifting beneath her skin, a slow unfolding, a quiet awakening. The mirror no longer showed her the same face each morning. Her body-her thoughts-her sense of self-they were all changing, subtly but irrevocably. And still, no one would speak plainly. The most natural things in the world were shrouded in secrecy, twisted in shame.

And so, Genevieve learned to keep her questions to herself.

She learned which subjects turned grown men's ears red, which thoughts earned her narrowed eyes, which curiosities were punishable by dismissal. She played the part of the good daughter when she had to. Practiced her scales at the pianoforte, curtsied low, bit her tongue until it nearly bled. But inwardly, the fire raged on. Questions bloomed like weeds, invasive and impossible to tame.

There was no one to confide in. No one but the memory of Benjamin-his laughter echoing through the trees, his wild ideas, the way he had once told her that nothing was more powerful than a thought unspoken.

She sometimes imagined what he might say to her now, if he still thought of her at all. If he too had questions that no one would answer.

It frightened her, this growing sense that there were whole worlds adults conspired to keep hidden. Not for their own sakes-but for hers. As though truth was a poison, and ignorance a balm.

But she did not want balm.

She wanted to see. To know. To understand.

In the quiet hours of morning, when the house was still and the garden bathed in silver mist, Genevieve made a silent vow-not of rebellion, but of remembrance. She would not forget the child who had once asked so fearlessly. She would not let them carve the questions out of her. She would find her own answers.

She did not yet know the cost.

She did not yet know the danger.

But she knew this:

To remain silent was to disappear.

And Genevieve Bridgerton had no intention of fading quietly into the shadows

.˚ * ꒰ঌ✦໒꒱ * ˚.