C U R I O S I T Y | Aemond Targaryen

S I X T Y - F I V E

Aemond's P.O.V.

The house feels haunted. It is haunted.

The dogs are moping around in Cordelia's room, and they keep getting on her bed, seemingly waiting for her return. Daeron avoids the living room, treating it like it's going to burn him, probably due to all the movie nights he shared there with Cordelia. Since returning home, Aegon hasn't touched his video games, and he's brooding around the house like a ghost.

With every corner I turn, I'm confronted with picture frames filled with memories of Cordelia, and it stings that she left them all behind to torture me. I'm watering the plants Cordelia left behind, and I think I'm drowning them, but I refuse to let them die. I've avoided smoking out back, knowing I'd search for Cordelia on the beach, so I stick to the front porch instead.

Cordelia disappeared only days ago, but the house is quieter than it's ever been before. Today is the last day of Thanksgiving break, and we'll have classes for two more weeks before the semester ends and winter break begins. We'll get the chance to see Cordelia on campus soon, ask the questions trapped in our mind, but that doesn't settle the ache in our bones.

I'm dying inside and only Cordelia can save me.

For days, past shared secrets and whispered conversations lingered in my thoughts, reminding me of all my mistakes. I have so many wrongs to make right, a considerable amount of ground to cover, and I'll fix them all for her. Before everything with Cordelia, I thought I could make everyone happy and content, but now I understand how I stretched myself too thin for the sake of other people's ambitions.

What I do will never be enough for my mother and grandfather, and they will always have the greed for more. I was enough for Cordelia, but kept striving to assist my family's unquenchable thirst for power, and it cost me everything that genuinely held value to me. If I must lose everything to be with Cordelia again, then so be it... Because there is nothing, not a single thing, of equal value to me.

The value of Cordelia's dimple smiles cannot be measured by any amount of wealth I could gain, and the love she has to give outweighs the notoriety of my family name. You can't put a price on her heart, and I'm the last person deserving of her love and kindness and goodness. Cordelia is too sweet for me, but I want her anyway.

I sit alone at the dinner table, black coffee in hand, staring at my laptop with an unreadable expression. On the screen is a document that's been open for several days, my resignation letter addressed to my grandfather. Despite revising and editing it more than a hundred times, I haven't been able to bring myself to send it yet.

Though I have the savings of my own to be unemployed and on my own for the next year, I hate the thought of not having a job lined up. I only have one more semester before I graduate, but the jobs I could have with my degree aren't what I want anymore. The moment Cordelia walked through my front door, everything I wanted changed, and she's not even here anymore to witness it.

Frustrated, I slam my laptop closed and sink back into my chair, exhaling a heavy sigh. I want Cordelia to be at my side when I finally put in my resignation, want to see her reaction when I finally leave it all behind. When I search for new opportunities, she should be there, playfully teasing me about how I can do anything and make any dream possible.

My dreams are only within reach because of her.

Pinching the bridge of my nose, I lose my eyes for a long moment, missing Cordelia so fucking much. When I blink my eyes open, I shudder on a breath and carefully pull out my phone, while feeling my heart burning from the inside out. Blindly, without a thought, I scroll through my contacts until I find one in particular and press the call button. I wait for it to go to voicemail, like it always does, and leave a message for the first time since she left.