Angel of Mercy

Chapter 14

Dedicated to Litterator, check out My Story for a great read and also @kericourtnage, who wrote broken, an increqdible story which is heart breaking.

I nervously smoothed back my hair, ensuring that the unruly strands were flat against my skull. I knew that James wouldn't care if one or two regulations weren't followed, he wasn't like that. A small smile to my face as I thought of him, James cared more about ideals, the big picture.

Like me he whole heartedly believed in our society, and every thing it stood for, but unlike me he thought that the little things didn't matter. If your hair wasn't perfect, or your dress not straight, who cared? If your trouser hem was an inch or two short, that was fine. If you were late to work one day, then be early tomorrow.

It was one of the few things we disagreed on. I thought the little things, held up the big things. The perfect hair, perfect clothes meant that the ideals we both held so high, the order, the lack of chaos, were safe. And if the ideals were safe, if every one was working towards keeping our world happy and ordered, then we were safe, I was safe.

James opened the door, brandishing a jar of jam, then laughing at my flustered thanks. He was early and I was nowhere near ready. I had to finish icing a cake, sweep, the kitchen floor, get dressed. My to do list went on and on, with the hundreds of things that were needed for perfection to be achieved.

James handed me the jam and pulled me into a hug, grinning at my protests. I tried to escape and finish at least some of the housework left, but he knew me far to well, and eventually I just relaxed in his arms. He released me, and chuckled at the smear of icing sugar on my cheek. He was the only one ever to catch me not looking my best. I always seemed to be covered in one substance or another when I was near him. Flour, mud, pollen, something always marred the hem of my dress, or was stuck in my hair.

I almost skipped back to the kitchen, him following me, and then I finished icing the cake while he started to kettle boiling for tea. We worked in silence, not an awkward or uncomfortable one, more a comparable silence, one only two people who know the other to the very depths of that person's soul can. He didn't ask me about my time away, and I didn't tell him, not then anyway. He didn't remark upon Mary, who was by that point the talk of the town. He didn't try to make small talk about the weather, or my hobbies. He just made tea, and understood.

I knew he could see the sadness that haunted my eyes, the purple under my eyes, caused by stress. And he knew that I knew. And that was good.

We sat down, he carried the tea, I carried the cake. I cut, he poured. Then we drank and ate. It was only after we had finished, that he opened his mouth to talk.

"You look happier," he said in his soft, gentle voice, a smile on his face.

"It's Mary, she, well, she is like me. I mean, not, not like me, but identical to me in some ways, in most ways. I mean, not outwardly, that is to say"

He shushed me, stopping my rambling explanation. He then asked me if I was ok. By this point I had managed to get real me under control, and perfect me was up.
I hadn't retreated on him for years, normally I was most relaxed around him, but since I'd been gone...I had been freaked out by everything, nothing was the same, and I couldn't deal with change.

James frowned at my answer, the distressed look at odds with his normally cheerful face. He hated it when I stopped being me, when I distanced myself. He said it made him feel lost, he didn't know who he was talking to, or what to say.

He also knew that the more uncomfortable I was the further I'd retreat, and I could see him struggling not to ask anything, not to say anything that would upset me, scare me.

But it was too late, I was gone, and I wasn't coming back anytime soon. It wasn't that I didn't want to, I just couldn't. I was trapped behind bars of my own making.

He left soon after, making arrangements to visit the next day after work. A flash of annoyance crossed his face when he said work,and I knew he had something he wanted to ask me about it. He didn't expand though, he just hugged me tightly, kissed me and left.

SORRY!! I know you have all been waiting ages, but I found this chapter so difficult to write. As you can see romance is not my forte, but I tried (and failed).
The cake at the top is a wedding cake I made in the weeks with sister for my mum's cousin, it's not iced (I can't ice, so just imagine a buttercream filling for this chapters cake :)