La Nova

V

V.

Despite what one may think, Lysander and I did not fall magically in love after my near death experience.

In fact, it was quite the opposite. I avoided him.

I didn't know how to handle my newfound emotions I held for him, so strong and straining to break free.

After my ice pond ordeal, I'd spent three days sick with fatigue and hypothermia. My own Lord Grandfather's physician was sent to tend me, and quickly with his help my health returned.

Although I yearned to be my usual, wild and reckless self, gambling away my allowances and making merriment, I couldn't summon the effort. And Lysander had been treating me exactly the same, with perfect indifference as he would his younger sister Lydia.

I couldn't handle it. It frustrated me to no avail. I longed to love him without fear, to touch him, to kiss him, but Gods! Love is a scary thing. These urges, so foreign, so confusing, I could not contain them nor could I express them.

So I avoided him.

I sat inside for the rest of the dreary winter, awaiting the day I could turn eighteen and escape this place.

Alaysia had always been my home, but there was something in my blood, urging me on. Something called to me on a deeper level; a restlessness that I had never known.

Combined with my sexual frustrations, winter couldn't end soon enough. And I could not wait to leave all of this behind.

Gabriel, astute as always, tried to speak to me of it. Obviously he and Lysander had been concerned for me, and he had drawn the short stick for intervention.

When questioned about my disposition I merely glared at him. He ducked out of my room quickly, just barely escaping my thrown shoe at his head.

I was moody at my best, devastatingly bitchy at my worst, and the servants and my family alike paid for it. I felt selfish and bratty, but I couldn't help myself.

In the end it was my mother who broke through when no one else could. She'd been casually observing me all these weeks and concluded in her own mind what the cause of my irrational symptoms were.

"You're in love with him." She stated plainly one day, while we read quietly in the library by the fire.

It was in one of those rare moments when we seemed not to hate one another; the silence between us had been amicable instead of charged with irritation.

I'd looked up from Les Beaux Arts, a book discussing in depth the art of love. It had been a great favorite of Gabriel's. Before I had thought it too risqué, but now, I found myself devouring the pages that detailed different forms of lovemaking, different caresses and kisses. It wasn't much of a distraction, since I imagined Lysander doing every single one of these things to me, or I to him, but it kept my mind occupied and my short temper cool.

I looked up sharply, surprised to hear her say this.

"What do you mean?" I cleared my throat.

Those seafoam green eyes fixed on me, unwaveringly beautiful and stern. Her lips curled into an almost self-mocking smile.

"You're in love with him. Lysander."

"I am.." I coughed, trying to hide the sudden high pitch of my voice. "I am not in love with him!"

"My dear, you underestimate how well I know you." My mother smiled, sitting back in her chair. "And I understand why you have to make the world miserable for it."