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Chapter 20 - Amsterdam

L POV

February 2002

We drove through the lively Amsterdam night. I stared out the tinted window as usual as Watari fussed with a file and whistled snatches of a tune, one of the old WWII songs with a chipper melody indicative of the generation proven defiant in the face of indescribable danger. Being with him as always was pleasant; our companionship has always been easy. The neon lights from the buildings we passed became blinding after a time and I looked away, shutting my eyes briefly as geometric shapes left their imprint on the inside of my eyelids.

"Grace phoned." Watari noted distractedly, causing my eyes to open. "She reports that everyone is well, and she's mothering Roger in his illness to death just like I asked her too."

"A good thing." I replied on edge, hoping we would move on to a different subject. Despite Watari being well aware that Grace and I did not get on, he brought her up incessantly. I wondered if he did the same to her about me. It was probably why she disliked me so.

"The lord's son, Hargrove, the one who attends Cambridge you know, she says has made several visits to the house. He admitted to Annie that he comes to purposefully see our Grace! It would appear that she finally has a suitor!"

Pain pierced my heart and I dismissed it. "I believe the man's an imbecile, riding on the coattails of his family." I answered as calm as I could muster. "So if that's what she fancies, it doesn't say much about her own intellect."

"Now, now, Lawliet," Watari chided patient as always. "A person of normal intelligence is not to be deemed an imbecile."

"Normal." I snorted, "Rather a relative term. The aristocrat only sees her physical attributes, which is why he pursues her, and which is why he is a proper moron. That is no reason to begin a courtship."

Watari studied me over the tops of his spectacles. "One might say you are jealous of this fellow, son. Luckily I know you like my own skin and have deemed that impossible."

"Of what is there to be envious?" I replied, my eyes turning toward the window once more. The car was idling at a red traffic light. I noticed a young couple bundled in coats and scarves standing together at the corner, under the glow of the florescent street lamp. The two of them held hands as the girl looked up expectantly up into the young male's face. The adolescent boy smiled privately and dropped a kiss on top of the girl's head and drew her close. Misery swept through my body as I saw the pure, unadulterated happiness the couple shared. I couldn't bear it. I hated lying to Watari but yes, I was envious. Bloody envious.

She would never look at me in that manner. I would never approach her close enough to touch my lips to her soft-looking hair while she sighed in response. She would never place her hand in mine and devastate me with her blue gaze as a wry smile played upon her lips. No. Instead, she was to tie herself to that ignoramus, that fool who only saw her at face value. Who was only enchanted by her beauty and not her magic.

I had had quite enough of the pain. It had been three years since my disturbing revelation. Grace was nineteen, I was twenty-one. I still cared for her with every fiber of my being, every molecule of my physical person. She personified her name in everything she did, even when we would row, her words were deftly chosen and spoken rather like an intricate dance. And I so loved to dance with her.

"Lord" Andrew Hargrove. I wasn't threatened by him at first. He was classically attractive and possessed courtly manners even if diarrhea seemed to emerge from his mouth whenever he spoke but he was not any danger to my peace of mind. He attended a dinner at the house with his father, a proud looking man and his mother, a vapid woman who gave a cursory eye to the house's furnishings, paintings and occupants as if they were beneath her. Watari would hold these dinners for the other families of the area as a way to encourage beneficial social interaction among the students. I believe it must go without saying that I rarely attended, except of course that one fateful time.