Dawn at Dusk

I'm Sorry

Her hands were clasped together, willing themselves to stop quivering.

A rush of emotions.

This is all her mother asked of her and she still couldn't manage to pull through.

I'm sorry.

She was suppose to marry him within the month. Become something. Become someone. Someone with worth and meaning. Someone else.

I cannot continue lying.

Her mother's image was filling her head. Flashes of pale skin, almost translucent. Lips, dry and thin, forming words. Her sunken hazel eyes that matched her daughter's. Even postmortem, Esel's  incompetency disallowed her to meet the wishes of her mother.

Esel found herself staring out of a window. A window she had looked through hundreds of times over, but with a new emotion. Her old bedroom. She felt her heart beat wildly in her chest as she grappled to catch her breath. He was gone. Oh God. A letter, no, a farewell was written on paper with a signature of a long forgotten name. He had left it as she slept and fled in the dead of night with another. Esel, still in her shift, tried to read the letter despite her vision blurring with tears. The only words her eyes skimmed were "I'm sorry." An apology that her mind couldn't cope with. If only she could have done more.

Her hands trembled so much that her grasp on the letter slipped from her grasp. Almost instantaneously the floor to her chambers flew open. "Where is he?" The tone of the newcomer's voice nearly didn't register to Esel's ears.

"What?" It was an automatic response, a soft one, broken. She didn't mean the tone, but it was too late. She had spun around to meet the eyes of an old friend. The mossy eyes looked at her as if she were foreign. 

"Garison MacClear. Where is he?" Alistair's voice was booming. It didn't help that the close quarters of her room echoed it louder. He was angry, to say the least. Unrecognizable compared to his normal stoic demeanor. 

Esel's lips wobbled out a response that she couldn't even discern. The man took no heed in ripping the covers from her wooden-framed bed, only to reveal lumpy pillows. It took two strides to reach her before asking her again, "Where is Garison?" She blinked, her mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water, "I, Alis- I don't."

"What are you, dense?!" The usually peaceful green eyes threw daggers at her. Esel held back a sob and wrapped her arms around herself. He wasn't the harmless boy he used to be. He had towered over her with a look she had never seen on his face before. It was murderous. For a moment Esel thought he'd harm her. It was Elizabeth, of course Garison left with Elizabeth. But she didn't say anything, she couldn't because she didn't know what to say to him. He breathed in, cursing under his breath and let his hand tear through his hair. "Okay, look," his voice was gentler now as if talking to an irrational child, "Do you know where Elizabeth is? Herself or your fiance?" 

She looked away, trying to bring herself to speak. So, she said the easiest thing to say - the truth.

"I don't know."

He pressed his lips together tightly. His face told her he was keeping back a million things he wanted to say. He looked like he was about to crumble and explode at the same time. Before she could go on, with what she didn't know, he turned around letting out a shout.

"Fuck!" 

Alistair faced her again, "How can you not know? He's your responsibility!"

Esel gawked at him. Anger bubbling in her chest. She wanted to scream and cry simultaneously. He had no right to speak to her like this.