Scheming Against Devotion (Book 2 of The Transition of Pinn)

Giddean:

Does desperation have a smell? Does it smell sour from the feeling in my stomach or salty from the sweat spilling from my pores?

I arrived home not five minutes ago. It was late. I had told myself I stayed away because I had work to do before I submitted my request for floor time, but really I was avoiding her.

She sits in the red armchair waiting for my arrival, as I did waiting for her not that long ago. It seems like a lifetime, yet I know it isn’t. Her pink dress draping along her curves and puddling on the floor, contrasting with the armchair and the rug. The room is dark, even the torches aren’t lit. Instead, Ivy has a large candle next to her on a small side table along with a book, the cover I can’t quite make out. She was reading while waiting for me…

“Who is Julia?”

Her question hangs in the air. I don’t want to answer it. Just thinking about Julia makes me breakdown- I can’t imagine what talking about her would do.

I don’t want Ivy to see me breakdown.

“Who told you about Julia?” I try to delay the inevitable.

“Does it matter?”

I sigh. Fuck me. It doesn’t. Someone told her about Julia and now I have to pull up my big boy pants and explain it all to her.

It’s really the last thing our relationship needed. If she doesn't reject me outright after this, I will almost judge her for it. I run my hand through my hair, not knowing what to do, not knowing how to explain everything to her.

I walk across the room to a couch and slouch down into it. Fuck.

She gets up from the armchair and follows me standing in front of me, arms crossed, waiting. She’s not going to let it go, and she shouldn’t. I’ve been hiding the truth from her. I just couldn’t bear… I can’t bear….

It’s fucking over now.

“I met Julia at one of those balls they throw to help Pinns select a chosen” I begin slowly staring at the floor “I was young- too young really to be selecting a partner but my mother was pushing for grandsons and everyone told me it would help my career.”

“Go over and talk to her” my mother elbows me. We had been standing in the over-decorated ballroom for an hour and I hadn’t moved from her side.

I glance towards the girl in a soft green dress standing at the back of the room. She was beautiful and delicate, and I didn’t even know how to speak to a girl, my only interaction with women was with my friend’s mothers and the priestesses at the temple.

But I was drawn to her. She seemed shy and sweet. So I did as my mother suggested, I crossed the floor to speak with the girl who seemed startled at my appearance, her large eyes wide with almost terror at my approach.

“Hello” I smile at her.

“Hi,” she says shyly looking away.

“It was my first ball and she was the first chosen I spoke to- hardly a good idea. But I brought her home and things were… awkward.” I lean forward, resting my elbows on my spayed knees. I then glance up at Ivy to see her watching me intensely before I look at the floor again. “I really tried to get along with her, I tried flowers and jewelry, and everything I could think of… but being a self-centered asshole I didn’t realize at the time all she had been through being taken from earth. I just thought if I tried she should reciprocate my efforts. When that didn’t happen quickly we grew apart.”

“Don’t make me go with you, Giddi, you know I can’t stand dinner parties” Julia turns around in her seat in front of her table with a mirror and various pots and brushes lying about.

“I can’t do it Giddi, I can’t” A tear runs down her cheek leaving a red stain.

“I was an entitled bastard even back then. I made her do things she didn’t want to do” I hear a deep intake of breath and look up Ivy whose eyes are wide with shock and immediately realize what she is thinking. “No not sexual stuff, although I did pressure her on that, more like public events and I expected her to quickly fill in the role of a politicians partner”

“She was miserable. She hated every minute. We started to fight- a lot. About everything you can think of. It was during one of those fights that I told her that she should go back so I could choose another partner.”

There is a loud crash as the vase Julia threw smashes against the wall. Her whole room is trashed with clothes thrown about, a chair on its side, and various colored shards decorating the floor.

“All this so that you don’t have to go to an event, what is fucking wrong with you?”

“I hate them! All of them!”

“Yeah, I get it.” I looked around with scorn. She had rejected me and rejected everything I tried to do for her over and over again. The sense of disappointment and pain from someone I was forced to spend the rest of my life with was deep. So I said the worst thing I could think of so that she too would feel my pain:

“Maybe you should go back so I can find someone who appreciates this” I wave around the room at the mess she created.

Julia sinks down in the middle of it all, sobbing, tearing at her dress. I just watch her for a few moments before turning to leave for my event.

“You’ll never see me again Giddean” she says in a tiny voice.

“She left and I didn’t go after her. I didn’t even try to save her”

I feel the couch shift and fabric rustle. Ivy sits next to me looking forward into the darkness of the room trying to process what I have said.

“What happened to her?”

“Sean went looking for her. When he found out where she was he convinced me to go get her”