Post by Nicci on Jan 5, 2012 23:00:00 GMT
(So I had this idea and couldn't get rid of it. Inspired by the Adele song of the same title I came up with this. Afraid in my head it was in 3rd Person with Seth speaking more but I kinda lost it in write up and I changed it so you see how things are through Juliet's eyes. I hope it's worth a read as I spent all of New Year typing and proofing. Note: Not necessarily how part of ITM ends just a one off idea)
Setting: Several years after having left Hogwarts in the middle of a quiet patch of nowhere. Life has carried on blissfully for Katie and Seth, but not for Juliet who still hasn’t been able to let go of the past.
Christmas Eve usually such a magical time of year. The snowflakes danced down from the heavens, tiny angels innocently covering the ground below like a dusting of icing sugar on top of an already well-frosted cake. This year was just like the last, the one before, even the one before that… except standing here, this place, this home never existed and now it stood like a beacon of warmth and love radiating out across the quiet, ghostly white countryside.
Oakendown, a simple misshapen thatched cottage nestled snugly around the trunk of a rather large, magically shaped old tree. Its doors and windows warped and slightly twisted due to there chosen style, the brickwork mouldy, dark and even spouting a rickety chimney that puffed a steady stream of charcoal coloured smoke into the atmosphere. But this place, this home didn’t just belong to anybody. Oh no, even as I slowly carried myself nervously past the gate and down the snow covered path, I could already identify the personal touches that indicated the identity of the occupants living inside.
Shuffling one foot before the other, I chose to initially avoid the front door. The first ground floor illuminated window would provide a decent enough view for the quickest of peeks. Unable to think straight over the heavy thumping of my heart and even the chilling wind freezing at my bare extremities, I had to look. No matter how many times I thought it over, I couldn’t let go…I had to know…I had to see for myself.
Plucking up whatever courage there was left in my body, I placed my naked fingertips in the thin snowdrift on the window’s ledge and pressed my nose closer towards the frosted pane. The seemingly endless days of bracing myself with false hope and sugar coated lies could never have prepared me for what I saw….It was true, It was all true.
Feeling an overwhelming sea of tears stream down from my concealed face, I couldn’t contain the exploding emotion. Inside the cottage was a photographic image of perfection, decorated in shiny baubles, sparkling garlands of tinsel and twinkling fireflies of light nestled in the corner beside a roaring hearth.
If the decorations didn’t rival those seen in my time at Hogwarts for their festive cheer the smiles on the faces of the couple in front of the fire preparing bulky filled knitted socks to hang off the mantle certainly did.
Between the fog of suppressed warm breath escaping from between my hands, there was clearly an observable adoration of affection gleaming like Polaris off the faces of the couple. As I continued to watch the two large socks get hung in position so the young woman on the other side of the glass with her auburn hair handed her beloved a third. Tiny, possibly child like. I think that was the killer moment that stabbed me like a knife and made the blood run ice cold through my veins.
I nearly missed their downhearted, yet encouraging expressions of comfort to one another as I yanked my face away into the cold night air. As the wind clamped its frostbitten teeth into my now dampened cheeks, the seemingly impossible thought of mine was clearly a reality….He was happy, but….
Torn by a wave of heartache, I hadn’t realised that I had bolted several steps back down the path until my way ahead was lit by the soft glow from the open front door and a familiar masculine voice had called out my name into the darkness.
I hadn’t believed that the man now calling my name had gone along with a plan of secrecy, blocking me out like he didn’t want me to exist…Maybe he did it for her…for them…for their new… family.
Automatically snapping my head around, my disguise fell away like my growing bitterness. There was a reason I came here…a reason for turning up unannounced and I couldn’t fight it, not anymore.
As his shocked gaze met mine, framed by flyaway mahogany strands of hair amongst entwined snowflakes, I longed to express how I felt. This man.. and only this man, still held my deepest affections and now, no matter our past mistakes was never going to return them towards me again. Although he may have moved on, for me this wasn’t over between us.
Apart from my name, I couldn’t hear anything else he tried to say or if for that matter he had tried to say anything else at all. His mouth moved ever so slightly but his expression never once changed.
Just as I had arrived, I still wasn’t welcome here and it was by that thought that I had no option but to walk away. I didn’t want to hurt them or break up their happy home, deep down I only wanted the best, for both of them..but together… left a bittersweet taste in my mouth that had yet to be desired.
‘Don’t forget me’, three words that I was pretty much dying to plead to him on his doorstep. But for the sake of the woman inside and possibly their young family it would be wrong of me. Sometimes love has the power to last but more often it just leaves behind terrible pain and in my case I had been left unable to heal.
Taking one last final glance over my shoulder, the light from the perfect world inside the house became narrower and a second figure joined the man at the door and quickly ushered him back inside. Now I understood.. this was how it was meant to be now. It didn’t matter to them. It didn’t matter that together him and I made our own memories of growing up together or how idealistic our parents thought we’d be. That was all in the past, and now…I didn’t know what to do. I felt lost.
Time is never a friendly thing; it flies as swiftly as a swallow and passes you by in the blink of an eye and yet we regard the change as a positive thing, even something that can never be got back. This, this was change having occurred before my eyes and I never even noticed it before.
The depressing trudge back to the gate way, seemed like it had taken an eternity. Between my numbing thoughts, hopes, and fears of trying to press onward with my life I had failed to notice a tall figure also cloaked in black, standing statuesque surrounded by the continuous falling snow.
How long had he been here? Waiting? Had he observed my undignified succumbing to my selfish desire?
“I’m sorry” I spoke out loud, not knowing what else to say but to apologise for my uncharacteristic behaviour. I felt I should have explained everything there and then but the heavy arm that landed around my shoulders made me think otherwise.
Surprisingly he spoke, a gentle uplifting combination of words that gave me just enough encouragement to continue forward on the journey alongside him. He hadn’t been stood there to judge, but because of the very same reason I had found myself approaching the window of the tiny cottage, the calling of an irresistible, undeniable connection that forces a person to follow their heart.
Raising my face to the dark sky I felt the snowflakes tickle my skin and for the first time began to fully appreciate their beauty. Offering a silent prayer, I spoke to the night.
Maybe there was hope for me after all Seth, maybe I just needed to find my someone like you.
Setting: Several years after having left Hogwarts in the middle of a quiet patch of nowhere. Life has carried on blissfully for Katie and Seth, but not for Juliet who still hasn’t been able to let go of the past.
Christmas Eve usually such a magical time of year. The snowflakes danced down from the heavens, tiny angels innocently covering the ground below like a dusting of icing sugar on top of an already well-frosted cake. This year was just like the last, the one before, even the one before that… except standing here, this place, this home never existed and now it stood like a beacon of warmth and love radiating out across the quiet, ghostly white countryside.
Oakendown, a simple misshapen thatched cottage nestled snugly around the trunk of a rather large, magically shaped old tree. Its doors and windows warped and slightly twisted due to there chosen style, the brickwork mouldy, dark and even spouting a rickety chimney that puffed a steady stream of charcoal coloured smoke into the atmosphere. But this place, this home didn’t just belong to anybody. Oh no, even as I slowly carried myself nervously past the gate and down the snow covered path, I could already identify the personal touches that indicated the identity of the occupants living inside.
Shuffling one foot before the other, I chose to initially avoid the front door. The first ground floor illuminated window would provide a decent enough view for the quickest of peeks. Unable to think straight over the heavy thumping of my heart and even the chilling wind freezing at my bare extremities, I had to look. No matter how many times I thought it over, I couldn’t let go…I had to know…I had to see for myself.
Plucking up whatever courage there was left in my body, I placed my naked fingertips in the thin snowdrift on the window’s ledge and pressed my nose closer towards the frosted pane. The seemingly endless days of bracing myself with false hope and sugar coated lies could never have prepared me for what I saw….It was true, It was all true.
Feeling an overwhelming sea of tears stream down from my concealed face, I couldn’t contain the exploding emotion. Inside the cottage was a photographic image of perfection, decorated in shiny baubles, sparkling garlands of tinsel and twinkling fireflies of light nestled in the corner beside a roaring hearth.
If the decorations didn’t rival those seen in my time at Hogwarts for their festive cheer the smiles on the faces of the couple in front of the fire preparing bulky filled knitted socks to hang off the mantle certainly did.
Between the fog of suppressed warm breath escaping from between my hands, there was clearly an observable adoration of affection gleaming like Polaris off the faces of the couple. As I continued to watch the two large socks get hung in position so the young woman on the other side of the glass with her auburn hair handed her beloved a third. Tiny, possibly child like. I think that was the killer moment that stabbed me like a knife and made the blood run ice cold through my veins.
I nearly missed their downhearted, yet encouraging expressions of comfort to one another as I yanked my face away into the cold night air. As the wind clamped its frostbitten teeth into my now dampened cheeks, the seemingly impossible thought of mine was clearly a reality….He was happy, but….
Torn by a wave of heartache, I hadn’t realised that I had bolted several steps back down the path until my way ahead was lit by the soft glow from the open front door and a familiar masculine voice had called out my name into the darkness.
I hadn’t believed that the man now calling my name had gone along with a plan of secrecy, blocking me out like he didn’t want me to exist…Maybe he did it for her…for them…for their new… family.
Automatically snapping my head around, my disguise fell away like my growing bitterness. There was a reason I came here…a reason for turning up unannounced and I couldn’t fight it, not anymore.
As his shocked gaze met mine, framed by flyaway mahogany strands of hair amongst entwined snowflakes, I longed to express how I felt. This man.. and only this man, still held my deepest affections and now, no matter our past mistakes was never going to return them towards me again. Although he may have moved on, for me this wasn’t over between us.
Apart from my name, I couldn’t hear anything else he tried to say or if for that matter he had tried to say anything else at all. His mouth moved ever so slightly but his expression never once changed.
Just as I had arrived, I still wasn’t welcome here and it was by that thought that I had no option but to walk away. I didn’t want to hurt them or break up their happy home, deep down I only wanted the best, for both of them..but together… left a bittersweet taste in my mouth that had yet to be desired.
‘Don’t forget me’, three words that I was pretty much dying to plead to him on his doorstep. But for the sake of the woman inside and possibly their young family it would be wrong of me. Sometimes love has the power to last but more often it just leaves behind terrible pain and in my case I had been left unable to heal.
Taking one last final glance over my shoulder, the light from the perfect world inside the house became narrower and a second figure joined the man at the door and quickly ushered him back inside. Now I understood.. this was how it was meant to be now. It didn’t matter to them. It didn’t matter that together him and I made our own memories of growing up together or how idealistic our parents thought we’d be. That was all in the past, and now…I didn’t know what to do. I felt lost.
Time is never a friendly thing; it flies as swiftly as a swallow and passes you by in the blink of an eye and yet we regard the change as a positive thing, even something that can never be got back. This, this was change having occurred before my eyes and I never even noticed it before.
The depressing trudge back to the gate way, seemed like it had taken an eternity. Between my numbing thoughts, hopes, and fears of trying to press onward with my life I had failed to notice a tall figure also cloaked in black, standing statuesque surrounded by the continuous falling snow.
How long had he been here? Waiting? Had he observed my undignified succumbing to my selfish desire?
“I’m sorry” I spoke out loud, not knowing what else to say but to apologise for my uncharacteristic behaviour. I felt I should have explained everything there and then but the heavy arm that landed around my shoulders made me think otherwise.
Surprisingly he spoke, a gentle uplifting combination of words that gave me just enough encouragement to continue forward on the journey alongside him. He hadn’t been stood there to judge, but because of the very same reason I had found myself approaching the window of the tiny cottage, the calling of an irresistible, undeniable connection that forces a person to follow their heart.
Raising my face to the dark sky I felt the snowflakes tickle my skin and for the first time began to fully appreciate their beauty. Offering a silent prayer, I spoke to the night.
Maybe there was hope for me after all Seth, maybe I just needed to find my someone like you.
noo.... That's mean when it does that.
