The Betrothed
for National Novel Writing Month
Day 19
Darrick tried to hide his condition as he walked carefully into Abby’s room, but one look at his face and she knew something was wrong.
“Darrick!” she exclaimed, dropping the article of clothing she was putting away and stepping quickly to his side. “What happened? You look terrible.” She took his arm and led him to the bed, insisting he lie down. She pulled up a chair and sat next to him before she would finally allow him to speak. As much as he hated to alarm her, Darrick was grateful for the chance to lie down; his stomach was still far from recovered, and he had to keep forcing the bile back down his throat as his torso muscles ached abominably.
“It was Patrick,” he finally told her, after catching his breath. “He caught me alone in the Library and got a bit . . . physical.” The memory of it almost brought his gorge up again. Abby’s mien darkened.
“How dare he,” she hissed. “We can’t let him get away with this. I’ll tell Father and get him to put a stop to it right now.” She made to get up, but Darrick caught her by the wrist.
“No!” he said, a little too emphatically, as he had to catch his breath once again after expending it all on a single word. “There’s no point to that. Your parents stepping in will just make him more crafty about the next attack. I’ve been thinking about this, and I think it might have been a mistake threatening him with your parents the last time. Patrick’s a bully, and the only way to respond to that is to take care of him yourself.” Abby sat back in her chair, but looked doubtful.
“I see what you’re saying, Darrick, but . . .” She trailed off, but Darrick could complete the sentence in his head.
“Don’t worry. He just caught me off guard this time. I wasn’t expecting a fist in the gut. Next time, I’ll be more prepared.” Abby frowned.
“I don’t want there to be a next time,” she said. “What if he’s not alone?”
“I think he will be,” Darrick said. “Before, when he only wanted to intimidate me, he brought a bunch of people with him. But I think he would rather deal with me with his own two hands. And I’ll be ready.” The bed was helping; the pain in his gut was slowly receding. He took Abby’s hand and gave it a slight pull, a silent invitation to join him. Within a few seconds, she was curled up at his side, careful not to disturb the bed any more than necessary.
“I’m sorry you’re going through this,” she whispered in his ear.
“I’m sorry your brother’s such a bastard,” he responded. “You’ve had to deal with him for a lot longer than I have. Please don’t blame yourself for any of this. Right now, you might be the only bright spot in my life.” He told her of the argument between he and his mother that had led to this situation; by the time he was done, his ire was once again raised, but at least his stomach was feeling much better.
“I understand how you feel,” Abby told him once his story was done. “My parents and I had several fights when I told them I was going to leave. Admittedly, they couldn’t hold the threat of noblesse oblige over my head, but they did tell me all the horrible things that could happen to a poor, innocent Atlantean girl off by herself in the City of Sin. All ridiculously overblown, of course. I mean, I only spent my first week walking the streets as a crack-addicted hooker.” Darrick chuckled, which felt nice even as it hurt slightly.
“I thought the hookers were all into meth these days?”
“See, that’s how bad I was at it. I couldn’t even manage to get hooked on the popular drugs.”
Smiling, Darrick pulled her closer, running his fingers through her long, dark hair, marveling at its smoothness.
“I can’t believe how lucky I am to have you,” he said idly. “My mother must have been particularly lucky on the day she picked you. You’re perfect for me.” For the first time in days, he felt a perfect peace, happy to stay in this moment forever. His eyeslids started to drift shut.
“Well, that’s hardly a coincidence,” Abby said in a playful tone. “That’s what the bond does.” Darrick reopened one lid.
“How do you mean?” he asked, mildly confused.
Abby propped herself up on one elbow to get a better look at his face.
“You mean, no one ever explained the bond to you?” She looked surprised.
“Not in detail, no,” Darrick said, “but I figured it out. It makes us fall in love when it matures, right? I have to admit, I was a bit disturbed by that at first, but it didn’t take me long to realize that we’re so right for each other that it would have happened anyway. The bond just got it started a little quicker is all.” Darrick felt disquiet beginning to grow in him, disrupting that precious peace he had held for such a short time. “You mean there’s more?”
Abby nodded. “The bond does more than just make us fall in love. The bond shapes us over our entire lives, molding our desires so that we will see our bondmate as the perfect partner. It also changes us so that we each become the ideal mate for the other. It’s a complicated process, and I haven’t studied it in depth, but the bond changes both who we are and what we want so that we will be as compatible as humanly possible.” Darrick’s sense of peace was shattered completely, and he sat up, wincing only a little bit at his body’s protestations.
“You’re telling me that the bond actually changes us?” he asked. “That I’m a different person than I would have been without it?” He tried to keep his voice level, but some of his anger must have come through, for Abby only nodded in response, her eyes wide with concern.
Darrick felt overwhelmed with this new information; so many things he had heard since arriving – little snippets of conversation, minor statements which had confused him – now all made perfect sense. How Patrick could blame him for his sister leaving home, how Abby could wonder if Elizabeth or Patrick were responsible for the prejudices and attitude they both shared. How his mother could claim that all Atlantean marriages were happy, were perfect. It all snapped together in his mind, leading to one very disturbing conclusion. Suddenly, Patrick’s physical attack was as nothing next to the sense of violation he felt now. I was afraid before that Richard might have been messing with my mind. Now I know that he’s been doing it all my life! How dare they?! They’ve played with me like I was some toy to be bent and shaped to their will. How can I be sure of anything anymore? Everything I think or feel might only be because of their magic? Am I even a real person anymore, or just an automaton? He got out of bed and paced the room, trying to drive down the rising panic he was feeling.
“Darrick,” Abby said, her voice showing her own concern, “please speak to me. You look horrible. Tell me what you’re thinking. I thought you knew this already.”
Darrick looked at her, now sitting cross-legged on the bed, naked fear on her face, and his heart melted. The anger was still there, but he couldn’t direct it at her. He still loved her, no matter what. Maybe he should be angry about that as well, but he couldn’t manage it. She looked too vulnerable, too precious, to ever hurt. He sat down in the chair she had pulled up for herself and took her hands in his own.
“Please don’t be afraid, love,” he said passionately. “I’m not angry at you. You aren’t responsible for any of this. You’re as much a victim as I am.”
“Victim?” Abby said, appalled. “You think we – the two of us together – are some sort of crime?” Now she sounded a bit angry herself.
“No!” I mean, not exactly. I mean . . . I’m not sure how to say it.” Darrick stumbled over his words, frustrated, not exactly sure of the emotion he was feeling or exactly where it was directed. “Doesn’t it bother you that your mind and your heart have been . . . tampered with, not just recently but over your entire life? Do you think anyone has the right to do that, even if the results are good?” Darrick looked deep into her eyes, but Abby averted them for a few moments, unsure of what to say. Then she seemed to make up her mind, and turned her head back to face him.
“Do they have the right to do it?” she said. “I don’t know. Maybe not. But every parent attempts to shape their own child; ours just have more direct methods than most.” She looked unsure at her last statement. “I suppose that doesn’t necessarily make it right. But I do know that it’s our experiences, at least in part, that make us who we are, and we don’t get to choose those. And, Darrick, I like who I am. I’m happy with myself, and I would not be the person I am if it weren’t for my bond to you. Do you think that you would be a better person without me?”
“No, no, I don’t,” Darrick admitted, “but the ends don’t justify the means. They can’t. Look at Patrick and Elizabeth. Did the bond do him any favors, or did it twist him into a monster?” The grief on Abby’s face made Darrick very quickly regret that he had chosen that particular example, as apropos as it might have been. “Abby, they don’t have the right to mess with people’s lives like that.” His earlier argument with his mother popped up in his memory. “It’s just one more example of how they want to control our lives, but we can’t let them do it. We have to be our own people, first and foremost. Do you see what I’m saying?”
“I do, Darrick,” Abby said. “Why do you think I left in the first place? But I don’t want out of our bond. Do you?”
“No, of course not!” Darrick responded. “But we can’t let this continue. If we don’t do something soon, they’re going to have our entire life plotted out for us, with no room for escape. I want us to live our life, Abby, not theirs.”
“So what do you think we should do?”
Darrick could tell the question was real, not rhetorical, and it wasn’t one he was quite ready for. He stood up and walked over to the window, looking out on the mountains in the distance. Their majestic peaks called to him, singing of the beauty of independence and freedom, an independence that felt increasingly out of their grasp. His thoughts circled and circled, never quite finding a resting place, never quite settling on a solution, much as they had earlier in the Library. After a minute of this, he felt Abby’s light touch on his shoulder, then she settled into the crook of his arm as they gazed out the window together. Her presence calmed and centered his mind, and an answer crystallized, appearing fully formed. It was bold, under other circumstances almost inconceivable, but it offered a way out, if Abby would accept it.
“We leave,” he said. “We disappear. Get away from all of this and go live our own life of our own choosing. We’ll get a judge to marry us and make our own home in some city far from here, with no contact with anyone Atlantean.” Abby looked at him in absolute surprise, and Darrick felt a little surprised at himself, but the more he told of his idea, the more it solidified in his mind’s eye. “No one can know where we’re going, and we can’t let anyone know we’re leaving. They’ll only try to talk us out of it, or use methods stronger than that.”
“I can’t do that to my parents or my friends, Darrick,” Abby said with a shake of her head. “I can’t disappear without a trace. That would scare them to death.”
“We’ll leave a note or something telling them we’re eloping,” Darrick responded, warming to his topic. “Not enough so that they’ll be able to follow us, but enough for them to know we’re okay. We just can’t let them trace us.”
Abby was still shaking her head. “Darrick, think about what you are saying. You’re proposing we drop our entire lives and families and start somewhere completely new. What about your schooling? You still have two more years left. Are you just going to abandon it? And I don’t want my parents to live the rest of their lives never knowing where I am or how I am doing. Surely you feel the same about yours. Darrick, I understand what you are feeling, but this is no solution.”
“No, you’re right,” he said, realizing the import of what he had been suggesting. “I wouldn’t want to do that to my family either. But maybe it doesn’t have to be forever. Give me one year. One year to ourselves, one year away from all these obligations and duties. One year we can just be free. I can take a year off from school, get a job to support us. You can be the artist you want to be, and I can be your adoring husband. We’ll be like a million other young married couples just getting started, with nothing in the world to concern us except each other. Then, after that, we’ll come back and see where to go from there. Is that something you can do?”
Abby was silent for a long while, but Darrick could read the struggle on her face. He knew that she had loved her two years on her own, and though she didn’t regret coming back for her wedding, she had wanted more. He also knew he was asking her to turn her back on everything she was raised to think, even if only temporarily. He watched the two forces struggle in her eyes, and saw the decision made. She wrapped her arms around him and held him close as she whispered her conclusion.
“Yes.”
for National Novel Writing Month
Day 19
Darrick tried to hide his condition as he walked carefully into Abby’s room, but one look at his face and she knew something was wrong.
“Darrick!” she exclaimed, dropping the article of clothing she was putting away and stepping quickly to his side. “What happened? You look terrible.” She took his arm and led him to the bed, insisting he lie down. She pulled up a chair and sat next to him before she would finally allow him to speak. As much as he hated to alarm her, Darrick was grateful for the chance to lie down; his stomach was still far from recovered, and he had to keep forcing the bile back down his throat as his torso muscles ached abominably.
“It was Patrick,” he finally told her, after catching his breath. “He caught me alone in the Library and got a bit . . . physical.” The memory of it almost brought his gorge up again. Abby’s mien darkened.
“How dare he,” she hissed. “We can’t let him get away with this. I’ll tell Father and get him to put a stop to it right now.” She made to get up, but Darrick caught her by the wrist.
“No!” he said, a little too emphatically, as he had to catch his breath once again after expending it all on a single word. “There’s no point to that. Your parents stepping in will just make him more crafty about the next attack. I’ve been thinking about this, and I think it might have been a mistake threatening him with your parents the last time. Patrick’s a bully, and the only way to respond to that is to take care of him yourself.” Abby sat back in her chair, but looked doubtful.
“I see what you’re saying, Darrick, but . . .” She trailed off, but Darrick could complete the sentence in his head.
“Don’t worry. He just caught me off guard this time. I wasn’t expecting a fist in the gut. Next time, I’ll be more prepared.” Abby frowned.
“I don’t want there to be a next time,” she said. “What if he’s not alone?”
“I think he will be,” Darrick said. “Before, when he only wanted to intimidate me, he brought a bunch of people with him. But I think he would rather deal with me with his own two hands. And I’ll be ready.” The bed was helping; the pain in his gut was slowly receding. He took Abby’s hand and gave it a slight pull, a silent invitation to join him. Within a few seconds, she was curled up at his side, careful not to disturb the bed any more than necessary.
“I’m sorry you’re going through this,” she whispered in his ear.
“I’m sorry your brother’s such a bastard,” he responded. “You’ve had to deal with him for a lot longer than I have. Please don’t blame yourself for any of this. Right now, you might be the only bright spot in my life.” He told her of the argument between he and his mother that had led to this situation; by the time he was done, his ire was once again raised, but at least his stomach was feeling much better.
“I understand how you feel,” Abby told him once his story was done. “My parents and I had several fights when I told them I was going to leave. Admittedly, they couldn’t hold the threat of noblesse oblige over my head, but they did tell me all the horrible things that could happen to a poor, innocent Atlantean girl off by herself in the City of Sin. All ridiculously overblown, of course. I mean, I only spent my first week walking the streets as a crack-addicted hooker.” Darrick chuckled, which felt nice even as it hurt slightly.
“I thought the hookers were all into meth these days?”
“See, that’s how bad I was at it. I couldn’t even manage to get hooked on the popular drugs.”
Smiling, Darrick pulled her closer, running his fingers through her long, dark hair, marveling at its smoothness.
“I can’t believe how lucky I am to have you,” he said idly. “My mother must have been particularly lucky on the day she picked you. You’re perfect for me.” For the first time in days, he felt a perfect peace, happy to stay in this moment forever. His eyeslids started to drift shut.
“Well, that’s hardly a coincidence,” Abby said in a playful tone. “That’s what the bond does.” Darrick reopened one lid.
“How do you mean?” he asked, mildly confused.
Abby propped herself up on one elbow to get a better look at his face.
“You mean, no one ever explained the bond to you?” She looked surprised.
“Not in detail, no,” Darrick said, “but I figured it out. It makes us fall in love when it matures, right? I have to admit, I was a bit disturbed by that at first, but it didn’t take me long to realize that we’re so right for each other that it would have happened anyway. The bond just got it started a little quicker is all.” Darrick felt disquiet beginning to grow in him, disrupting that precious peace he had held for such a short time. “You mean there’s more?”
Abby nodded. “The bond does more than just make us fall in love. The bond shapes us over our entire lives, molding our desires so that we will see our bondmate as the perfect partner. It also changes us so that we each become the ideal mate for the other. It’s a complicated process, and I haven’t studied it in depth, but the bond changes both who we are and what we want so that we will be as compatible as humanly possible.” Darrick’s sense of peace was shattered completely, and he sat up, wincing only a little bit at his body’s protestations.
“You’re telling me that the bond actually changes us?” he asked. “That I’m a different person than I would have been without it?” He tried to keep his voice level, but some of his anger must have come through, for Abby only nodded in response, her eyes wide with concern.
Darrick felt overwhelmed with this new information; so many things he had heard since arriving – little snippets of conversation, minor statements which had confused him – now all made perfect sense. How Patrick could blame him for his sister leaving home, how Abby could wonder if Elizabeth or Patrick were responsible for the prejudices and attitude they both shared. How his mother could claim that all Atlantean marriages were happy, were perfect. It all snapped together in his mind, leading to one very disturbing conclusion. Suddenly, Patrick’s physical attack was as nothing next to the sense of violation he felt now. I was afraid before that Richard might have been messing with my mind. Now I know that he’s been doing it all my life! How dare they?! They’ve played with me like I was some toy to be bent and shaped to their will. How can I be sure of anything anymore? Everything I think or feel might only be because of their magic? Am I even a real person anymore, or just an automaton? He got out of bed and paced the room, trying to drive down the rising panic he was feeling.
“Darrick,” Abby said, her voice showing her own concern, “please speak to me. You look horrible. Tell me what you’re thinking. I thought you knew this already.”
Darrick looked at her, now sitting cross-legged on the bed, naked fear on her face, and his heart melted. The anger was still there, but he couldn’t direct it at her. He still loved her, no matter what. Maybe he should be angry about that as well, but he couldn’t manage it. She looked too vulnerable, too precious, to ever hurt. He sat down in the chair she had pulled up for herself and took her hands in his own.
“Please don’t be afraid, love,” he said passionately. “I’m not angry at you. You aren’t responsible for any of this. You’re as much a victim as I am.”
“Victim?” Abby said, appalled. “You think we – the two of us together – are some sort of crime?” Now she sounded a bit angry herself.
“No!” I mean, not exactly. I mean . . . I’m not sure how to say it.” Darrick stumbled over his words, frustrated, not exactly sure of the emotion he was feeling or exactly where it was directed. “Doesn’t it bother you that your mind and your heart have been . . . tampered with, not just recently but over your entire life? Do you think anyone has the right to do that, even if the results are good?” Darrick looked deep into her eyes, but Abby averted them for a few moments, unsure of what to say. Then she seemed to make up her mind, and turned her head back to face him.
“Do they have the right to do it?” she said. “I don’t know. Maybe not. But every parent attempts to shape their own child; ours just have more direct methods than most.” She looked unsure at her last statement. “I suppose that doesn’t necessarily make it right. But I do know that it’s our experiences, at least in part, that make us who we are, and we don’t get to choose those. And, Darrick, I like who I am. I’m happy with myself, and I would not be the person I am if it weren’t for my bond to you. Do you think that you would be a better person without me?”
“No, no, I don’t,” Darrick admitted, “but the ends don’t justify the means. They can’t. Look at Patrick and Elizabeth. Did the bond do him any favors, or did it twist him into a monster?” The grief on Abby’s face made Darrick very quickly regret that he had chosen that particular example, as apropos as it might have been. “Abby, they don’t have the right to mess with people’s lives like that.” His earlier argument with his mother popped up in his memory. “It’s just one more example of how they want to control our lives, but we can’t let them do it. We have to be our own people, first and foremost. Do you see what I’m saying?”
“I do, Darrick,” Abby said. “Why do you think I left in the first place? But I don’t want out of our bond. Do you?”
“No, of course not!” Darrick responded. “But we can’t let this continue. If we don’t do something soon, they’re going to have our entire life plotted out for us, with no room for escape. I want us to live our life, Abby, not theirs.”
“So what do you think we should do?”
Darrick could tell the question was real, not rhetorical, and it wasn’t one he was quite ready for. He stood up and walked over to the window, looking out on the mountains in the distance. Their majestic peaks called to him, singing of the beauty of independence and freedom, an independence that felt increasingly out of their grasp. His thoughts circled and circled, never quite finding a resting place, never quite settling on a solution, much as they had earlier in the Library. After a minute of this, he felt Abby’s light touch on his shoulder, then she settled into the crook of his arm as they gazed out the window together. Her presence calmed and centered his mind, and an answer crystallized, appearing fully formed. It was bold, under other circumstances almost inconceivable, but it offered a way out, if Abby would accept it.
“We leave,” he said. “We disappear. Get away from all of this and go live our own life of our own choosing. We’ll get a judge to marry us and make our own home in some city far from here, with no contact with anyone Atlantean.” Abby looked at him in absolute surprise, and Darrick felt a little surprised at himself, but the more he told of his idea, the more it solidified in his mind’s eye. “No one can know where we’re going, and we can’t let anyone know we’re leaving. They’ll only try to talk us out of it, or use methods stronger than that.”
“I can’t do that to my parents or my friends, Darrick,” Abby said with a shake of her head. “I can’t disappear without a trace. That would scare them to death.”
“We’ll leave a note or something telling them we’re eloping,” Darrick responded, warming to his topic. “Not enough so that they’ll be able to follow us, but enough for them to know we’re okay. We just can’t let them trace us.”
Abby was still shaking her head. “Darrick, think about what you are saying. You’re proposing we drop our entire lives and families and start somewhere completely new. What about your schooling? You still have two more years left. Are you just going to abandon it? And I don’t want my parents to live the rest of their lives never knowing where I am or how I am doing. Surely you feel the same about yours. Darrick, I understand what you are feeling, but this is no solution.”
“No, you’re right,” he said, realizing the import of what he had been suggesting. “I wouldn’t want to do that to my family either. But maybe it doesn’t have to be forever. Give me one year. One year to ourselves, one year away from all these obligations and duties. One year we can just be free. I can take a year off from school, get a job to support us. You can be the artist you want to be, and I can be your adoring husband. We’ll be like a million other young married couples just getting started, with nothing in the world to concern us except each other. Then, after that, we’ll come back and see where to go from there. Is that something you can do?”
Abby was silent for a long while, but Darrick could read the struggle on her face. He knew that she had loved her two years on her own, and though she didn’t regret coming back for her wedding, she had wanted more. He also knew he was asking her to turn her back on everything she was raised to think, even if only temporarily. He watched the two forces struggle in her eyes, and saw the decision made. She wrapped her arms around him and held him close as she whispered her conclusion.
“Yes.”
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