Forcibly married to the person whom rejected me

XV

And the roses bloomed beneath the storm

I was awaken early today so I could get ready for the celebration. "Oh Elizabeth you look so beautiful", Caroline spoke and the words danced to the sound of her music. I chuckled a bit as I give her all the credit for the beauty she made standing in front of her, "I wouldn't look like that if it weren't for you and your sense of style princess". She laughed and I could feel her arms turn me around to face the mirror behind me, leaning her head on my shoulder, "darling, beauty comes from the inside as it wraps the outside like the dress you're wearing now". I look at her as I admire her, I admire her for the sweet words she spread, for the kindness flowing out of her and for believing in me when I couldn't.

"Where's Oliver" I ask since I haven't seen him from the morning and I feel like something is missing in my routine, in my life. Caroline cheekily smiles at me before telling me, "he's in his room. Oh don't worry honey, he's just getting ready. In fact, he's the one who told me to leave you in this room. I guess Oliver is finally  showing respect to someone other than me". I felt my heartbeat rise high up, higher than the mountain of Everest as I try to control the smile creeping in on my face. I nod slowly as I hear her excuse herself when one of the maids came to talk to her.

I look at myself in the mirror before taking a deep breathe. "Head over to him Elizabeth, head over to him Elizabeth. Thank him for the respect he tried to show, thank him", I whisper to myself before running my hands over the dress lightly. I look at the door as I inhale before walking towards his old room. I reach in front of his door and my legs hesitate to take more steps forward, my brain stops thinking, my eyes keeps blinking and suddenly..

The door slams open and I raise my head in shock, in shock of never being able to explain why I'm here or why every organ in me stopped working for a second. I look at Oliver, all fancy, hair fixed in the most attractive way, eyes fierce as you could see the ashes left after the fire, posture straight, sharp, and steady as a knife and my eyes...my eyes can't help but gaze upon the surreal person in front of me.

"I-I.." I tried to untangle my tongue to form a reason of my appearance but simply he says, "I don't care", before walking past me, to somewhere my eyes couldn't follow, my body couldn't turn and my heart couldn't bare to look at him again. I bite my inner lip as I whisper to myself, stuttering "so this is- this is what my life is going to be...when I'm married to him..". I try to bottle up the feelings that dried out my eyes for a long timeline, try to stop myself from changing to the worse, to change and become the demon.

"Princess..?". I turn around to be met by Mary, one of the older maids. "Oh hello Mary, what can I help you with?" I say as I try to grab my normal steady voice back. "I'm sorry to I interrupt you but your family are here, waiting for you in the living room", she spoke so elegantly. I smile as I could feel the dead roses in me bloom, "I'll be there". She bows lightly before leaving me. I grin widely as i head towards the living room. I make my quite appearance and Lucas immediately ran into my arms. I hugged him so tight, afraid of losing him, afraid of losing the pure perfection in him. I pulled away as I caress his mushy hair, "oh you don't know how much I missed you, little bundle of joy". "This bundle of joy isn't much of a joy when you're not around", he pouts and I frown before carrying him in my arms, walking towards the standing figure of my parents, dressed all up for the celebration.

I kissed the velvety cheeks of my parents as I feel their soft lips kiss my cheeks in return. "You've grown up huh?", my father says, hope and love filling his voice as we sit down on the sofa. I giggle softly as I reply, "you've raised me well and strong, father". Adeline came in with tea and served us some red tea. I smiled to her before she left us alone, "it's our pleasure to have you here Mr and Mrs Conner, without your beautiful daugther we wouldn't have had this celebration by now", princess Caroline spoke softly as she sips from her tea. I see my mother as she smiles and the blooming world gets out of its cage, it's been long, long enough that I felt this spark once again after seeing her smile.

I settled down in quite as I hear the voices exchanging pleasure using the simplistic form of communication we tend to call words. I saw mother and father leave as they follow Caroline for what I assume I heard was a small tour to the room that's going to be taking the celebration, soon enough."Elizabeth Elizabeth!! please convince mom to make me stay with you a while, I missed you" my brother Lucas, pouts, hands holding each other, looking all cute and innocent. "Are you acting all cute just for that?",  I shake my head down to him as I squint my eyes a bit. I could see him losing it a bit by bit as he huffs, letting go of his interlocked hands and says while he pouts in disappointment "alright fine, you caught me! You see I can't even act cute, please please please pleaseeee", he held one of my arms and shook it as he jumped up and down, pleading. I laugh at his reaction and ruffle his hair up, "alright alright, calm down clown I'll talk to mother and we will see what happens".

I do too hope you can stay lucas, at least...
I'll finally be truly happy for a while...
A while I hope lasts forever.