Chapter 19 #2
It was how he was raised. To be closed off. To keep his feelings held closely to his chest. Emotions were a weakness and could be used against you, so best to never give anyone that chance.
And not so long ago, Caspian would have held onto that justification, refusing to tell Thalia what she wanted to know…
what she had a right to know. But as Caspian looked at his wife, as he looked around them at the glade, and as he considered the true reason why he brought her here, he decided that it was time he stopped falling back on his past as a justification for who he was and how he acted.
The simple fact was, Caspian was falling for his wife. He wanted her to know about him. He needed her to understand who he was and the reason for it.
They were married, and it was time he acted like it.
“I used to come here with my mother,” Caspian began, his voice so lower that he could hardly hear it. “Before she…” His chest tightened and his throat hurt. “Before she died.”
“Caspian…” Thalia touched his face. “You don’t have to…”
“It’s fine.” He took her hand and looked into her eyes. “I want to.” More than that, I need to. “She passed away when I was just a boy, no older than ten, although when I look back on those times, I feel younger than I was. Less than a child.”
“What was she like?” Thalia asked softly.
Caspian smiled at the thought of her. “She was lovely. Kind. Gentle. Warm. And she was funny…” He laughed.
“You would have liked her, and she would have liked you. She used to bring me here nearly every week. We called it our little secret, a chance to escape and pretend as if the world had ended and nothing mattered. A place that we could be ourselves… my mother especially.”
Thalia frowned, suddenly looking unsure.
“You can ask me,” he said.
“What do you mean, be yourself?” her voice cracked.
“My father was not a good man…” Caspian looked away as if in shame.
“He was cold… ruthless… really, he was a typical product of his upbringing, and he expected the same from me. When my mother was alive, she protected me.” He smiled again.
“She reminded me that it was not such a bad thing to laugh and enjoy life.”
“And after she died…”
He sighed and shook his head. “You wish to know why I am the way that I am? My father is the reason. Once my mother passed, he beat the lessons she had taught me out of my body and my soul.” His brow tightened and he winced at the memory.
“Men don’t laugh. Men don’t joke. Men don’t love, Caspian…
” His lip curled. “I never wanted it, but slowly my father broke me and built me back up in his image.”
“Oh, Caspian…”
He sighed. “Don’t feel too sorry for me. Yes, my father is part of the reason, but was I not so like him in the first place, even he could not –”
“Don’t do that,” she spoke over him.
“Do what?”
“Blame yourself.” She shuffled in close and made sure to be looking at him. As she did, the sun caught her eyes, and he could see his reflection in them. “And do not act as if you are like your father.”
“I am like him.”
“Is that right?” She raised an eyebrow at him. “Did you father ever bring your mother out here? Did he ever make a picnic for her? Did he ever cancel his plans just to spend the day in her company.”
Caspian snorted. “Of course not.”
“There you have it then. Not like him at all.”
Caspian felt his chest swell and he took her hand, giving the back of it a kiss. If his father had seen the way that Caspian needed his wife’s opinion to make him feel better about himself, he would have sneered in shame and recoiled in horror.
“I wish you had told me that sooner,” he chuckled. “I could have used you several times.”
“Well, I am here now.”
“It is ironic in many ways…” Caspian looked to the sparkling blue of the water, watching the ripples peel across the surface.
“The only reason I married in the first place was because of a contract that my father had arranged before he died. I did not want it. I did not care for it. But honor and duty, and the constant fear of my father’s judgement is what forced me to see it through.
I only ever wanted to make him proud of me. ”
“How is that ironic?”
He tore his eyes from the water and found Thalia’s once more.
“I married to please him, even beyond the grave. I did as I always do and put myself last, needing him to be proud of me – as if I needed to prove that I was worth his name. And had I not done so, I never would have married you, and I never would have come to realize that it doesn’t matter what my father thinks of me.
” His smile grew as his heart thumped hard in his chest as if it was trying to escape. “It never did matter.”
A single tear fell from Thalia’s eye and she wiped it away. “Better that you realize late than never.”
“Better that I met you, to show me the way.” He took her hand and pulled it into his chest. “Which wouldn’t have happened was it not for my father in the first past.” He chuckled softly. “It’s all rather confusing, when you think about it like that.”
“I suggest you try not to think about it.”
“Oh?”
“No…” She shuffled closer and her hand rested on his lap. “Just be glad that it did happen, and then do everything you can to ensure that you don’t go backwards.”
“Backwards?”
“The man I married,” Thalia confirmed. “Would you be surprised to learn that I didn’t much like him.”
Caspian scoffed. “Surprised? Not at all. You made it rather obvious.”
“My point exactly,” she said. “That man, I did not like. That man, I did not want to marry, just as I did not want to spend any time with him. But this man…” He was still holding her hand, but she pulled it free and rested it on the side of his face. “This man, I kind of like.”
“Only kind of?”
“Don’t get too far ahead of yourself, Your Grace. I hardly know you.”
“Best that we change that then.”
“Yes,” she agreed with a grin. “It is best that we do.”
There was nothing left to say, so they said nothing. When words were no longer needed, there was but one thing to do, and Caspian did it without hesitation or second thought.
The sun shone warm overhead. The pond shimmered and sparkled crystal blue.
Birds sung in treetops. The wind gently rustled through the trees.
And Caspian and Thalia, lost in the moment, alone in the world it seemed, kissed one another in ways that were once anathema to this marriage but were now wholly natural.
Their marriage was far from perfect. They still had so far to go. But they were heading in the right direction, both were eager to see where it led to, and for now that was more than enough.