" . . . and maybe you should just try talking to him? Hang out, go to dinner, see if there's still a spark, or if you can just be friends."
"Thanks, Kathy. Your advice stinks, but thanks anyway. Don't quit your day job."
And yet, that evening, my sister and her ex-boyfriend found themselves sitting together and talking out on the deck. I could see them from the study, where I was (guess what?) working from home. Oh, wait, I forgot, you don't care about my misery! Right, back to the Victorian novel.
They gradually began to lean closer together, conversation comfortably trailing off, then Elizabeth placed her hand on Edward's. He felt the touch and looked at Elizabeth, to see her looking back at him with a soft, knowing smile.
Rosy light flooded the sky as the sun set, illuminating the two lovers in a pink, romantic glow. They leaned back with their arms around each other, taking turns pointing out their favorite stars. "That's the one I discovered when I was nine, my first star." Edward pointed it out.
"What's it named?" Elizabeth asked, raising her hand to pinpoint the star.
"Elizabeth."
Simultaneously, without speaking, Edward and Elizabeth sent break-up texts to Eleanor and Abram.
Now unattached, they stood gazing at each other, as Elizabeth's sister (that's me--trying to be Victorian!) escaped to the safe confines of the study. There was an unseen, unspoken, and very powerful tension between them. A barrier that had to be broken but was impossible to touch.
And the barrier shattered.
They said no more and parted ways, with little smiles on their faces and a certain spring in their step. (Aaaand . . . back to the real world.) Elizabeth kept calling up and befriending NPC's, and she still flirted a little with them, but she did so while practically glowing.
Edward cheerfully vaccinated elderly women in his kilt.
A few notables: Alejandro Grace and Arron Landgraab.
Clearly all the good genes came from Patricia.
Even though Edward and Eleanor broke up
via text, they're still best friends, and Edward certainly hasn't abandoned his kids. In fact, he takes care of them much of the time, since Eleanor is too busy running the hospital to be a mother.
Karim and Sonya truly are adorable children--I do babysit every once in a blue moon.
Sonya especially is a little cutie who can fall asleep at the drop of a hat! I just know she's going to grow up beautiful.
I wonder how strange it must be for Eleanor, to have her ex-boyfriend playing with the kids like nothing happened. It's almost annoying, how decent a person Edward is. It's too difficult to find any fault with him!
He's the only person who comes close to being deserving of my little sister. The day after they kissed, the reunited lovers went on one date to the diner. Only one date.
After they paid the check, Edward and Elizabeth left the restaurant. Their date had been wonderful, but still nothing had been said of the future--or the present, even. Were they going to date, or just have a casual relationship, or have no relationship at all?
"Elizabeth Vanderburg, love of my life, will you marry me?"
"Oh my--yes!" Elizabeth gasped, bringing her hands to her face in shock. "Yes, yes, yes!"
It slid perfectly onto her finger.
The day Elizabeth agreed to go to Prom with him, Edward got a job at the bookstore. He never spent any of the money he made, instead hiding it in his nightstand for years--and, being Edward, he made an enormous amount of money from discovering stars and submitting scientific papers.
On the night before his young adult birthday, fourteen hours before Elizabeth broke up with him, he bought the ring he had been saving up for and hid it in the nightstand, where it would sit, unused, for one year. Every once in a while, he would take it out and hold it up to the light, wondering if he could give it to Eleanor, but Edward knew that it was only meant for one person.
Of course, I received all of this secondhand, through excited squeals in the middle of the night, when I was dragged out of my bed into the bathroom--oops. Am I ruining the moment? So sorry.
They kissed for a long time in the moonlight, not noticing or caring when hail came pouring down on them, conscious only of each other and not the constant cracking of hailstones against the pavement.
To celebrate the engagement, they got tattoos together. Edward had a heart, wrapped in a ribbon--blue, for Elizabeth, because it belonged to her.
Lizzie got a tattoo of a flower. Because she likes flowers.
