Can You Cry Underwater? Ch 1

[Dimaduialiel]

Can You Cry Underwater?

The lights made the room glow with an ethereal beauty. The soft music floated through the air, surrounded couples, and weaved through an ocean. The delicate notes from the violin, single melancholic notes, rose above all others, born from tightly drawn horsehair running over string, and boisterous laughing erupted at a table near one of the two large glass walls overlooking bright lights. The glittering city looked gorgeous beneath its cloak of darkness, and I wanted to be outside. I approached the glass barrier, wary of any eyes that might catch me trying to escape, with my eyes fixed on the scene beyond my gilded prison. The stars did not shine tonight. It must have been due to the city glare, and smiling was not in order. But still, the scene was something to look at.

I took note of the shell of a woman staring into the brightly lit ballroom as she raised a silver gloved hand towards me, and I wondered who in their right mind would want to catch a glimpse of what I lived in. I stared into her black eyes, the thin lines around her lips from the make up collected in the seams due to excess smiling; that false smile did not rest comfortably on her normally tanned face, which was now porcelain under many layers of base make up and white powder. Something in me reached out to her. She appeared dead to me, dead to the world. My heart ached for her and I raised a hand to see that I had already done so. My silver clad fingertips rested against hers though they never touched, and I glanced over her features again. The same deep brown locks were piled up atop her head, the same silver gloves, the same deep blue gown of silk fitted against every curve of her body, the same diplomatic smile, the same dead eyes, though mine were an ice blue, not black. Mine should have been black? dark? The eyes are the windows to the soul, and mine was a void.

I gazed through the ghost before me. I needed the sight of the city; I needed to see at least one star. Somewhere in the back of my mind I registered a slight tugging against my elbow, and I stopped to wonder what the sensation could possibly be. It took me a while to realize that I was being addressed, that I had business to attend to. I must be a good hostess at my own engagement party. I widened the tight-lipped smile adorning my pink lips and raised my eyes to the reflection of the one behind me in silent preparation of a potentially less-than-pleasurable encounter. In the distance I heard a sort of choking sound; was that me? How terrible, yet it was not so bad as long as nobody else heard it. The muscles of my throat contracted, and I felt my heart rise to my throat. The smile on my face became genuine. I spun around as my arms tensed, my body ready to embrace the figure towering over me, my mind not permitting the public display of affection. Such acts are known as taboos in the high-class society. So instead I offered him the first real smile that I had dealt all night. Something washed over me, something that made my sad heart soar because I was with one of the only few people that really cared about me? my stepbrother Adrian.

?I am so glad that you could make it to this event, Mr. Thompson.? I told him conversationally. It was a formality, but the two of us had made it into a game.

He cocked his head to the side lightly, a small smirk alighting his handsome features as dirty blond bangs fell across his hazel eyes. ?The pleasure is all mine, milady.?

The urge to laugh demanded my attention, and it irked me that my body had not yet figured out that my mind was always in control. Instead I motioned for him to walk with me over to a quiet corner, not too dark that people might wander, but not so bright that we would attract much attention. ?I trust that all is well with your wife??

?As well, as always.? From the corner of my eye I could see the humor in his hazel orbs, yet neither of us would yield.

?That is wonderful. And the child? How is she?? The light in my life. I had not seen my darling niece since her first birthday, two years from the last Friday.

?She is well, although she cannot seem to stop asking for a certain aunt.? The twinkle in his eye told me what I wanted to know. My goddaughter missed me. But I would not let him win in our game of formalities. I would be victorious. I had to be.

?She misses her Aunt Charlie, no doubt.? I looked to a nice arrangement of pale yellow flowers to my right. It was a pity that I did not know what type they were; my father never let me out much as a child.

?Actually,? his tone of voice scared me, ?she misses you, Claire.?

I look up to see the set look to his lips and eyes. My spine seemed to weaken and my body trembled in response. He was disappointed in me. I could see it. I would have been disappointed in me too. I still hadn?t lost my game.

?Maybe my father will let me see her after the wedding.? I thought that perhaps, if I offered him my most convincing smile, my stepbrother?s mood would lighten, and perhaps we could get back on the topic of his sister Charlie. I hadn?t seen her in ages. His hazel eyes only bore into my own with more ferocity. Apparently my most convincing smile was my fakest, or he just knew me too well. I was opting for the latter explanation.

He glared at me. ?You know that he won?t do that.?

?He let you come, Mr. Thompson.? I tried to make my voice neutral, and I thought that I had succeeded in doing so until he continued to talk to me as if I were his ten-year-old baby sister once more instead of the twenty-two year old woman before him.

?You know that he knows about my presence here just as much as he cares about your objections to this whole wedding.?

I rolled my eyes, a nasty trait that I had picked up from Charlie when we were kids. Adrian continued his lecture, and my attention floated around the room, noting the smiling faces and loud bouts of laughter coming from all over, everywhere but my remote corner of the room. My arms came around my body in a protective cocoon and I shut off the banter coming from the one in front of me as I looked around and let my mind wander.

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