George closed his eyes, the truth of his friend's words sinking in painfully.
“Elizabeth is beautiful, intelligent, and she has a good fortune behind her,” Walter continued in his argument. “You would be a fool not to take such an arrangement unless you had plans elsewhere.”
“I have no plans!” George snapped, slamming his fist down on the desk. “I shall not be hounded into making any.”
“Then you truly are a coward!” Walter hissed back at him.
George's eyes flew open, and they met Walter's where his friend now stood over his desk.
“You shall remain alone, unhappy, and disconnected from all else if you continue down this path, George,” Walter insisted, tapping his finger on the desk. “I, for one, do not wish to see it so!”
“So you come here and you offer up your sister on a silver platter!” George retorted, disgusted by the very notion, his insides twisting at the wordcoward.
“I merely wish to make you see the truth, George!”
“And what truth is that, Walter?”
It was painful to meet his friend's gaze as he watched it harden.
“You are too cowardly to admit that your heart lies elsewhere,” Walter insisted, shoving his hands into his pockets as if he knew not what to do with them. “You fail in making plans because you cannot see a future for yourself. I understand, truly I do. The war changed us. It hardened us. It made us hard to love. But we are home now, and life continues. Do not let it move forward without you.”
Frustrated, angry, and confused, George sighed. “You do not understand.”
Walter removed his hands from his pockets and laid them on the table, leaning over the desk as he encouraged, “Then help me understand.”
George's eyes fluttered shut, his agony at how to answer Walter's pushing unfathomable.
“I do not have the words.”
The desk creaked a little as Walter pushed himself off it, but George kept his eyes firmly closed.
“Then open your heart, George, open it and admit the truth to yourself, to all of us,” Walter insisted, “or I fear you shall be lost to yourself.”
George quivered. The thought of getting lost didn't seem like such a bad thing. If indeed it saved him from having to decide on anything wrong in his life, being lost sounded positively wonderful. Yet, a small part of him remained unwilling to give up.
Silence filled the room, and George began to hope that it would urge Walter out of his study. If he remained still as stone, if he failed to speak, if he buried his head, he might be left alone.
But Walter did not leave.
Instead, he asked, “To whom does your heart belong, George?”
Cecelia …
Her beautiful, radiant face plagued him every waking moment, following him into his dreams, hounding his nightmares in which he saw her lost to another, left just out of reach forever.
He opened his mouth to admit the truth. Closed it again.
No matter how he tried, he could not bring himself to voice the words.
Walter let out an exasperated sigh.
“You truly are a coward, George.”
The words bit into George's gut. They tore at his heart and left him feeling hollow.
He had not the words to argue back, for he knew his friend spoke the truth.
He remained silent, listening as Walter escaped the room, escaped him.
