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A little smile tugs at the corners of my lips at her hollow optimism.
I pull away from our embrace, pick up a jug of wine that miraculously managed to survive my rampage, and sit on the edge of my bed. I pour the wine down my throat while Cleo just stands in the middle of all my chaos with her arms crossed over her chest.
“How do you know she loves him?” she asks suspiciously after a long pause.
“If you’re going to ask me those types of questions, then best fetch me more wine, because this jug won’t do.”
“Fine, I’ll get you your wine, but first, answer my question. How do you know your queen loves your nemesis.”
“He’s not my nemesis,” I reply on reflex.
“He’s not your friend either.” She raises her brows, calling bullshit on that remark.
“True, but he wasn’talwaysmy nemesis. There was a time in my life that he was… my brother. An older brother I looked up to and wanted to impress. We all did.” I laugh, disheartened. “We all wanted Levi’s approval. Fucking craved it like our southern crops crave the rain and sunlight to grow. As I grew older, I pretended that I didn’t. Too vain and cocky to show how much his opinion of me mattered. But fuck did it ever. He was always the compass of morality. What was deemed good and honorable and what was not,” I explain, hanging my head down with the weight of such a memory.
Cleo inches closer and drops to her knees before me, so that she can see my face.
“You loved him.”
It’s not a question, just a fact she lays out.
I nod, unable to lie to her.
“Fucked-up thing is, I think a part of me always will. Isn’t that a fucking joke?” I retort with a self-deprecating tone.
“Teo,” she calls out softly while rubbing my knees with her hands. “You will never win his love back. Too much has been done for that to be a possibility.”
I let out a scoff, before grabbing Cleo by the chin.
“Do you think I don’t know that?! Do you think I even care?! HE STOLE MY GIRL!” I shout in her face. “And for that, hate is all he’ll ever get from me from this day on.”
Cleo doesn’t so much as flinch at my rage.
My breathing becomes hard once again, my chest heaving up and down.
It’s only when my rage simmers that Cleo opens her mouth to speak again.
“You’ve said that. That the king in the east has stolen your love. But do you have proof of that or are you just conjuring up your worst fears, hoping to manifest them into reality?”
“I know what I saw,” I seethe. “And I know what I heard.”
“Which was?”
I release my grip from her chin and go back to getting drunk.
“Which was?” she insists again. “What did you see and what did you hear?”
“I saw a man whose heart was broken by handing his one true love to his sworn enemy. And I heard her tears as I rode her away from him. Then, of course, there was the kiss they shared before meeting me.”
“I see,” Cleo replies, now grasping the full shit show I’m in.
“Yeah, well, I wish I didn’t. I wish I was a blind fool who didn’t see a goddamn thing. Ignorance is a fool’s best friend, after all,” I retort, drinking the rest of my wine, and throwing the jug across the room once I’ve drunk the last drop. “Get me some wine, Cleo. I’ve answered your questions, now give me my prize,” I command, falling to my back on the bed.
Cleo gets up from her knees and walks toward the door to do as I ordered. But before she leaves, she turns to face me once more.
“You have a month, Teo. If he was able to make her fall in love with him in that short amount of time, then what prevents you from doing the same? Remember… she loved you first. As I see it, you have all the advantages he did not. Don’t let this bitter disappointment get in your way. Use it to fuel your drive and win your queen back.”
I let out a dispirited laugh after Cleo leaves the room.
