July 1st, 1816

Frederick left today.  I know I’m not through with my anger or sorrow yet, but when he said goodbye, I felt strangely numb.  I was too busy thinking to really listen to him, even though he had gone through the trouble of sneaking past Aunt Caroline’s attention in order to say goodbye.  He told me that he would send a letter telling the Retreat that urgent business had called him, to please send someone to escort me home as soon as possible.  And he told me he was sorry that it was ending like this, sorry that Jenny had betrayed my trust.

“Perhaps this can be a lesson for you,” he said.  “You’ve always been too trusting.  It’s why you’re in so much pain, if you’d like to know.  You need too much from people.”

I wish he’d told me all of this sooner.  He seemed to be purging truth, considering he would never see me again except perhaps in passing at the Retreat.  I’d likely never see him again either.  At least not in the same way.  And I had truth lodged inside me too.

“I trusted you,” I said.  “Should I not have done that?”

Frederick blinked at me, his mouth half open.  He looked like a cod dangling on a hook.  His discomfort brought me no pleasure.  I just kept thinking about how I must have been the worm in this metaphor, stabbed through a hook and drowning, ready to be swallowed by him.  I thought about how sickly Jenny had looked when I told her about Frederick and I.  She looked how I wanted to that night that I begged him to stop, before I couldn’t say or feel anything besides my mattress.  I counted the marks on the ceiling, and when I couldn’t do that, the scratches on the doorframe.  Anything to take me away from that awful present.

I told myself that it didn’t matter, but it really did.

Frederick closed his mouth and cleared his throat.  “I have to leave,” he said.  “I’m sorry.  Will you be well?  Without me here?” he asked as an afterthought.   He never answered me, I noticed.  I suppose I’ll never know if he thought I should have trusted him or not. 

“Yes,” I said.  “I will be well.”

All of a sudden, after wanting nothing more than to just be with Frederick, I couldn’t stand to look at him.  I felt one of my fingers start to twitch, and then my whole hand shook.  Months ago, I would have hidden it in the folds of my dress, so he wouldn’t have known how afraid I was.  But he didn’t notice it.  I needn’t have hidden it at all.

He kissed me when he said goodbye, like he was giving me a gift.  I didn’t kiss him back, and he didn’t seem to notice that either.  Frederick turned to leave, but stopped at the door.  He sighed, one hand clasping the bridge of his nose.  “Elsie,” he said, “I wish you hadn’t been so foolish.”

I wish the same, I thought.  My hand was still shaking, and I didn’t try to stop it.  He left, and was gone, and I still didn’t feel a thing.