Room 302 [Monday afternoon]

[pasunereveuse]

It was miserable to be angry and upset and heartbroken, under totally normal circumstances. It was even more miserable, somehow, to be angry and upset and heartbroken when school was out for break. It had been a cruel twist of fate that Celia had found the incriminating letter in Ichabod's room the very day before she was to take her last exam, and

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[nobloodymessiah]

Eleanor wasn't entirely sure what one did, with the back half of December. Should she go to see Grace and Louise, out in St. Louis? Travel home with Joker to meet his family? Stay here, in the dorms? Other times of the year, the gap between semesters seemed far shorter.

Perhaps Celia might have some advice. She hesitated before knocking on the door.

(rocking a cold, so much SP up in herrre)

[pasunereveuse]

Under normal circumstances, Celia would have just called for whoever it was to come in without looking up from her book. But, these were not normal circumstances, and if it was Ichabod, she should like the opportunity to shut the door in his face, just now, and thus glanced up to check, first.

Perhaps it was for the best that it wasn't actually Ichabod.

Celia offered Eleanor a tired smile when she saw who it was, and beckoned her in. "Afternoon, Eleanor. How're you?" she asked, eager to focus on her friend over really anything else in her own life, just now.

[nobloodymessiah]

"I'm ... well, I suppose," Eleanor said, hesitantly. "But you aren't."

Eleanor was still terrible at other people, but this was fairly obvious, from the way she couldn't quite make her smile into something convincing.

"What happened?" she asked, all thoughts of her own troubles disappearing.

[pasunereveuse]

And for a moment, Celia was tempted to say that nothing was wrong, that everything was fine, and what did Eleanor even mean, because obviously she was all right.

But it was exhausting to act like she was fine all the time, when she very much wasn't, and she'd already spent the weekend mending porcelain and trying to keep lightbulbs from shattering. If there was anyone she could confess to -- anyone with whom she could unburden herself -- it was Eleanor.

Celia glanced at the door, and it swung shut. As soon as she heard the lock click, she spoke.

"Ichabod's engaged."

And somehow, saying it aloud to Eleanor made it real, in a way that commiserating with Alana hadn't quite -- it had still felt like a joke, like gossip about boys, when the truth was that it was so painful that Celia felt as though her heart was breaking anew with every breath. She dropped her face into her hands, feeling the tears coming before she could stop them.

[nobloodymessiah]

Ichabod -- engaged? Eleanor stared for a moment, willing the words to make sense, and then her friend was crumpling, and that meant she needed to swoop forward and wrap her arms around the other girl, holding on for dear life.

"How dare he," she seethed. "How dare he throw away everything you have been to one another, and traipse off to some other girl. What a soulless bastard."

How had that conversation gone!? "It's been lovely, but I'm moving on now"?!

[pasunereveuse]

"No, no," Celia mumbled against Eleanor's shoulder, not struggling against being held in the slightest. The person who usually held her was pledged to hold another, apparently, so she'd take all the hugs she could get. "No, that's the thing, he's been engaged. I f-found a letter from his fiancée. I'm the other woman."

And that brought on a whole new round of tears. She'd dry her friend's shoulder for her, in a moment.

[nobloodymessiah]

"He never told you?" Eleanor asked. Of all the things to carefully omit, when speaking to a significant other, 'I have a fiancee' seemed rather important.

Speaking of important, one point to clarify, first.

"Nonsense," she said, firmly. "The 'other woman' implies something tawdry and cheap. You're a lovely young girl who has been lied to and manipulated by a man who is being unfaithful to the person he has pledged himself to. The fault lies with him, not you."

[pasunereveuse]

"I feel," Celia sniffled, pulling back enough to wipe her eyes, "exactly like the trash his father seemed to assume I am. And I feel so stupid, Eleanor. Boys like that don't like girls like me unless we're meant to be a bit on the side. I should've expected this. Of course he's betrothed. He's too much of a -- " She sniffled, trying to steady her voice. "He's too much of a catch for me to have been so lucky."

[nobloodymessiah]

"Bit on the side?" Eleanor was sitting up straighter, now, and clutching at her friend's shoulders. "No. No. I refuse to believe it. Ichabod isn't -- the sort of man that would --"

Was he? Eleanor only knew her friend's love as an acquaintance, the sort of person one nodded at in class.

... class.

"He said, in class, one day," she started, trying to remember how it went. Dammit. She had taken notes, hadn't she? "He said love was about -- being more honest with who you are and -- and how someone sees you. And becoming close to someone quickly. He wouldn't -- he wouldn't say things like that if you were just some kind of -- distraction."

[pasunereveuse]

Celia sniffled, swiping at her eyes with a sleeve as she considered what Eleanor was saying. "When did he say that?" she asked, her voice still wobbly and a little hoarse.

It was enough to give her a little hope, just for a moment. It did sound like him -- honest and brave, and it was like they'd known each other forever, even if it hadn't been long at all.

And then she remembered the letter's verbiage all over again. Dearest Ichabod.

"Did he say it was about me?" she asked, dubiously. "The letter was -- she was clearly very much in love with him. He was probably talking about h-her. She's clearly a more suitable match, and probably richer, and more -- more proper than me."

She wasn't going to say prettier, even if she'd briefly thought it -- Celia was actually sure she was probably much prettier than this Mary. What was the point of an illicit affair if the girl in question wasn't more attractive than your intended, anyway?

[nobloodymessiah]

"I doubt he'd sing another girl's praises, with me sitting nearby," Eleanor noted calmly. "Maybe she's more proper. Maybe he's supposed to marry her, but he's fallen in love with you. That would make him a coward, and a liar, but not a monster."

She'd seen the way Ichabod looked at Celia. She meant more to him than a way to pass the time. She had to.

[pasunereveuse]

"I didn't think he was either of those things." She was calming down a little, her tears abating. "Even if -- even if it's what you say, I still feel...I shared things with him that I wouldn't have, if I'd known we weren't as exclusive as I'd imagined."

It had taken her so long to open up and trust him. It had taken a few seconds of reading to become convinced that trust was misplaced.

"Joker's been with other women," she ventured, looking over at Eleanor, "but those relationships ended before he came here, right?" Even if so, Eleanor would understand the jealousy she was refusing to acknowledge, the worry that this Mary had known Ichabod's touch, as well.

[nobloodymessiah]

"And you've every right to be furious, for concealment," Eleanor agreed, nodding quickly. "He had no right to lie to you, even if his lies were sins of omission. Only you can decide if you can forgive him that."

Eleanor straightened up, tucking a leg underneath her. Somehow during the crying and consoling, they had moved from the doorway to Celia's bed.

"Joker ... has known other women, quite intimately," she said, her tone a touch dark. "I loathe them, and I'll never see them. When he says beautiful words to me, I wonder if he's spoken the same to them, before."

She fidgeted. "I keep trying -- not to get too involved. To remind myself that we've an end date. He leaves for the academy next fall, and that's that."

[pasunereveuse]

"That doesn't have to be that," Celia argued, rubbing a hand lightly across her nose. The redness there and blooming across her cheeks swiftly dissipated, and the puffiness around her eyes began to go down. (Vanity and magic went well in hand together, though Celia was more focused on regaining her composure so that she might maintain it.)

"Why does that have to be it?" She frowned at Eleanor, shaking her head. "Just because my heart is breaking doesn't mean you should intentionally smash yours up for fun, you know. Attachments don't have to -- I don't think they'll all end like this."

[nobloodymessiah]

"I'm not smashing it for fun," Eleanor sighed. "I'm -- trying to be logical, here. He's got a long military career ahead of him, one that involves flying ships for his government while other people shoot at him. There's not really room for anything else."

She ran a hand over her own hair, which only made it more unruly. "If I don't -- get as attached, it won't hurt as much. Will it?"

She was bad at interpersonal attachments.

[pasunereveuse]

"...hmm." Celia thought about that for a moment, trying to step away from how much she hurt into a more logical frame of mind, since that was their aim. "On the one hand, if I didn't love Ichabod, I wouldn't...this wouldn't be this hard. So I do see your point."

But.

"But on the other, I think that if you decide you're not going to be attached to anyone lest they leave you and it might hurt, you're going to miss out on most of the best things in life," Celia added softly, sighing a little. "And for that matter, Eleanor, I think you're fooling yourself if you say you're unattached to Joker. Trying to convince yourself of something doesn't make it true. You might as well have a few months of happiness rather than none."