Large, looped letters can be seen scrawled over poor quality pages, sewn into a portion of thin scrap leather. It is obvious that little thought was put into it's construction: it is more a craft of necessity than a work of artful binding. The fourth entry reads:
IV.
Dear Journal,
It has been five months since I last wrote in your pages. Far too many months. Things have happened—so many things have happened. All too quickly. I think I was afraid to make them real, to write them down.
I have broken the heart of Hudd Forester. Only you know how deeply I love him, dear journal, and yet my doubts have only tripled since the last evening I wrote. By then, my Aunt Agnes was already living with me, and Hudd’s illicit cohabitation came to an abrupt and secret end the moment she arrived. Not three days after my last entry, a Master Smith came from Bree. Cleelan’s stock, of all families. (My father always held them in disdain—or whatever the equivalent was for a man as genial as himself. He said they were pompous and arrogant. And he was right).
The first thing Kenneth Cleelan did upon joining our household (the guild gave us an ultimatum—procure a Master or lose all the standing we had left) was challenge my status as the forge-owner, as a smith overall. He insulted my experience, my craft, on the basis of womanhood and a lack of guild approval, and I insulted him. On the third day I slapped him. I think that was the first time anyone has ever struck me back.
Since then things have been better. Apologies were made, on either side, and our habits of tormenting one another took on other forms. More… amiable, I suppose. There’s nothing particularly salacious in it all, I swear, though I know my Aunt Agnes wishes there were. I love Hudd. So, so much.
But I’ve grown accustomed to Cleelan. I’ve… opened up to him, about things. About Hudd, and the fact that I find it nigh impossible to trust him after all that’s happened. I didn’t disclose any damning details, of course, but the more I speak to him the more I wonder if my love is true. And even if its true, does it deserve my nurturing?
I will not for even a moment lie and claim that my heartbeat fails to speed up around him. He’s an utter prick half the time, but I rather enjoy it. Most of the time, anyway. There is so much that I don’t yet know about him, but I know he keeps romance stories on his dresser where he thinks I won’t notice. I know he tells jokes so terrible they cause the listener physical pain, and he likes his eggs poached at breakfast. And when I cry, he doesn’t cry too. And as strange as it sounds, it feels nice to be comforted without having to return the favor.
But I love Hudd. I do, I really do. But we cannot depend on a future that may never be. He finally sees that now. Until he earns his mastery, we can be nothing more than the friends we claim to be. And… And perhaps I am doing this all wrong, but perhaps we must first fall out of love in order to properly fall into it.
On the evening before Yule, Ken and I decorated the tree. We read together, quietly, on the windowseat waiting for my aunt to come home, and fell asleep. There’s a flutter in my stomach when I’m around him. I think it’s annoyance. He’s melodramatic and critical, and I cook more often than I smith nowadays (did I mention? Aunt Agnes made me practice half to death before even telling me we were recruiting another smith. My pies don’t scorch anymore. It’s a tragedy). I never know what he’s thinking—he’s the most difficult human being I have ever had the misfortune to meet, and I can’t help but want us to be the best of friends.
I’ve given to Hudd things that can never be taken back. Perhaps for that reason alone I shouldn’t have cast us into this liminal, lukewarm pit of denial. I feel terrible. There’s pain in his eyes when he looks at me, and guilt in the pit of my stomach. Marjorie has taken to fawning over him again, and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t jealous. But this was my choice. Giving as I did was my choice. These days I feel that every choice I make is wrong.
Stars above, whatever would my father say?
Yours,
Ellie
