Chapter Three

Andromeda cupped her fresh mug of tea in her cold hands and noted with mild irritation that Ted had not bothered to ask her about her milk, sugar and biscuit preferences. This, as she knew perfectly well, was because he knew the answers to the conventional questions. Still, for reasons she could not explain to herself, she would have liked him to pretend that he did not. She refrained from dipping her biscuit in her tea, a habit that she had picked up from Ted, and one that she had forgotten to eradicate after she had decided to remove him from her life.

She winced as this thought occurred to her. Despite managing to be remarkably irritating by way of asides and hints, Ted had not yet gone anywhere near any of the many extremely painful topics of conversation that they would probably now have to cover. Running away again did not seem to be an option, firstly because he would only confound her again, and secondly because with hot tea inside her, she was returning to something of a sense of herself, and she was not going to run away from a situation she had got herself into through lack of foresight three times in the same day.

Ted was watching Andromeda drink tea with an expression of understanding and patience that she would not have reacted well to. Fortunately, she had not taken her eyes from her tea since he had given her it. He was working up to an attempt to talk to her and was finding it surprisingly difficult to know where to begin. He thought that she must, at least subconsciously, have come here for a reason, and conversation seemed like a good place to start. Casual references to her appearance had not been well received. The best option seemed to be to be direct.

“Andromeda?”

“Yes.” She did not, as would have been natural, give the syllable a questioning tone, but replied more as if confirming her identity.

“Do you know why you’re here?”

“No.”

“Will you tell me what happened before you came here? What was going on?”

“Isn’t it obvious?”

“Well, yes, but how did you get to that? The last I heard from you, to quote, you never wanted to speak to a male again.”

“You know that was rhetoric.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“Can you see my parents letting me never speak to a male again? They decided that I’d finally come to my senses, which, in their language, means they had made me agree with them. And their plan for me was marriage. Always has been. You know that.”

“So what happened to the famed independence of Andromeda Black?”

“I lost it. I lost the will to argue.”

Ted refrained from comment upon this, although it could hardly be taken as unconnected to his absence from her life at this point. “And so?”

“And so I let them get on with planning me a wedding. I barely knew the man, cared less.”

“Who...? No, don’t tell me. Carry on.”

“It was just when I was trying on dresses. I know it looks like I ran away from my wedding, but I didn’t get that far. I got scared when I saw myself in the dress, and I wasn’t thinking, I just ran. I didn’t even...” She trailed off.

Ted sat very still, in an imitation of her, and found it surprisingly easy. She had given him a lot to think about. Since the last time he has seen her, Andromeda’s vow that she would be single forever, while he did not accept it as absolute, had without his awareness become an assurance that she was not going to find someone else any time soon. He might have known her parents would take a different view of the matter. It had evidently been all but irrelevant to her whom she was to marry, and this scared him more than anything else she had said. Whatever Andromeda’s state of mind may have been, she had always said she would not marry a person whom she did not love. It had been faith in fairytale endings that had protected her from utter corruption at the hands of her parents and had left open the gate for Ted. Had she really been so dependent upon him that when his support was removed she lost not only what he had given to her, whatever that might be, but also her faith in what she had had before?

“I didn’t even have to think about where I was going,” Andromeda said, so softly that he almost missed it. “Which wasn’t fair. I’m sorry, Ted.”

“Why?”

“Because I promised you I was gone forever, and then I came back.”

“That wasn’t a promise. That was a threat.”

“It was a promise. I promised that I had finished hurting you and trying to break unbreakable barriers. Some things just can’t be, no matter how hard you try to force them, and you and me was one of those things.”

“So that’s it? You gave up?”

“I let go. It’s easier this way, so much easier. Just to let them organise me, to live as they want me to and never mind the rebelling. I didn’t give up, I grew up. Now you have to.”

“I’m never going to go down that path, Andromeda. That’s not growing up, that’s apathy, and it can’t last forever. Not for you. Your sister, maybe; she could live with that, but not you. Some day you’ll wake up and realise what a trap you’ve let yourself fall into. And you know that. You wouldn’t be here if you honestly believed in all the rubbish you’re spouting.”

“You think you know me so well.”

“Well then, you tell me why you’re here.”

“Because I was weak and pathetic and scared. It won’t happen again.”

Unexpectedly, Andromeda set down her cup and walked to the window, her back turned to Ted. She knew that if he carried on like this he would crack her, and she couldn’t bear to go back in time now. She had made her decisions. Her flight to Ted’s house could easily be put down to nerves, and there was no reason why it should not be so. After all, why else would she have gone to a place she associated with safety and freedom from judgment? Why else would she have gone back to Ted now? It was too late to change her mind, no matter what.