[b]Who am I but your monster?[/b]

You press me and press me, barking at me for an answer. Always cross. Always plunging the dagger into my skin. Hasn't it ever occurred to you that there's a possibility that you might be attracted to me? That you're in love with the way I tell you "no" and to "stop your constant dwelling and infuriatingly unwarranted accusations...?"

Don't you remember the time when you scorned your governess and made her feel small? And I came over to the carriage in my leather gloves and all my person and took your hand from the window and turned you to face me? And I told you that what you had done was not good or righteous or well-done at all? The look on your face, the sulk and the tears. It drove a blade right through me. I felt cold and guilty and angry with you all at once. And I knew from then I loved you. Perhaps I did not say it, but I knew I had transitioned then from a friend and a brother into something more. 

It is your silence that grabs me. Your games that grab me. How you gossip with your friends and do your private studies in the garden. How you walk by me and ask for one of my cigarettes and wait for me to light it for you. How you hold it at odds with your person as you study the windows and consider what Mrs. Bennet might be doing with that man who came to visit yesterday, and if they're already having an affair with one another and how good it must be for them. And how you look away from me dismissively and continue on your route. The same conversation could be had with you giggling like a child with your finger between your teeth. It varies from person to person, your moods everchanging, the twinkle in your eye darkening, the fabric on your thighs shifting from barest silk to darkest nylon. I want to run my fingers across you. Your indifference--that's what pains me.

So as you walk now into the parlour and settle down beside me and ask why I took your friend out dancing I say, "why not."

And when you say "well, why should you? If only to mock her--" I interrupt you and say: "Why not?"

And as you stand and rave and shout and say that it was not good at all of me to get her hopes up only to make me throw myself up out of my chair and demand why I should not dance with her, the look in your eyes tells me all I need to know. That you are jealous. That you do not know you are jealous and that you act on your own authority out of mistaken concern, when actually all you wish to decree is that you wish we could've danced together instead.

But you do not ask. And your eyes are filled with lead. And then I must tell you I only danced with her because one of the other gentlemen snubbed her and I would not see her embarrassed in public, and that's that, and if you wish to have such a conversation with me, it can be done far better. Thus I bid you good-day. And as I walk out, I sense the hesitation and small tremble of your lip as you stare at the back of my shoulder blades.

And I know you wish to say sorry, but you are too proud.

I swear, this will be the death of us both.