Fall in love in a weekwe get by

– So who stopped you from telling me right away, and not organizing this idiotic masquerade? Or send Maskelyne and the Academy to hell?! You did neither, instead crying in the corners. Why?

– These sobs were given to you! I didn’t invite you to my home!

– Yes, you were on the verge of hysterics from the very morning. The damned cupcakes almost shed tears! And then a loving idiot at the same time!

“Oh, yes,” I suddenly calmed down. Only it was some kind of wrong calm. Icy and ringing, evil. Requiring to strike back, to repay pain with pain. – It was only because of hysteria and clouding of my mind that I won only two games out of five against you.

I felt a pang of melancholy: but we played great…

“A pleasant, but not long-lasting enlightenment between hysteria and insanity,” Norwood pricked me, and I again internally bristled with icy needles. Why is he doing this to me? Is it necessary to insult and humiliate? – Which only confirms that I'm right.

– Of course, how can you be wrong! What a tragedy, he was prevented from obediently folding his paws and thoughtfully preparing for death! Men! Cowards who blame women for everything.

I was carried away, and only some tiny thoughtful part, which probably did not get Charlotte’s hysteria, mumbled and mumbled: “You know perfectly well why he is like this. And why? And what are you wrong about? Yes, you wanted what was best, but it was your “better.” He doesn’t have to agree with you in his opinions.”

And it became increasingly difficult not to listen to her. If it weren't for Norwood… not his reproaches and my resentment… to hell with them, with reproaches, if he admitted that I deserve at least a tiny chance!

– You don’t know men well. Or you don’t know at all. But, as I see, the typical female desire to draw erroneous conclusions for another is characteristic of you.

– Of course! Like all other female vices and shortcomings. – But we both are carried… him too. What is this? What are we going to end up fighting like this?! “Of course, it’s easier to die than to at least try to see something good in me!”

Here you go. For the first time in your life, you spoke out loud about the most important and most painful thing, the achievement is unlocked, congratulations… Freya Sullivan, once again rejected by a man. We bet he won't hear?

“Don’t you think that in a week I could discover a little more than in two days?” If only I knew where to look and where to look!

Did you hear?

He heard?..

And even… were you even ready to look for this hypothetical good? Same? As I?

But what's the point of that now?

“I don’t think so,” I almost cried from bitter, not even feminine, but some kind of childish resentment. On him, on life, on fate… the fact that a man heard me, after all, heard me… who doesn’t need me anyway. “You wouldn’t waste your last week on nonsense.” They just said it themselves.

And why do you so painfully, painfully want him to object, to refute? Convinced that this is not nonsense?

– Did you magically determine the volume, quality and structure of my nonsense? Considering that you understand magic like a pig in oranges, it is understandable why the result is so disastrous. For two days I thought that this was just another machination of Madame Headmistress! And I tried to understand why she needed it!

– Just two days? – I asked absentmindedly. Just so as not to remain silent, silence now would kill me more accurately than a curse.

– Of course. “I don’t know what was happening with Norwood, but he suddenly also spoke much calmer.” – Because she, unlike some, has a brain. And she would not have provided me with such a disastrous performance, even if she had set a goal. And there was no reason.

– Of course it wasn’t! She was quite happy with the state of things. ?since Charlotte was following you…

– Did you follow? – he winced slightly, “Don’t make Miss Blair’s person more significant than she was.” Did you report on my official movements and correspondence? About the brutal treatment of students? Yes, sure. And Madame Headmistress had much more compelling reasons not to change anything. So the initiator of such oddities could only be Miss Blair herself. I even thought about blackmail and a magical oath, but that’s not about her, it’s too complicated. However, we have deviated from the topic. You provided me with a pointless waste of time that lasted several days. At least try to explain why.

I turned away – I could no longer see his face, hold his gaze. Now Norwood stood behind me, and the lake spread out in front of me. Quiet, calm. But it also seemed to be looking and condemning.