Four days had passed. Four days, seven hours, and an immeasurable eternity of minutes during which I found myself staring at my phone with an odd desperation that, had anyone seen me, would have surely prompted questions about my sanity. Alistair, of all people, had been the cause of this silence, and though he was family, I was prepared to sacrifice our thinly held allegiance if it meant I’d hear from Jessica once more. And then, at last, I did.
A message, short and unembellished, appeared on my phone: “Percival, can we meet to talk? Tomorrow at the café.”
It was hardly the letter one might expect from a lady, yet at that moment it might as well have been gilded. I arrived at the café the next day, determined to be the very picture of calm and charm, though my insides twisted. When Jessica entered, the sight of her was enough to calm, even if only momentarily, the clamor of my heart. She moved with that effortless poise I so admired. She ordered her coffee, and for once, I didn’t offer to carry it. I held back, feeling the weight of her independence, sensing it as both her right and a small stab to my own instinctive gallantry.
I ordered a simple tea and paid the bill without my usual fuss. We took our seats, the very same ones where we had first sat those weeks ago, and I managed a small smile. I was still the Percival she knew, but I felt smaller now, somehow humbled. As the steam rose from her cup, I knew this moment was to be as delicate as the tendrils of smoke spiraling between us.
“Jessica,” I began, my voice betraying the slightest tremor. “It is with a heavy heart that I apologize - for Alistair, and for the unspeakable offense he caused you.”
Her face softened a little, but I could still see a wariness in her eyes. I leaned forward, the words spilling faster than I intended. “I do not think of you as some… casual dalliance, as they put it. You are, indeed, so very much more. I never intended for you to feel… less.”
Jessica sighed, her fingers tracing the rim of her cup. “Percival, I appreciate you saying that. And believe me, I wanted so much to believe it.”
“Then believe it,” I pleaded, my hands clenching as I fought to keep my voice steady. “For in all honesty, I am not accustomed to the sort of… attachment that I find myself feeling. It is strange, yes, but you - ” I broke off, realizing I was veering into unfamiliar territory. “You’ve come to mean more to me than I perhaps understand.”
Jessica’s gaze was gentle but firm. She placed her hand on mine, and I could feel the warmth radiate through her touch. But there was sadness in her eyes.
“Percival, I have to be honest with you,” she said, her voice soft, yet each word cut deeply. “I do care about you, more than I expected to. I never thought… I never thought this would become so serious for me.”
My heart lifted, only to drop as she continued.
“But I also have to be realistic,” she added, her tone heavier. “Alistair may have been blunt, but in a way, he was only saying what I’d been trying not to think myself.” She drew a deep breath. “We’re from different worlds, Percival. I know you’ve felt it, too. When you kept silent at the party and didn’t respond to your cousin…I knew it was true. You and I both know our worlds are miles apart and this, us, it won’t work out.”
I sat back, stung by the truth of her words. She went on, each phrase deliberate.
“At first, I’ll admit, I was charmed. It felt like…like a bit of time travel, dating someone as formal, as principled, as you,” she said, her lips curling into a sad smile. “But I can’t ignore the reality. You’re a man bound by tradition, by your way of living, and it’s beautiful in a way. But I can’t see myself as just… someone you marry out of duty, or worse, someone you think you need to save. I’m not a woman who can just sit at home and be some… housewife to an aristocrat.”
I felt the words as though they were stones being carefully laid into place, creating an insurmountable wall between us. She saw through my life in a way I had never expected, and it left me both awed and hopelessly bereft.
“Jessica…” I whispered, barely able to say her name without choking on it. “I would never want that for you. I… I would not wish to extinguish that spark of yours, the one that makes you who you are.”
A glimmer of tears touched her eyes as she looked at me, and she took a breath before delivering what felt like the final blow.
“It’s not just that, Percival,” she said, her voice faltering. “I love you. I really do. But that’s precisely why I can’t be with you. I can’t be with someone whose world I’ll never fit into. It’d be like trying to fit a square into a triangle.”
And then she did something unexpected, something that quite shattered my composure: she leaned forward and pressed her lips softly against my cheek. A farewell, as tender as it was final. Her hand lingered on mine, and in that touch, I felt a lifetime of words unsaid. Then, before I could gather myself, before I could reach out and stop her, she stood and walked out, leaving me sitting alone.
I watched her go, every part of me held in place as though bound by some invisible thread of pride or dignity. But when she was out of sight, my restraint crumbled. I felt my formality break, saw the edges of my self - control wither and disintegrate into a hollow ache.
For a long time, I sat in that café, letting the noise around me fall into silence as I tried to reconcile my own heart with the truth she had left me. It was there, in that small café, that I abandoned all pretense and allowed myself to mourn - not with the quiet dignity of a gentleman, but as a man who had, for the first time, realized just how empty his world might be without the woman he had lost. And so, in a most undignified fashion, I let the tears fall.