~you made me out of love /jasper+lethe

Lethe stole away into the bathroom the first chance she got.

The wedding festivities had drawn to a close around one in the morning with a finale of fireworks shooting off over the glass roof and a great deal of congratulations directed towards the bride and groom. Lethe had only time to kiss Eden good-night before her mother whisked her off and the grand wedding party escorted them loudly into a private vehicle and back to the hotel. All the while, Lethe thanked her admirers and buried her face in the flowers that had been thrust into her hand. They weren't alone in their car ride, instead surrounded by Capitol escorts, nor were they even allowed one another's company up the elevator to their room. An Avox arrived ready to take Lethe's shoes from her sore feet and relieve her of the flowers. Finally, they were led to the bridal suite, where two boxes sat on a rose petal littered bed, and the door closed and it was just them. Jasper and Lethe. Mr. and Mrs.

And that's when Lethe, yanking the box with her name off the bed, closed herself into the bathroom. How fitting, she realized as she set on the edge of the bathtub, cradling the box in her lap. The part of the night she feared the most and here she was, where it all began, I a bathroom. In retrospect, had she not found her way into a bathroom, to a bathtub, she wouldn't even have been married to Jasper. Her mother needn't have pushed so hard for a marriage had she not popped Eden out nine months after that fateful night in the bathtub.

Her hands trembled over the top of the box in her hands. There had been one labeled for Jasper and her mother's signature was in the corner of both. Lethe didn't have to reach far to guess what it was. A white nightgown. Lethe raised it slowly from the box, the tissue paper crinkling as it slid off the silk. No doubt Jasper's box contained some new pajamas. There was a sheer shawl wrapped in some more tissue paper and also--Lethe's cheeks burned as she produced it--a box of prophylactics. She could almost hear her mother's words ringing in her ears, "If only you had these a few years ago." Of course, Lethe was a married woman now, but perhaps her mother feared Lethe becoming pregnant on her wedding night and rumors circulating that the marriage was a rushed cover-up for an earlier conception.

For a long time, she sat at the edge of the tub, staring at the box in her hands, holding it gingerly as if she was afraid of being burned. Outside the bathroom, she could hear some shuffling around. Perhaps Jasper were changing and Lethe, still clad in her wedding dress, suddenly felt self-conscious. She couldn't remerge still in her wedding dress. That would be rude and there was a different intimate feeling surrounding getting undressed to change in another thing, something more sexy, than simply getting undressed. At least, once Lethe undressed tonight, she'd be able to sink under blankets and stay there. Changing from her wedding dress and into the pajamas before him would reveal her vulnerability. He'd be able to see every crack in her skin, see her hands hastily pull the nightgown over her head.

She changed in the bathroom, unzipping the wedding dress by herself and letting her elegant hair down. It was a surprise to her that she had to do all this on her own and not with the help of Mel or even an Avox. Perhaps this was a sort of test. On Lethe's wedding night, she was alone, on her own. Could she do this all by herself? Sleep beside a man she was determined to turn away from? And yet, his was inescapable. His wedding vows seemed to have been stamped upon the side of her skull. She felt her lips moving in time with them. Her ring burned with his touch and yet, she let him hold her hand, let him kiss her, dance with her, press cake to her tongue. He didn’t singe her—the wedding did. She could hear his whispers, “I want to spend my life with you” and he echoed “with you…with you…with you…”

The silk nightgown was soft against her skin and she shivered and pulled the shawl around her shoulders. Her feet were bare and she could see that there a tiny chip on the pink nail polish on her big toe. Her mother would have a fit if she saw it: “You can’t go to your wedding bed with chipped nail polish!”

And then despite herself, Lethe snorted with laughter, just imagining her mother now, sitting up in her bed, biting her own manicured nails, wondering, wondering if her daughter was following a silly old wedding tradition, coming out like a gift clad in white, before diving between the sheets. Beside her, her husband snored on, worn out from the party. How silly her mother was surely being, dancing about her room. When will she get another grand child? Perhaps a boy! Twins! That red-haired Victor had had twins; was it genetic in Victors? Lethe imagined her siblings getting drunk at the bar downstairs (probably with a few Victors) and little Eden, sucking her thumb, maybe having fallen asleep beside her new best friend Daisy. Only Mrs. Turner, the anxious one.

Maybe this was for the best because Mrs. Turner could boss around a single mother, but a married one? Never! Yet as soon as that thought passed through Lethe’s mind, she exhaled it with another snort of laughter. Her? Tell her mother off? Surely not. Her mother would be bossing her around from her deathbed and Lethe, she knew, would happily comply.

Well, Lethe thought to herself, I’ve solved the problem to my mother; there is no solution. Now, that boy, that man, my husband, just beyond the wall…Lethe quietly laid her ear against the bathroom wall, but heard nothing on the other side. Perhaps he was listening for her as well, trying to feel his way into her, trying to understand her. He wrote such beautiful poems, charmed her mother, her family and yet the girl he just married would kiss him for a night and then disappear into her room, pulling the blinds down tight. There was silence and Lethe felt her stomach lurch and teeter slightly. Was this going to be her marriage? Listen at doors, a wall always between them, ears pressed to the cold paint—she jerked away, chest suddenly heaving.

She could hear their voices, those she’d shoved six feet under, sense their fingers on her skin, pressing into her eyelids. Saskia and Razor, she prayed to them, help me break the silence that you cannot.

Her hand quivered over the doorknob, the cool metal tickling her palm. She could stay in here all night, but the silence, she knew, would drive her mad. She opened the door with a creak, louder, like a gunshot, “Jasper?”

He was lying across the sheets in his own silk pajamas and upon seeing him waiting there, Lethe, closing the door being her, swallowed hard and leaned against it, arms limp at her side. Her insides were fluttering. His head was resting on his arm and the crook of his elbow made a right angle. A part of her wanted to kiss it, that tiny crook of his elbow, but another part of her kept her anchored to her spot, head rushing from his elbow to his lips to her mother, pacing, pacing about her room. The elbow. And suddenly, she couldn’t tear her eyes away from it, his stupid little elbow, that tiny part of him, that right angle, as she sighed out quietly, “We need to talk.”
*Thank you again to Zoe for this beautiful template!