[TM] 264 - Faulkner Quote
Jan. 5th, 2009 09:45 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
elementof_risk"The past is never dead. It's not even past." William Faulkner, Requiem for a Nun.
He thought he'd moved on.
Such a simple concept, really, and one drilled into his head from an early age. You always moved on, from the job, from the assignment, from the employer, from the house, from the city, from the country, from the bed, from the person, from the feelings, if you ever felt them at all. Life went on, and you survived through it, and you never looked back. For years he'd lived it, with nary a thought to the contrary. Allison's death, while regrettable, had barely made a dent, and while he'd taken her back to his bed, told her the words again, that he'd always loved her, she'd been "gone" two years at that point, and he'd long since made whatever peace he needed to make with her being dead. By the time she fell again, what did it really matter? She had already been a ghost.
But a multitude of broken bones set and healed and an escape and a few continents and a whole new life tried on and discarded and a return to the old ways and a mother-figure lost and a legacy crumbled and another fortune inherited and new wounds healed and a new empire beginning to be built, one of his own, where he answered to no one but himself, where he found he had a shred of ambition to be his own master after all, and all it took was one glimpse through a crowded club, and he knew that moving on was sometimes a lie. Somethings you never quite moved on from. You survived them, you got on with life because you had to, because life went on and you had to move forward or you would die, but you didn't truly move on.
He was angry; no, he was furious. He'd grieved. He'd found himself bereft in a way he'd never felt before. She'd made him feel weak in ways that weren't acceptable, breaking codes he tried to cling to as he navigated the treacherous waters of their world. He'd cried for her, in front of Vaughn no less, and her loss, more than anything had almost scared him straight, and all for what? For nothing? She was out there moving on with her life as if he meant nothing while he dreamed of her? And just when he thought he'd exorcised her, finally, when he'd at least found another obsession with someone who wasn't ever going to give him the time of day again after the things he'd done, she showed up, and he was right back where he was, feeling like he was still twenty-four, fighting the urge to shake her until she admitted she loved him the same way he loved her. And she was as cool as ever, keeping him at a distance and driving him mad with it.
That he'd learned to play the game better over the three years they were apart didn't change the turmoil inside. That he was stronger now, more assured, no one's lackey, didn't matter when she looked at him like she could take him or leave him, like she could walk out the door again and never look back. He felt himself retreating back behind the sullen icy veneer of his youth instead of the easier smiles that he'd found in the last year or so. The lighter teasing manner disappeared around her into the sharper edges again, as if he was bracing himself for blows, physical and metaphorical that hadn't come in years. It was defensive, and he knew it, and he hated operating from there again. He'd thought he'd moved on from that as well, and he kept struggling to make her see the man he'd grown into instead of the boy he'd been.
But it seemed, he was learning, that where Lauren Reed was concerned, he'd moved on very little at all, and the past was never truly going to be the past.
He thought he'd moved on.
Such a simple concept, really, and one drilled into his head from an early age. You always moved on, from the job, from the assignment, from the employer, from the house, from the city, from the country, from the bed, from the person, from the feelings, if you ever felt them at all. Life went on, and you survived through it, and you never looked back. For years he'd lived it, with nary a thought to the contrary. Allison's death, while regrettable, had barely made a dent, and while he'd taken her back to his bed, told her the words again, that he'd always loved her, she'd been "gone" two years at that point, and he'd long since made whatever peace he needed to make with her being dead. By the time she fell again, what did it really matter? She had already been a ghost.
But a multitude of broken bones set and healed and an escape and a few continents and a whole new life tried on and discarded and a return to the old ways and a mother-figure lost and a legacy crumbled and another fortune inherited and new wounds healed and a new empire beginning to be built, one of his own, where he answered to no one but himself, where he found he had a shred of ambition to be his own master after all, and all it took was one glimpse through a crowded club, and he knew that moving on was sometimes a lie. Somethings you never quite moved on from. You survived them, you got on with life because you had to, because life went on and you had to move forward or you would die, but you didn't truly move on.
He was angry; no, he was furious. He'd grieved. He'd found himself bereft in a way he'd never felt before. She'd made him feel weak in ways that weren't acceptable, breaking codes he tried to cling to as he navigated the treacherous waters of their world. He'd cried for her, in front of Vaughn no less, and her loss, more than anything had almost scared him straight, and all for what? For nothing? She was out there moving on with her life as if he meant nothing while he dreamed of her? And just when he thought he'd exorcised her, finally, when he'd at least found another obsession with someone who wasn't ever going to give him the time of day again after the things he'd done, she showed up, and he was right back where he was, feeling like he was still twenty-four, fighting the urge to shake her until she admitted she loved him the same way he loved her. And she was as cool as ever, keeping him at a distance and driving him mad with it.
That he'd learned to play the game better over the three years they were apart didn't change the turmoil inside. That he was stronger now, more assured, no one's lackey, didn't matter when she looked at him like she could take him or leave him, like she could walk out the door again and never look back. He felt himself retreating back behind the sullen icy veneer of his youth instead of the easier smiles that he'd found in the last year or so. The lighter teasing manner disappeared around her into the sharper edges again, as if he was bracing himself for blows, physical and metaphorical that hadn't come in years. It was defensive, and he knew it, and he hated operating from there again. He'd thought he'd moved on from that as well, and he kept struggling to make her see the man he'd grown into instead of the boy he'd been.
But it seemed, he was learning, that where Lauren Reed was concerned, he'd moved on very little at all, and the past was never truly going to be the past.
