Chapter Text
Colin
Everyone gave Colin a break the rest of the afternoon. No one disturbed him as he wallowed in his bedroom. He watched the people out his window as they were living their happy lives, ignorant to his plight.
The vacant warmth in Penelope’s eyes replayed again and again. He was nothing to her. Nothing to one of the only people outside of his family that meant a damn to him.
The leather bound journal in his lap was worn as his thumb absentmindedly moved back and forth along its cover.
“It’s just a little something to keep track of your adventures.” Penelope’s lips lift into a wide smile as she hands him the wrapped gift.
Colin was set to leave the next day on his first quest at finding something more for himself. The redhead before him is one of his best motivators. The idea of traveling was just a fever dream when he voiced the fantasy to his dearest friend.
She made it sound not as childish and crazy as he thought others would. It allowed him to feel free enough to push past the fear of others expectations and just do it.
“Pen… you didn’t have to.” He begins to tear at the gift wrap and once he reveals the treasure beneath he looks up at her.
“I’m sure you’ll probably have your computer to document things. I just figured no explorer should go without a leather bound journal to record his escapades.” The telltale sign of a blush begins to spread over her pale cheeks.
The brown leather journal is bound beautifully. A tie wraps around it in the same material of leather. On the bottom right corner his initials are inlaid in gold. He couldn’t ever find the right occasion to write in it. It felt too precious and too sentimental. But he always kept it close for the right moment he could set pen to paper.
He looks down at the blank pages once he opens it. He stands, walking over to his desk and sits down.
The reality of the situation he finds himself in smacked him like a freight train when he looked into her eyes. When he sees her after an exciting trip, she’s always the first he talks to about his adventures. She’s not rolling her eyes or yawning because she’s bored. She’s actually listening .
But this time? None of that. No chummy inside jokes or small, shy smiles from her. Just… nothing.
The pages are meant to look aged with a darker tone than white and rough edges. There’s no lines but he prefers it that way. Margins only mean no room for mistakes… and he’s aware he makes plenty.
His phone rings suddenly, breaking him out of his reverie and he almost doesn’t answer it. His eyes catch the contact's name and his heart almost stills within his chest.
“Fuck! Ella…”
He stared at the picture of them on the white sands of some beach in Greece. She’s looking up at him with a huge smile as his own eyes look out along the horizon. His mind elsewhere as a lazy smile graces his lips.
It rings again. And again.
He’s already made a giant mess of things with Penelope.
Now the one woman who’s trusted him without question as he dropped everything and traveled over a thousand miles away without an explanation…
“Hello?” Colin finally answers because he’s made a big enough mess of his life. A big part of him does love Ella. Just… not like she should be loved. Not when his mind and heart are tangled up in this with Penelope.
“Agapi mou…” Ella says with a smile in her voice, calling me her love. “Guess where I am?!”
“Where’s that?” He asks as he tries to focus completely on his fiancé.
“The airport! I’ll be at Heathrow in a few hours.” Colin stands so quickly in surprise that he gets a little lightheaded at Ella’s announcement.
“Really? I thought you had wedding stuff to do.” The hot knife twisting within his heart causing him to rub his chest. He feels on the verge of a panic attack. He’s a wreck. A constant mess of unknowns and not enough.
“I missed you too much, my love.” She spoke softly, that same voice she had whenever her beautiful features stretched into a smile.
“I miss you too.” He’s not lying either. The reason he’d felt such a compulsion towards Ella was because of how she made him feel. He wasn’t a flighty and uninspired leech. He was someone she could depend on.
Was…
Now he stood in his childhood bedroom and fantasized about how to win back another woman. Something terrible began to fester in Colin’s heart. A darkness he hadn't realized he had but he didn’t like it. The taste it left within his mouth felt foreign. He wasn’t this person. He wasn’t someone who willfully hurt other people.
He’d fucked up everything by being so incredibly blind to his real feelings. Now there was this implosion about to burst within his life and he didn’t know how to stop it. Didn’t even know if it was possible to stop it.
There’s a soft knock on his door that causes his head to turn sharply.
“Hey, mate.” Benedict smiled softly as he leaned against the doorframe. He crossed his arms over his chest and waited patiently.
“I’ll be there to get you when you get in. Text me your arrival time.” He spoke to Ella because he couldn’t do this over the phone. It wasn’t fair to her. She was perfect in every way and she didn’t deserve any of what was going on inside his head.
“All right. I’ll see you soon.” She spoke in that soft voice that always seemed to calm him down but now it just caused the twist in his gut to worsen.
“Sounds great.”
Once they hung up, Colin put the journal from Pen inside his desk’s top drawer. His eyes rising towards his best friend and brother. Ben just stood there for a moment with a frown marring his features.
“I’ve rallied the troops. Anthony, Michael, and Simon are waiting at the pub but we could just go out with the two of us.” Ben steps closer to Colin and places a hand on his shoulder.
Colin takes a deep breath as he swings his eyes back towards the drawer holding his only lifeline to the past where Pen could’ve been his.
“I can’t do this, Ben. I can’t breathe. Fuck. She was home and now she’s gone.” Colin sits against his bed as he feels almost too weak to stand on his feet.
Ben moves to shut Colin’s bedroom door to allow for some privacy in this moment.
“It’s like… she’s gone. We talked all the time. I’d send her pictures and emails and she’d keep me sane when I was stuck in my writing. She made me feel safe and whole and now she’s gone. I can’t breathe.” Colin breaks then as Ben wraps an arm around his shoulder to offer support.
“I wish things could’ve been different. I can’t imagine this is easy,” Ben spoke softly to his brother as he held him close. He’d never seen his carefree brother so heartbroken.
“And now Ella.. fuck!” Colin runs his hands over his face roughly as he pulls from his brother’s arm. He tugs at the ends of his hair in frustration. “I’ve really made a mess of things, haven’t I?”
“Something Sophie taught me a long time ago is that we all make mistakes. Look at me… I let the influences of society make me doubt that Sophie was the one for me. I almost screwed up the best thing in my life. She was ready to leave me. But I admitted my mistakes and I didn’t let it tear me down. I fixed it. I begged and pleaded and did everything I could to make sure she knew she was what mattered the most to me.” Benedict paused briefly as if lost in the memories. “I know it’s not the same. Nothing and no one’s experiences are ever the same.”
“She looked at me like I was nothing.” Colin whispers, his heart reliving the painful moment she stepped into the kitchen. “That wasn’t my Penelope.”
Benedict rests a hand on Colin’s shoulder. “Colin… she was never yours. I think you need to remember that as hard as this is… there’s no changing it. Penelope made a choice and she’s different.”
“You think I don’t know that?” Colin scoffed and bent his knees to rest his elbows on them.
“No. I don’t. I think you’re hoping for some kind of miracle here. Did you think you’d show up and she’d look into your eyes and just remember and you’d live happily ever after?” Colin hates how well his brother knows him. Is it a crime to hope for everything to have been simple? “What she did is irreversible and totally her choice. It’s been strange for all of us but she’s so fucking happy , Col.”
Colin shook his head and let his head fall forward. “Yeah.. I saw and continually hear how happy she is without the memories of me. The same memories that I will cherish until my dying day.”
“I think maybe you need to take some time away.” Ben suggests and Colin looks at him like he’s insane. “My best brotherly advice right now is to take some time for you. Break it off with Ella because this isn’t fair to her. But don’t pursue Penelope. At least not yet. She’s not the same person you have in your head and she deserves to experience this time of freedom.”
Colin looked up at his ceiling and laughed humorlessly. “Is this one of those ‘if you love it set it free’ things?”
Benedict couldn’t help but chuckle and he nodded. “Yes. When I first met Sophie, I wasn’t ready either. I was young and dumb and beyond immature. It’s a blessing and a curse. A blessing because she got the best version of me and a curse because we missed out on that time. But I wasn’t ready for her.”
A while later after Benedict had headed home to his wife and kids, Colin pulled out his journal from Pen again. He untied the leather knot and opened it to the first page. The familiar script on the first page is a welcome sight.
‘The magic thing about home is that it feels good to leave and it feels even better to come back’
I’ll always be waiting patiently for you to come home. Don’t forget about us.
Sincerely, Penelope