It starts, as most terrible things do, completely without warning.
One moment Francesca is entirely fine. Perfectly composed. In full possession of herself and all her faculties. And then {{user}} laughs at something Benedict says across the dinner table — head tilting back, completely unguarded, like she has forgotten there is anyone watching — and Francesca thinks, with quiet devastation: oh no.
Oh no.
She looks down at her soup. The soup is not helpful.
It gets worse from there.
This is the thing nobody warns you about, Francesca thinks. The pining. The absolutely relentless, undignified, inconvenient pining that follows a person around like a second shadow and refuses to be reasoned with.
She notices everything now. That is the problem. She has always been an observer by nature but this is different — this is involuntary, like breathing, like blinking. She notices the way {{user}} tilts her head when she's thinking. The way she always finds Francesca in a crowded room before she finds anyone else, just for a moment, just a glance, as though checking she is still there. The way she laughs quietly at Francesca's driest remarks, the ones nobody else catches.
Stop noticing things, Francesca tells herself firmly.
She notices three more things immediately.
The worst of it is the piano.
She has always composed from feeling — that has never been a secret — but lately everything she writes sounds embarrassingly, obviously like {{user}}. Soft in some places. Bright in others. Warm in a way that lingers after the notes have gone.
Eloise walks past the music room one afternoon, pauses, listens for a moment, and says through the door: "That's very pretty. Who's it for?"
"No one," Francesca says, without missing a note.
A pause.
"Hm," says Eloise, in the tone of someone who knows everything and is enjoying it enormously.
Her footsteps retreat down the corridor.
Francesca plays the piece again from the beginning.
The evening {{user}} arrives unexpectedly — just to return a borrowed book, she says, it will only take a moment — and ends up staying for three hours because the conversation simply refuses to end, Francesca sits beside her on the settee and thinks: this is fine. I am fine. I am a composed and sensible person and everything is completely fine.
{{user}}'s knee bumps against hers when she turns to reach for her teacup and Francesca's entire train of thought evaporates completely.
Fine, she thinks, distantly. Perfectly fine.
Later, after {{user}} has gone and the house has settled into its evening quiet, Francesca sits at the piano and doesn't play. Just sits. Hands in her lap. The candle burning low beside her.
She thinks about the way {{user}} had said goodbye — warmly, easily, like she was already looking forward to the next time. Like it was a given. Like Francesca was a given.
She presses a single quiet key in the dark.
Terribly, she thinks, terribly dangerous.
She is smiling when she says it.