My last hope

Class ended quickly and by the time Jenny exited the school building, she saw Julia waiting for her on a bench near the exit. She waved at her and followed her to her car. Jason would hang out in the city center with Harry and George. Once she was done, he would come pick her up and they would head home together. After a short drive Julia entered a cute little tea house. They sat down and both ordered something to drink and a piece of freshly made cake. They started off with some chit chat. Once the drinks and cake arrived, they got serious. Julia averted her eyes and pointed them on the glass of tea in front of her instead. She let out a small cough to clear her throat and started her side of the story.

"Well, you already heard about Harry's side of the story and I imagine it wasn't all that good for me. As we agreed today I will tell you my side of what happened between Harry and myself. Hopefully it will make you understand why I did what I did and make you want to help me make up with Harry. Our families have been close for many years, decades even. This made our grandparents decide, way back when, that our families should be joined together by marriage. When they couldn't fulfill the promise they had made each other with their offspring, they came to the agreement that the promise would be handed over to their grandchildren. To let a bond between us grow, both families visited each other as much as possible. So Harry and I got to know each other from a very early age and practically grew up together.

As we grew older, I started to notice my feelings for Harry had slowly changed. I hadn't quite figured out what I wanted to do with those changed feelings. Nor did I know if those feelings were that of me feeling awkward around a boy my age whose body was starting to change or if I actually liked him. You see, back then I attended an all-girls school and he was the only non-blood related male around my age that I came into contact with. Before I could determine these things, our parents told us that they wanted us to get engaged. They would give us a month to decide if we wanted to go through with this or not. When Harry talked to me about his views on the engagement I started to think that maybe he was right. He made it sound like rejecting the engagement was the best thing to do, by telling me that he wanted me to find a guy I truly loved and wanted me to experience the feeling of falling in love. Instead of settling for someone our parents had chosen. After all, we had been side by side like brother and sister and I was uncertain about my feelings. I didn't want to be engaged just to form a connection between two families. So I agreed to his plan. At first...

However, after that we were forced to spend that month "getting to know each other". So we went on dates, had dinner with each other and even went on a weekend away. During this time my feelings of like turned into love. It was completely different from what I felt for my family and it was intense. All it had taken was one month for me to fall head over heals in love with him. In our world few are lucky enough to be in love with their proposed partner, so I was getting quite excited for making it all official. I had taken his words before as words of concern for me and not as his being completely unwilling to marry me. I thought he too had never looked at me like that, so he didn't want to force a connection based on our feelings at that point in time. I had hoped that during our time together, his feelings for me had grown as well just like mine had. That he felt our connection like I did. And if not, they could always develop after we had gotten engaged. However, it turned out I had looked at our "dates" through my own pink colored glasses and had seen things that weren't there. So when my father asked me, on the day before our second meet with the parents, how I felt about all of this, I told him the truth. My truth.

When the next morning came and my father told them what I had said, they took it as the full truth. With no protest from either of us before then, nor at that moment, they pushed the engagement through. After the meeting I went up to Harry to talk about it all, he got angry with me and said that I had betrayed him. After that day he ignored me completely. Only during official occasions would he fake the fiance act with me, but other than that he gave me nothing but angry looks and angry words whenever I tried to talk to him. At that time I did not understand at all. In my eyes we had spent a lovely month together, we grew closer and now we could make ourselves and our parents happy by getting engaged. Later I found out that he had taken our talk as a promise to him and that I was his hope of getting out of our engagement, but by then it was too late and the damage had already been done." After she said these words she finally looked up from her glass and looked at Jenny with tear filled eyes. She ended with "Jenny, I want nothing more than for Harry and I to get along like we used to. For me to regain the friends I have lost because of our fight. For him to understand that it was nothing more than a misunderstanding and for him to give this a chance. I still love him very much and have yet to meet someone to evoke such feelings in me. I would do anything to have him back in my life. So, If there is anything in my side of events that you think can help me make up with him, I am all ears. I am at your mercy right now and you might be my last hope. Please help me!"