Whispers of the Heart

What are you supposed to do when you love someone, but it turns out they love someone else entirely? Worse, what if that "someone else" was your best friend? As far as I'm concerned, nothing hurts more.

My name is Terence. I've known the faun Tumnus and the human girl Lucy Pevensie for some time now, and sweeter, truer friends you would never find, even if you looked for a thousand years. I can hardly believe how much Lucy has grown, in what feels like the twinkling of an eye. I can much less believe that I've fallen for her, completely head over heels.

I don't know when it happened, or how, or why. But whenever I look at Lucy these days, something stirs in my heart, and I feel an overwhelming urge to take her in my arms, to hold her and kiss her, to shield her from any kind of harm. For ages, I tried everything to deny it, but nothing changed the fact that I loved her. Heaven help me, how I love her. I've never felt this way about her, or any other girl…save one. Before I returned to Narnia, I was involved with another girl. Her name was—is—Rhiella, the most beautiful, wonderful, irresistible young woman I have ever known. I never knew such love could exist, nor such pain when I lost her. How I'd lost Rhiella is a very deep secret that I wish to keep to myself. I don't know when our paths will cross again, if ever, but I'll never forget her, and I know I can never love another girl in the same way. While my love for Lucy is not as intense as my love for Rhiella, the attraction is there all the same.

Oh, how I longed to tell Lucy the truth of my feelings for her. More than once, I truly tried to bring the secret to light—but I never found the courage. It killed me, almost literally, when Rhiella disappeared from my life; I could not bear that kind of loss a second time. And then I suppose it was just plain cowardice; I was too afraid of how Lucy would react. I cared too much about what she would say, what she would think of me. After all, how do you tell your best friend whom you've known since she was a child that you hold a romantic interest in her? Though I am young by my kind's standards, by Lucy's standards, I'm practically old enough to be her grandfather, maybe even her great-grandfather.

Then, of course, when it came out that Lucy loved Tumnus instead, it was too late.

Of all the people to fall for, the fact that the girl I wanted was in love with the brother of my heart was the most shocking and the most crushing of all. I couldn't believe it. To this day, I still have a hard time taking it in.

What is it Lucy sees in Tumnus that she doesn't see in me? What does Tumnus have that I don't? How is it that my dream is his reality?

Sometimes I want to scream to the heavens at the unfairness of it. Though I never say it aloud, in my heart I agonize, Oh, Tumnus, Lucy, how can you do this to me? Yet even as I think that, I feel sick with shame and guilt.

What right do I have to tell Lucy where to channel her affections? What right do I have to rob my friends of their happiness for the sake of my own? I could never betray them that way. I'd never forgive myself.

And I'm not wholly without heart; a part of me is truly happy for them. Anything that matters to Lucy and Tumnus matters to me, too. Their happiness is my happiness.

But where does this leave me? What am I to do, now?

I suppose all I can do is bear the pain in silence.

All I can do is accept the cold, hard fact that my friends are in love, that they're meant for each other…that certain dreams simply were not meant to come true.