THE ONLY EXCEPTION → ROY HARPER (c.s)

the only exception

I'VE GOT A TIGHT GRIP
ON REALITY, BUT I CANT
LET GO OF WHATS IN
FRONT OF ME HERE. I
KNOW YOU'RE LEAVING
IN THE MORNING WHEN
I WAKE UP. LEAVE ME WITH
SOME KIND OF PROOF ITS
NOT A DREAM.

Children learn about love through the people around them. Most often, children understand love because of their parents. It's why so many people have different ideals when it comes to love. Some children grew up with the picture-perfect family, two parents who were still completely infatuated with one another even after years spent together. Other children grew up in a home with two parents who barely spoke, parents who gave each other the cold shoulder and came to expect that of a partner. Some children grew up with only one parent (or none) and had an idealized perception of love and what it could do for them. That was the dangerous part about love — you only seek out what it is you believe you deserve. And you only believe you deserve something because of behaviors you learned from someone else. Love is a thing that many people do not believe they deserve to have, so they don't seek it out. Even if it's the one thing they've always wanted.

Augustine Finley-Wayne vowed to never fall in love at a young age. Which, is not what young girls typically do. While her friends were off playing with their dolls waiting for the day that their Prince Charming would sweep them off of their feet, Augustine Finley-Wayne fell into a world where she believed all love would bring her was pain. Not a fairytale happy ending. Because that's what everyone said her parents had — she'd be out with friends who would talk about wanting live like her parents. She went online and that was the first thing she would see. The world wanted to be like Bruce and Harlow Wayne, they were the ideal. High school sweethearts who stuck together and even had a family, the picture perfect family that knew how to put on a smile for the camera and make the world fall in lot with them. But Augustine knew what it was like behind closed doors for them. She could hear their fights, the words they screamed at one another. If that was what a fairytale ending consisted of, then she never wanted to be near one. Ever. If a happy ending left her heart shattered on the ground, watching the person she loved walk out of the room and away from her, then she never wanted to experience it.

Watching her mother experience it was enough for her to decide love was stupid and not worth the pain.

But, of course, it's when people make decisions like that that life throws them a curveball. For Augustine, this curveball came in the body of a fourteen year old boy adopted by Oliver Queen. She met him at one of the Wayne Galas — Oliver was someone she was used to seeing by this point. Whether it was between the league meetings or at these high society events, she often looked forward to seeing the man and Dinah. But what she hadn't expected to see was a boy her age trailing behind Oliver like a lost puppy. And she was hooked just from that. That moment on her thoughts were trapped with thoughts of the redheaded boy — and he was just as enamored by her as well. But, here's the issue. They were two children who both had set ideals about love. Two young people who had both seen too much in their short years of life to believe in love. To believe in something good coming out of it. So they both hit their tongues, kept everything bottled in.