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Violet Baudelaire fell in love for the first and only time at Prufrock Prep.
Violet Baudelaire fell in love for the first and only time with Isadora Quagmire.
It wasn’t some big, grand sweeping realization with swooning and blushing; rather, for Violet, it was simply fact.
She learned to write poetry.
Started writing some of her own. She keeps a box under her bed of poems that will go to no one.
They’re all about her. Isadora.
Dramatic as it may be, Violet always writes her poetry in the candlelight. When everyone else has gone to bed, she sneaks from their shared bedroom to the kitchen, lights a candle, and writes.
The candlelight reminds her of Isadora. Reminds her of that night at Prufrock Prep where the two snuck into the library after dark and read books together, and talked, and wrote, and drew, all under the light of a single candle.
Violet can still see her face in the flame sometimes, though recently she’s started to forget. Even so, Isadora has latched herself onto Violet's heart.
Tonight, Violet found herself grieving more so than usual. Her heart weighed extra heavy as she slowly tread into the kitchen. It was like her legs were made of stone, like her body was anticipating the heartbreak Violet was going to put herself through once more. She trudged to the dining table, plopping down into her usual chair, and setting her notebook and favorite pen down.
This time, she did something different. She still lit the candle, still saw the ghost of Isadora in the flames, but this time she didn’t write. This time she drew. Violet was a mediocre artist at best, more attuned to mechanical illustration rather than organic, but she needed to do something to try and immortalize Isadora's face, rather than just her feelings for Isadora.
She tried. She tried so hard, believe me.
But, whether it was her mediocre artistic ability or the withering of Isadora's face in her memory, Violet couldn’t capture the likeness of the face that haunted her. There was something off with each drawing in a way Violet couldn’t really describe. She didn’t look real enough. The sparkle in her eyes when she was reading Violet her poetry was missing. The shape of her teeth as she smiled at Violet's compliments was off. The blush on her cheeks as Violet kissed her for the first and only time was wrong. It was all just wrong.
Violet cried harder that night. Violet wrote more than she ever had. Violet, in her desperation, lit even more candles, hoping maybe she’d see enough of Isadora's face in each one that she could fully piece together her likeness.
This terrified Violet beyond belief. If she couldn’t fully remember what Isadora looked like now, would she inevitably forget her altogether? Will she forget the sound of her laugh, too? The way her hands felt in her own? The smell of her shampoo? The feeling that flutters in her chest at the mention of her name?
No. No, no, no. She can’t. Isadora can’t just exist in her memory; she deserves better than that. She deserves to be remembered forever.
That night, she wrote until her body gave out, and she slumped over her paper.
And so was her routine. Each night she wrote until she couldn’t anymore, whether it was from her exhaustion or inability to read her own writing through her tears, she always pushed herself to collapse. Klaus found out after a few nights of this, while Violet wasn’t exactly keeping it a secret, she also wasn’t eager to explain to her brother what she did every night. Thankfully, he said nothing else other than to make sure she snuffs the candle out before falling asleep.
She did this until she had two boxes worth of notebooks filled to the brim with poems. She’s not even sure how many candles she burned through in the process, still able to see enough of her muse in each one that she continued to light them.
She started to shift to letters recently. Isadora's face is nothing more than a blur in her mind now, and honestly, she finds writing letters to be easier than poems when the person she loved felt more like a ghost than a person.
Dear Isadora, my love,
It has been 4 years since we first met at Prufrock Prep. It has been 4 years since I’ve fallen in love with someone who I can not have. I don’t know if you’re alive, I still check the papers and radio broadcasts every day, hoping maybe I’ll hear news of your safety, but in all honesty, I’ve begun to lose hope. I know you and your brothers are strong enough to survive any obstacles you face, but despite that there is a gnawing feeling in my gut that tells me you no longer walk this earth with me, and I’ve only recently started to accept that. I thought that coming to terms with this would mean letting go, yet I can not find it within my heart to stop loving you, even if yours no longer beats. I can’t remember what you look like anymore, and I think that hurts more than potentially losing you. On the bright side, my birthday is in a few days, I am almost nineteen now, it’s weird to think about how I’ve continued to age and, in my mind at least, you haven’t. I miss you dearly, love, though I never even got the chance to call you that. If you are alive, I hope, I pray even, that you’ll find this, along with all the other things I’ve written about you, so that you can see the extent of my love for you.
Love,
Violet Baudelaire
In many, many years, an archeologist will find these letters, and these poems, and they’ll wonder what kind of a person you have to be to be loved this dearly. And they’ll wonder, not what Isadora looked like, or acted like, because Violet has already put into words everything you could ever want to know about Isadora, but rather how one person can hold this much affection in their heart. They’ll wonder how Violet didn’t implode from the sheer amount of adoration she contained. And they’ll realize that despite the obvious tear stains on every paper, Violet poured her love into each word written upon these pages, to try and lessen the weight of her yearning for Isadora.
Perhaps Isadora was never meant to be immortalized in pictures.
Perhaps she was always meant to be captured in words. Preserved in poetry written in the candlelight.