YOU KEPT ME LIKE A
SECRET BUT I KEPT
YOU LIKE AN OATH.

WHAT ONCE WAS OURS,

There is nary a soul on this good earth that is completely and utterly unknown to anyone on it. No one can be such an enigma that no one understands them. It would be a statistical anomaly, a weird blip in everything the universe once knew. Because, somewhere out there, one person just happens to know the other like the back of their hand. One look and suddenly they just know everything about them. They talk and it's like they opened Pandora's box, suddenly the world was full of light and color because someone understood them. Completely, wholly, fully. In the exact way that human beings crave being understood. Crave having people know who they are. Who they want to be. Everything that they keep so far deep down within themselves, hoping, praying, for the day that someone uncovers it so they do not have to do the same for themselves. Because taking everything they spent years bottling up out of hiding is not easy, nor is it something that people would wish for. Not something that they want to go shuffling through. Life is easier when even you are not privy to knowing everything about yourself. That was what made human beings so complex, no single person is the same. No single person knows everything about themselves. Place a person in a situation they have never been in before and suddenly they become a person they never expected themselves to be. Or they could continue to be the person they always have been. Even if that is the exact opposite of whatever they have tried to be. After all, sometimes the only way that people can fit into society is by changing themselves into the very image of a person they despise. The opinions of others matter far too much in comparison to their own opinion of their self.

At least, that's what people tell themselves to make them feel better when they slowly chip away at the pieces that make them unique to blend in with the mediocrity that is society.

So, no, people are not always privy to knowing what is going on in the world around them. Nor are they always privy to knowing themselves. And the more they push it deep down within themselves, the harder and harder it will be to find. Yet, the ironic part is, no matter how deep they may store it away, there is someone who will be able to find it and bring it to light. The one person who could strike the match and light the candle — the only person that even held the candle and the matches.

Eloise Bridgerton was never the one to push her own identity down, in fact, she lived quite loudly. Proudly so. Having been raised in a family of eight children altogether, she was no stranger to needing to be loud in order to be heard. Especially after she lost her father. She was proud to have come from her family, even if she disagreed with most of them and argued with what most of them did. Even if her very loud, very proud, opinions opposed her siblings. Even if it caused a problem between them — especially between her and her sister Daphne (whom Eloise was not afraid to let know that she disagreed with how she wished to live her life) (she liked to argue that Daphne just wasn't sure what she wanted out of life). But there was always one thing that Eloise Bridgerton refused to say aloud. Saying it out loud meant that she would have to acknowledge that it was actually there. And she didn't want to do that. No, doing that would mean that her family could and would disgrace her. Eloise Bridgerton was not stupid, she knew what catastrophic effects being disgraced would mean. She knew that there was not one place she would be able to go, especially without a husband (which is a whole other story for another time that Eloise did not want to even begin to think about) or money to her name. The latter she has, but she did argue to think that if she were disgraced the money would no longer be a thing she had access to. Despite how loudly Eloise Bridgerton existed, how proud she was to be different from the rest of the ton. There was one thing, one teeny-tiny thing that kept her so different from the rest that would stay stuck in her throat. A lump, something that she would try forever to keep choked down even if it tried to crawl its way up.

Funny thing is, though, anything (anything) that people desperately try to keep secret will always find its way out. Whether it's coming out despite the fight someone puts up with it, or if it's cutting its own way out through the words of another, nothing stays secret.

Not for long at least.

Cecelia Berkeley had known from a young age that she was different from her friends, from her cousins, and even from her mother. She knew from a young age that something was wrong with her. Because it could not he normal to only look at other girls and feel butterflies. Absolutely not. Everyone in her life told her that was how she was supposed to feel around boys. When they smile at her, when they gift her things, when they speak to her. They were supposed to be the ones who made her feel giddy, made her cheeks flush with warmth and turn them red. Not her friends. Especially not her girl friends. And so she had spent plenty of nights kneeling by her bedside, praying to god to fix her. To make her normal. To let her feel everything that she was supposed to feel. To make her feel like society will not judge her for who she was. She would sit, hoping, praying, waiting, for something to change. For her to suddenly open her eyes and find men attractive like she was suspected to. To no longer be plagued with the thoughts of her friends and their lips, how they laughed, what they smelled like. To not have those thoughts. She would do anything. Give anything. Be anything. To have a taste of what it was to be normal. And yet, God never answered her prayers. In some way, she believed that was evidence enough for her questions of if he was real or not. Because, if he were real, he would have saved her from such a life, right? If God were real, he would have never made her see women in such a light. He would have never burdened her with such a revelation, with something that could ruin her. Especially when she had done everything right in her life. She listened to her mother and father, she did everything just as she was told. Cecelia Berkeley was the epitome of a Lady in society. Yet, she could not push herself to care for any of it. The better a lady she became, the closer she came to entering society, and once she entered society ...

Well, there in lies the problem. Entering society meant finding a husband.

Which was the exact thing that Cecelia Berkeley could not imagine having.

Nor could Eloise Bridgerton, for the very same reasons that Cecelia Berkeley held. Perhaps that was why the two became fast friends, alongside Penelope Featherington (who, despite her crush on Colin Bridgerton had also found herself slowly falling for a woman), because they had a shared interest. A shared distaste for marriage, the advances of the gentlemen in society, and the attitudes of the other young ladies out in society who craved nothing more than to become a wife. No, Eloise, Penelope, and Cecelia quick became thick as thieves. Three peas from the same pod who just seemed to understand one another even if they kept their deepest secrets locked in the trunk of their heart. That is, until, Cecelia Berkeley finds herself falling in love with Eloise Bridgerton. The world seems to fall apart at her feet the minute she came to that realization. Like the author said, all secrets come out. Because not one person on this earth is an enigma to all. No matter how hard they may try. So, Cecelia Berkeley is met with the hard truth that is life — she is in love with her best friend and there is nothing that she could do about it. God was not going to save her now, though, she was certain he never was going to save her anyway.

Clearly, God had left her to her own vices a long time ago.

IS NO ONE'S NOW. 

MISS CECELIA MADALENE BERKELEY
portrayed by alisha boe

•
•
•

ADDITIONAL CAST
Adrian Lester ... Viscount Sampson Berkeley
Rachel Shelley ... Viscountess Georgia Berkeley
Logan Lerman ... Sir Fletcher Beauchamp
Donald Sutherland ... Fitzwilliam Fortescue Duke of Kent
Fiona Shaw ... Marjorie Fortescue Duchess of Kent
Berk Cankat ... Lord Dorian Fortescue
Lily James ... Lady Wilhelmina Alice Fortescue
Jude Law ... Marquess Augustus Fitzroy of Northampton
Emily Blunt ... Marchioness Lillian Fitzroy
Kristine Frøseth ... Lady Olive Cordelia Fitzroy
Joanna Vanderham ... Lady Emmeline Fitzroy
Elle Fanning ... Lady Dorothy Fitzroy
(Y!)Mackenzie Foy ... Lady Eleanor Fitzroy
Hugh Grant ... Earl Arthur Pembroke of Pembroke
Rosamund Pike ... Countess Cordelia Pembroke
Imogen Waterhouse ... Lady Guinevere Lillian Pembroke
Toby Regbo ... Earl Christopher Pembroke of Pembroke
Josh Whitehouse ... The Hon Phineas Pembroke
Douglass Booth ... The Hon Ambrose Pembroke
Callum Turner ... Viscount Nathaniel Haddington
Charlie Cox ... The Hon Theodore St. Vincent
Aubri Ibrag ... Miss Adelaide Amelina

•
•
•
AUTHORS NOTE

WHOOP WHOOP
happy pride month to all of my lovely readers,
to celebrate I'm giving you a nightwvngs bridgerton verse wlw couple (who screamed)!

so in case you couldn't tell, this fic is going to deal a lot with internalized homophobia, as well as some religious trauma (aka me going through/reliving all of my childhood pain), so if that makes you uncomfortable then this fic is not for you! just wanted to put that out there real early on!

this fic is also connected to my other bridgerton fics, but I believe my plans for this one start after my other fics (I'm leaning towards this being set more in s2 while my others start around s1) ... meaning ... this fic will be on my last of the ones to focus on updating (at least until one of the other books is close to being done)!

Anyway, let me know your thoughts! Sorry about how worry the summary is, I was writing it while in sprints either the milfs and think I blanked out and just started typing whatever came into my brain. But! I'm lazy. So it's staying. And you guys are reading it!

DISCLAIMERS
1. I do not own any of the plot lines and or characters created for the Bridgerton series (books and show included). Any and all other characters and plot lines that are not seen in the books/show are my own, please don't steal.

2. This book may contain some of these things: violence, blood, gore, death, drugs, alcohol consumption, sex, crude language, mental health, questioning sexuality, homophobia, religious questioning, etc. Please do not interact with this material if it will mess with your mental health!

DEDICATIONS
to the hogwarts founders: ownthelight, angeIeyes,
findtheforce
to the milfs: halosnite, foxgIoves, fxllmoons, awfulmoons, bananapopsicIes
and to my many other friends whom I love and appreciate: spacemania, silksenses, sombersuns, arsvenal, aethrastic_dreamxx, bayports, luckyvirgo, elfaouly, bokuroos, xonceuponatimex, dunbonnet, protectremus, sanktham, luckyvirgo, REGULUSBLVCK, svperboy, starryeyedturtle!

thank you for reading,
THE CHORUS OF CALAMITY.