Self Service

Truths

Priscilla looked at that cake on the table and glared lasers in it. If he thought he could bribe her with a Hello Kitty cake, he had another damn thing coming. She wanted to go to the zoo and spend her birthday with her daddy, and he thought he could come home with this cake like he hadn’t lied to her?

She pushed the cake off the table with more force than he knew his daughter possessed and she looked up at him with tears in her eyes. “I hate you!” she shrieked.

“Now, Prissy–“

Priscilla ran to her room and slammed the door, crying. It caused her sisters to both wake up crying, and Paulina was in the front laying Kenneth out for disappointing their little girl before she came into the room and took her youngest two, wooing them back to sleep before she took Priscilla back in her arms, taking her to lay in her bed with her.

A few hours later, Kenneth came and cuddled the two, apologizing to Priscilla, promising to make it up to her.

“He made it so hard to believe that a man was going to be there like he said he was. One time, Sebastian came to Scott’s house and Scott went and talked to him but he didn’t come back to bed for three hours. And it wasn’t even him that upset me. I just thought about the first time a man let me down. And the second and third and all the times until I learned my lesson. And I know it’s unfair to put that burden on Scott. But it was hard, Mama. That was the only time something like that has happened. And I know Scott didn’t intend it to be that way. But it made me so hurt inside.”

Paulina wiped her daughter’s face. This was exactly why she asked Kenneth to stop coming to see his children. Because he was just breaking their hearts slowly. Because everything he did, it was always to make up for something he didn’t do. Because he was constantly breaking promises.

There was a knock on the door, and they could hear Penelope answering it, talking to a staff member and laughing before she closed the door back.

She came into the room and found the two, standing in the doorway with a grin and a small box.

“What is that?”

“It’s for you, Bridenstein.”

Priscilla rolled her eyes, taking deep breaths to get out her feelings as she got up to take the parcel and sit back on the bed.

She opened the box to discover a note and picked it up.

 For my beautiful fiancée when she becomes a part of the Nolan legacy.

A trinket of my affections for you to wear down the aisle just as embedded in my family’s history as you will be.

Wear it with pride, Mrs. Nolan. I trust you to wear this. You will add to its beauty.

 Love,

Scott

Priscilla smiled and looked into the box, lifting out a diamond choker with blue gems in it. She gently caressed it. “Wow. This is beautiful,” she whispered in awe.

“It is,” Paulina agreed.

“Okay, you can wear it tomorrow. Can we go have dinner?” Penelope asked.

Rolling her eyes, Priscilla put the necklace back and set the box on the side table and started to head out of the bedroom. “Bella, Pheebs, we’re going to have dinner.”

Daniel was staying in another room with Scott’s young nephews. They had ordered the kids a pizza and recruited Margot as babysitter to keep them for the night while Janice stayed home with two of her cousins.