Cult

5: Bloody Harry Ω

How dare Zayn touch me like that? It’s not even legal. Just because our fathers are best friends doesn’t mean we’re getting married. I never want to be married, not even if I meet someone I truly love. I laugh to myself. The "L word" is just that, it’s a word. It’s a fantasy concept created by the same idiots who started Valentine’s Day.

But if I do get hitched, I still believe in the foreign concept of saving your virtue until you are married.  I don't want to be anyone's score or conquest or anything. Being married will ensure that the man who takes my innocence loves me and will stay with me. I mean, look at my parents.

I rub my forehead uneasily. My parents haven't shared a room in years. The last thing I want to do is think about them being romantic or intimate with one another, but at least they have been married for 18 years. That counts for something, right?

To be honest, I don't even want to be a wife, but maybe I will find someone at The Ball that's charming and I'll spend a few years getting to know him before we settle down. Maybe he'll worth save me from having to be with Zayn.

I grit my jaw. Zayn has my parents wrapped around his finger. I won't be surprised if they all had some kind of conspiracy against me.

I honestly cannot stand that cocky smirk on Zayn’s lips, or the fact that half the time I wanted to kiss the cockiness right out of his mouth.

“How was lunch?” my dad calls from down the hall.

“Repulsive,” I grumble, walking into his home office. He chuckles behind his grand cherry varnished desk. Carefully, he aligns the folders and files on his desk before looking up at me.

“Zayn isn’t so bad. He’s extremely well-mannered and he has a respectable job,” my dad reasons, raising his pen up.

Manners?  Zayn slipped his hand under my skirt during dinner. What part of that demonstrates proper manners?

“He works for you, dad, of course he has a respectable job,” I remind him politely. My dad smirks, biting on the end of his pen.

“Well he’s a good guy, honey, just give him a chance,” dad pleads calmly, skimming a page of his book. He doesn't seem extremely enthusiastic or invested in whatever relationship Zayn and I have. I sort of wish he was stricter, that way; I could give Zayn the “protective daddy” excuse.

“Ok,” I agree hesitantly. Dad smiles up at me with his dark blue eyes. He places a post-it inside his copy of two books, one on teen delinquency and another on campaign image management. Then he stands up and hugs me.

“That’s my girl,” he smiles a bit tersely. He pats my back as though we were business partners, instead of father and daughter.

My gaze randomly lands on my dad’s thin fingers, then at his desk. He has taken his wedding ring off.

I take a deep breath and head outside to my backyard to start painting. I sigh in relief as I unravel my set of paints form under the tools in the shed. No matter how many hours of my life I spend every day trying to please my parents and my stuck up town, painting will always find a way to ease my worries.

Shimmering hues of orange and magenta infused with gold create a glowing halo around the rising sun. The rhythm of the small lake that spans my unreasonably large backyard is soothing. My dad contracted the house so that it would include the lake, even though it runs through most of the neighborhood.

Swift, gentle ripples form in the water. Carefully, I sit down in the grainy sand, patting my pleated black skirt under my thighs so as to prevent any pebbles of shards of seashells from cutting my skin or tearing my knee-high tights. I reach into my bag and pulled out a fresh canvas, my favorite brush, a few tubes of paint and lay them neatly beside me.