After I Chose You

N i n e

It wasn't right. I had considered quitting yesterday after I burned three sponge cakes. Amélie had gotten quite frustrated with me and rightfully so, as I had dropped the pièce montée on Monday, which Amélie had spent hours on for a customer, spilled the macaron filling all over the floor on Tuesday, smashed the riz à l'impératrice on Thursday, and now this on Saturday? My life was spiraling and spiraling quick.

I wasn't a baker...
I wasn't married...
I wasn't honorable...
I wasn't admirable...
I wasn't honest...

I was a liar.

And just when I thought I had found a family—a real family, one I felt apart of, one with a mother, father, little brother, and two younger sisters. I loved Nana of course and nothing would alter those feelings, but being with the Benoits has shown me something—something I had forgotten...and that was what it felt like to really be apart of something, to contribute to the family and work together as one. I hadn't felt that since my family had...well...since they were gone.

I had made close relationships with each member of the Benoit family and built it on what...

Lies.

The Benoits didn't really know me...or Dima.

And while I had in the past despised Dmitry for being a con artist, I was the same. I was a phony and...afraid of telling the truth because if I did, I'd lose them...
...and if I lost them, it'd be just like losing my family again.

"I'm so sorry," I blurted genuinely, my voice on the verge of breaking, "Oh goodness, Amélie...I've made such a mess...look at this bread..."

Amélie set down her piping bag and drew towards me, placing her hand on my cheek and staring deep into my blue eyes. She searched them for some time and then smiled in a motherly way and began, "Oh, Anya...dear, do not worry. I am not mad. You have not destroyed anything important."

If only she knew...

"I only wanted to know why you were crying," Amélie explained, wiping my cheeks with her thumbs.

I rose my eyebrows in surprise and then frowned in confusion, stuttering, "I-I...I was crying?"

"Yes, dear," Amélie nodded before taking on a worried countenance, "Are you sure you're alright?"

"I..." I drifted off, my voice soft before it slipped away. I couldn't give her an answer—the true answer anyway. Just like I couldn't give them the true answers about anything because we had started every relationship in this household with lies. Any of our truths would contradict the first lie—that Dmitry and I were indeed wed, and everything would crumble from there.

Lies were incredibly dangerous as well as tricky. I felt as if I was slowly slipping down an icy slope and there was nothing to hold onto that would save me. Every night since the big storm the "what if's" has consumed my dreams. What if we had told them the truth from the beginning? Would we be here? Would things be different? Or was lying the only way?

It seemed to me that there was no winning.

Every thought of everyday was plagued with the constant replaying of the many lies Dmitry and I had told, visions of the Benoits cutting off ties and kicking us out, and my own small voice in my head calling me a liar continuously.

How could I tell Amélie this?
I was deathly afraid.

"I'm not alright, Amélie," I blurted, faster than I could even process what had come out of my mouth. I recovered quickly and stated, "But I wish not to discuss it." I turned back and began uselessly kneading the hard french dough just to distract myself from saying anything stupid...like the truth.