Femme Fatale.

02

♥♥
Carla's unflagging will forces her to embrace what cannot not be changed. She has grown excessively thin due to her grief but the good food she has always wolfed down stands her in good stead now. Slowly learning to blot out the beastliness that has thrived between her "bae" and "bestie",she turns her gaze inwards,away from what goes on about her.

Her brain refuses to retain the image of the two most closest people to her -entwined as naturally as dogs in an alley- grunting and moaning in a moment's pleasure. Instead,it grasps desperately at the lifeline which keeps her fastened to the dream she has of the future of her and Nahar -if he ever asks her out.

That dream makes the betrayal almost bearable.
♥♥

Songs for the chapter:
I Miss You - Clean Bandit ft Julia Michaels
Without Me - Halsey

One Month Later.

It is Friday at lunchtime and I am sat on a shed outside the canteen waiting for Rhoda, a sister to Joe,who has remained by my side. I had feared she would resent and desert me for leaving her brother but her loyalty is that of a dog.

I see her approach. She is a girl of fourteen, two years my senior, but she is old for her years, strictly educated and schooled from a young age. With the colourful reputation that precedes her, you would expect a dignified little woman, a girl on the brink of womanhood. What you will see is someone very different.

She is tiny, as small as a ten year old, a perfect little doll with pale brown hair and a grave pale-skinned face. She is a dainty little child. She eats hardly anything. When she is spoken to she answers in whispered monosyllables. When she dances she is graceful and light on her feet but she does not look like a girl who is robust and boxum and fertile. She looks like a girl who can easily fade away, catch a little cold and die of it.

"Hello,ex sister-in-law," I say welcoming her with a smile and my cheek to kiss.

She bends over and kisses me deeply on the mouth. "Oh how delicious, a girl, my brother's ex lover, in a Catholic school, in the open...a  dozen forbidden pleasures all at once. Kiss me again, kiss me like you kissed my brother."

I am so shocked that I grip the table. "Go away," I say, pushing her off. "And don't do that, not in private nor in the public. I can't risk being expelled."

She gives a little nod. "Forgive me, little Missy."

"Well tell me, how do you like your new sister-in-law, Tanu?" I bring up the hot conversation as we start to eat our lunch.

"She's really a monster," he remarks idly to me. "She is quite as bad as I had feared."

"How bad?" I press.

Rhoda raises her hand and counts off Tanu's sins on her fingers. "One, she's vilely jealous. When she comes over, Joe can't step out of the house without her watching him go, and she shows her jealousy by mock battles."

"Mock?" I query.

"You know," she says impatiently. She adopts a falsetto whine. "If I see that girl look at you again, Joe, I shall know what to think of you! If you dance with that girl one more time, I shall have words with her and with you!"