We been through some things yeah
Thought I could restrain ya
I don't wanna tame ya
♕
MY MOTHER AND FATHER were twinning. Wearing a matching white dress and white suit with flakes of gold every now and then. I could tell she wanted to say something about my fashion choice, the black dress that went in contrast with everything from their outfits to the decor picked for tonight's dinner. But they didn't comment on it. Instead, we sat in the living room of their new house, sorry, new mansion, and waited with a tense silence between us for the guests to show.
"They should be here soon," Mother said when the clock hit 6:23. "Be on your best behavior."
"You know I always am," I replied emotionlessly, but mother knew. After all, she'd be the one who taught me to hide my feelings, of course, she knew how annoyed and angry I was at the moment. That was one of the reasons she took my hand in hers.
After a couple of seconds, mother released my hand. "No pearls?"
"No pearls," I confirmed.
"No pearls," She repeated, the satisfaction in her voice clear. Mother hates pearls.
My father came into the room 2 minutes later, his fingers chipped. My father bites his fingernails, he says they keep him busy when he wasn't playing. He loved the piano, mother hated it. Thinking about it, I could never find something that both of them liked besides their obsession with controlling my life. Well, controlling is a strong word. They just liked planning out my entire life and not giving me a say in any of it.
"You should stop biting your nails, William," Mother said.
Father didn't reply, he never did. He rarely talked, I think that's one of the reasons they fell in love. Because Mother could speak to him, she liked speaking for other people.
At 6:29, the doorbell rang. We stood up all at once like it was rehearsed. I followed behind them to greet whoever was at the door. It's not like I knew. They had new friends every week. Mother opened the door and immediately her emotion flipped like a switch from irked and cautious to hospitable and warm. It was wrong. The people they let inside this time were dressed like it was a gala. The older woman with greying hair was wearing a blue long maxi dress, matching the husband's black and blue velvet suit. Next to them was the boy Mother told me about wearing a plain black suit. I liked it.
He looked completely different from the two adults in front of me. While they had blonde hair and blue and green eyes and pale skin, the boy himself had brown hair and brown eyes with tanned skin. The only thing pulling them together was the narrow eyes from the mother and rather pointed nose from the father. In simpler terms, the two adults looked like they were dying.
The 4 adults shook hands and smiled kindly at each other, and I wonder if their smiles were as fake as Mother's. I stood silently, glaring at the boy who just stared back. I saw something familiar in him. Something I sometimes saw in myself. Dread. Maybe I wasn't the only one forced to be here. Or maybe I was just overthinking everything. I could never be too careful with Mother and Father.
We sat down at the dining table, decorated with white and gold. I looked out of place. Mother made sure to sit me next to the boy, but I really didn't have a chance. We were eating at the smaller dining rooms in the house with a 6 seater table. I'd have to sit next to him one way or another. I made sure to position myself in a way that almost turned me away from him.
The food was brought out by one of the cooks, and it looked amazing. Pasta, warm slices of bread, salads, lobster, crab cakes, caviar, it was like a small feast. Wanting to gorge on all of it, I went with the crab cakes, caviar, salad, and two slices of bread. I could devour the rest when the guests had gone home.
I didn't quite pick up the conversation going on, but it sounded more...real than the past ones. Idling picking at my food, taking a bite every 2 minutes, I waited for dessert to be brought out so I could excuse myself and go wait in the piano room until they left. At least that was my plan until Father reached a hand under the table from where he sat at the head. Squeezing my thigh, I turned my head to him.
He leaned forward, quietly whispering to me with a strained smile. "Stop acting like a hermit."
Then he leaned back in her chair, slowly sipped his red wine, and returned to the conversation. I wanted to quite possibly rip that disgusting gold chain right from his neck, and nothing made me madder in that quick second than that one sentence from him. But I couldn't do anything, and if I did, it would only hurt myself. So I picked up my head, sat up straight, and tried to focus on what they were talking about. But I couldn't.
The crab tasted moldy, the caviar tasted dry, the salad tasted bitter, and the bread tasted stale. And I felt like shit.
Once the dessert came out, pudding, truffle, Turkish delight, and macaroons, I pushed back my chair. But Mother knew, and she saw, we'd all gotten quite use to my disappearance at dinner once the dessert came out. Clearing her through quickly, she smiled at all of them. "Laura, have you met James?"
I glanced up at Mother, whose eyes were narrowed at me, flicking a finger down, I scooted back in my chair. "No, I have not," Turning to who I assumed was James due to the fact he also glanced up at the sound of his name, I tried to smile. I'm sure I looked unamused from the kick under the table. "Nice to meet you."
"Pleasure to meet you, Laura," He replied, glancing across the table at his parents before back at me.
"Why don't we begin on this dessert, shall we?" Father asked though it wasn't a question. "I'm sure Laura and James can talk in the meanwhile.
"Actually, I need to use the bathroom," He piped up before I could use the same excuse.
"Well then, Laura could you be a dear and show him where it is? Wouldn't want him getting lost," His mother asked me.
Fuck you. But I didn't say that. Instead, I smiled, nodded my head, and also stood up. "Follow me," I said, though I wasn't completely sure I knew where the bathroom was either.
I took him a good distance from the dining room, though. Far enough where I couldn't hear Mother's annoying voice and Father's annoying laugh.
"Do you only have one bathroom or something?" James suddenly asked.
"No. But I'm not exactly sure where it is so while you go find it I'll be in here," I answered, sitting down on the couch in front of the fireplace in one of the living rooms.
"You're a wonderful help, thank you," Sarcasm. But instead of going to find the bathroom, he sat down in the armchair next to the fireplace as well. "Just to be clear by the way, I'm not interested in fucking you, despite what you think."
Wait. What? Despite what I think? He can't quite possibly think I wanted to be here, that I wanted him to be here. Oh God, the ego. "Don't flatter yourself, I don't want you to be here either."
"Well then, I'm glad that's settled. I assume this dinner is more for us than them?" He nodded his head in the direction we came from, the dining room.
"You're right. Wouldn't be the first time though."
"Yeah...okay but, where is the bathroom. I wasn't exactly lying about needing to go."
I shrugged. "I really don't know. I don't even live here. But it's probably one of those doors in the hallway. They lock all of them except the bathroom doors anyway so it should be easy to find."
James nodded and stood up, going back through the hallway we left from. Pulling out my phone, I sighed. Different texts from different people. But only one caught my eye. Sliding open the message, I scrolled up. 23 unread texts from him. The last one seemed the most urgent, which was shocking despite they rest were just him begging me to answer, and then asking why I even bothered to call if I was going to ignore him anyway.
Before I could read the full paragraph, my phone glitched out. Furrowing my eyebrows, I tried to scroll down. These fucking iPhones, I thought. It hadn't been the first time it happened, usually, you just turn it off and on again. But I wasn't paying attention.
I wasn't paying attention when it swiped to the side. And while I tried to get back at read his text, it clicked the phone button. And I was calling him. And then I panicking. And then I was turning my phone off and on again like that would stop it. And I was just scared to even look at my phone screen. My heart was beating too fast, and though I telling myself to just hang up, I didn't want to. I don't think I didn't want to. In reality, I wanted to hear his perfect voice again, and ignoring his texts, another thing I didn't want to do, was just me trying to distance myself before all the feelings came back. But it was too late to snap out of it and do something sensible.
Because by the time the first tear fell from my eye, it was already too late to try and avoid it. Because I didn't want to avoid it anymore.
"Laurene?"
(VERY IMPORTANT QUESTION AT THE END DON'T SKIP PLEASE)
Song Of The Chapter:
I don't know if you understand the title but: there's x's and o's in the game tic tac toe, and the song is called ex calling, and she's calling her ex, and to her love is a game and there's an ex in the game.
LMAO THAT WAS A TERRIBLE JOB EXPLAINING IT. I was trying to be poetic but I don't think it worked 🙈
Anywho here's another chapter.
Don't think too much about James he's kind of irrelevant and you'll probably never see him again. It was just to build up the plot to this point.
Thank you so much for 800 reads btw! It's growing so quickly!
Please don't forget to vote and comment and whatnot <3
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