DEAD TO ME [tartaglia]

004 - SILK SHEETS

+p singularity - bts

AS YOU LIE awake in the bed of the man your husband loathes so much, you are not so sure what to think.

You are a woman who was raised to think that yes, what other significant people think of you is everything. Your image is a symbol of discipline, and you must not let anyone squander it at any cost— not even family. This was what it meant to be in a position of wealth and power. Your inner dilemma shifts to the topic of the man whose bed you lay in, and you remember the way he grinned childishly at your consent to marriage, so pleased that he was compelled to offer you his room to stay in for the night while he slept in the next one.

Childe on the other hand, has no care in the world for his image. You should know, you yourself were there when he was ten and stirring trouble at school, and you also there at his sweet sixteen wherein he thought it would be a good idea to sneak you out after the party and go on a stupidly fast joyride in his brand new mercedes-benz to the horror of both your parents and your slight amusement.

That same year, you found out you were to be betrothed. Not out of love, but out of mere convenience. You remember spilling the news to Childe, who then frowned but kept his mouth shut anyway. You assume it was because you were being annoyingly compliant to the wishes of your father as usual. Perhaps it was frustrating to see his friend agree to a loveless marriage almost immediately when it was demanded by someone in a position of power. Looking back at it, you would've been frustrated too, even if you hardly understood his reaction then.

That quality of yours must have been really unlikeable, because he distanced himself and put a cold front when faced with you starting then, and you put up no fight to the cord that was your friendship being cut, because to you, it was well deserved for being a coward.

You recall catching Scaramouche with your sister that one night in your own guest-littered home, and your lips thin into a line. You haven't cried though, not yet. Maybe the one of the only ways you know how to cope with it is silent anger, and that's okay in your books.

But when you think about how much you looked forward to a future where you were his wife that you even learned to love him, only for him to take that that life that could've been yours from your hands and put it into your own sister's so quickly your anger mellows down into grief, mourning the life you will never have.

You are the heir to all your family's fortunes, and your image is their image. In order to maintain discipline and perfection, you must be the spitting image of these qualities. Of course, this poisonous obsession with your image invades the crevices of your mind and you think about what your family might say after finding out you were cheated on in your own home, or what they might say after coming to know that you ran away from your home and into the arms of —in their eyes— your delinquent friend from when you were a small child.

You weigh both of them in your mind and consider the worst scenario, and you come to the conclusion that having the image of leaving your apparently 'faithful' husband for another man was far better than being pitied for having a bastard spouse. No one wants to be looked down on while in power, and you would rather die than be viewed as a puny wife who considered staying even if her husband was clearly unfaithful— even if that was what you really were.

With thoughts of protecting your legacy in mind, you will gladly play the dramatic role of the bad guy, the cruel woman who left her dear spouse in the pursuit of another man. Whether it's really for the sake of your image or the sake of your pride, you do not know.