Priscilla

S3 ⭒ Episode Nine

"Had lots of women
In my life and time, yes, I did..."
♪ I Deserve A Little Bit More • The Grooms.

AN ASHTRAY FULL OF SKITTLES

Priscilla Wolfe

"Miss Wolfe, may I have a minute of your time?"

Lifting my gaze, I stare up ahead at the glass walls of the greenhouse, Halen's voice suddenly echoing around me. I stop the gentle trickle of water from the tip of my copper watering tin, and rest the base on my knee. He doesn't startle me much anymore, but I get a tingle in the back of my neck still, and that, I really hate. I came to the greenhouse to escape his stares — and his looming presence around me in the manor, after what happened yesterday, isn't what I want or need.

I'm knelt at the ground, but I stand and turn toward a larger potted plant, giving it the food it needs.

"Very well. I suppose I will make my peace with the room and you can choose whether or not to hear me." I hear the shuffling knock of his black oxfords against the ground. He comes closer, but his voice remains low and calm. "I would like to sincerely apologize for my irreparable behavior that was so disgusting to you yesterday."

I swallow down my irritation.

"For the way I spoke to you, the way in which I used the insecurities that you were kind enough to share with me, against you. It was unacceptable for me to tell you, another adult human being with her own brain and her own body, what to do with it. I very well knew better and you were right, I was jealous. I was belittling. Not entirely purposefully, I struggle with how I present myself to other people and the facts I choose to place over other peoples' feelings - however, it was cruel of me regardless. From now on, I will do better."

I shouldn't, but I hate how sincere he sounds. It makes thing much more difficult. It's easier to hate someone like him, than it is to like them.

"While I can't possibly understand the way you regard rules and regulations, I am trying to. I realize now, it was insensitive for me to assume that you weren't allowed to change your mind about wanting to engage in certain things with me. In fact, I encouraged you to feel safe with me. I encouraged you to trust me and in so little words, I destroyed that."

"At first, you wanted me and you were afraid, and now you're not so afraid anymore, and you want me more. I feel I should remind you that, that is perfectly okay. It is not my place to decide what you can and cannot handle. Not without you allowing me that freedom as a partner, which you did not."

I crouch down again to a low, circular planters box and this time, check the stems and leaves of the still growing petunias and begonias. I can't focus much though. Not anymore.

"When I left Crocket Manor and Romantix five years ago, I left heart broken at my own hands."

His voice softens to a low murmur and it makes me go still. I've never heard him speak so... vulnerably.

"Alicia and I, we were in love. We were engaged to be married. And in reaction to a vicious and hurtful comment made by her in the heat of a bad fight, I made the conscious decision to cheat on her with another woman in the house."

A pit forms in my stomach. I can't hide the shock of my face.

"You asked me before, if I meant to break her heart, and truth be told... I wanted to hurt her the way that she had hurt me. However, the night that I confessed my infidelity, she told me she forgave me. And then the next morning she was lost to me, gone without a word."

"I followed in her footsteps, and I too, left not long after. I traveled to the California coast looking for peace of mind, and that is where I met my most recent ex-wife, Kalani. We fell in love and got married two years later. She loved me, and wanted me, despite my sexual appetite, or rather, lack thereof. See, not only did I leave this manor because I couldn't bear to be in this house without Alicia, but I also left because once she was gone, something in me changed."