Trust me Not | ✓

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c h a p t e r

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I DIDN'T WANT TO GIVE UP.

Staring at the portrait of my ma I took a sharp breath, letting the sharp pain sting through my hand as I picked up the broken pieces of glass. I wasn't typically clumsy, but the brunt of the news that papa had dropped on me had weighed down on my hands.

I welcomed the bite of the glass into my skin, the voices of our maids falling deaf to my ears are I carefully picked up the pieces one after another until finally the head maid grabbed a hold of my arm and yanked me away from the scene.

"Let me, Miss." she muttered furiously before staring at the gnash on my skin.

I didn't mind the pain, it was a familiar kind that I welcomed quite often till the numbness took its place. The portrait of my smiling ma mocked me in response.

"That would need to be taken down, then." I muttered to no one in particular but papa ruffed from his seat, clearly displeased at the sight of blood. Something that often made him queasy and uncomfortable.

"I suppose."

I didn't look back at him, afraid the shard of glass might nestle itself into his neck from the sheer force of my fury but I bit my lip instead, trying to rein in my nerves and emotions that had no place in this world.

"When's your marriage?" I managed, a crack in the portrait seemed to surface that I had failed to notice earlier.

"In a month." He replied, his eyes falling on my arm before they focused back on the newspaper as he sipped on his tea with indifference.

We weren't like this.

The papa I once knew loved my mother very much, to the point he had built a garden of roses just to make her feel at home, and maintained it right after her passing.

It was us three after that.

Together forever as papa had promised. We were inseparable. My papa was there for me during my first heartbreak in school, threatening to shoot the boy with his pistol. I had to literally beg him to not follow through with it.

He was there until he wasn't. Work became a huge part of his life and he spent less and less time with us, until he wasn't there at all.

Then suddenly he came home with a Spanish woman, her hair red like the flames and eyes bright like jewels from a navratna. Valeria was as a beauty to behold and a force to be reckoned with.

She had single handedly managed my papa's corporate as his assistant and eventually taken over his heart.

Despite knowing of the loneliness and the lack of companionship in his life, I couldn't accept her. I simply couldn't forget my ma.

But I did, considering she was a fling he needed to fill the emptiness. I hadn't realised she had built a home for herself instead, spending her nights at our home and eventually making her nest in our parents bedroom.

I couldn't accept it.

How could he forget ma so fast?

My mother was a gorgeous woman, who loved life more than life itself and found the smallest of things worthy of admiration. She would pluck out roses and decorate our hair with it, my sister and I.

The sudden departure of my sister almost began to make sense. She had not spoken a single word when she had shut the door on our faces and taken off to America, promising to get me out of here as soon as she could.

The taste of betrayal coated my tongue as the realisation of my sister leaving me behind settled. She had left me here alone. All by myself.

"Are you happy for me?" Papa asked, his gaze fixed on my arm as one of the maids dabbed a cotton on it. The sting made me wince a little but I decided to focus on it, rather than on the man that had been a traitor to his family.

No.

I wanted to scream that word at his face and thrash the house that they were dreaming of making theirs. I wanted to tear the curtains off and break every single glass that was on the table. I wanted to bite my own tongue until I could taste blood and die right here and then so I could join my ma. I missed her. I missed her so fucking much.

"Yes."

"Good." He replied, not a thank you or a warm hug or any acknowledgment of my validation. He wouldn't have cared if I had said no, he would have still followed through the wedding.

Yes or No.

I stared out of the huge window panes that overlooked the garden, my eyes falling on the other end where lay a withered row of roses. Just like the memory of my mother.