Blanca Like Snow

Chapter 15 - Scores

      I honestly thought things would remain civil with Will. I mean, we are both adults who know better and are aware that the best way to deal with someone you don't like is avoiding that person. Easy, right?

Yeah, not so much when you live under the same roof.

No matter what, we have to share the table for every meal because I won't skip anything for him, and I can't ask him to eat somewhere else because that's not fair, although I would like that very much. It's not like all we do is fight when we are in the same room, but it's tense and everyone is a bit uncomfortable, and that same tension makes me grumpy, and I'm sure it also has a similar effect on him because we start getting snappy by the end of the meal.

That's the main problem with Will. I try to be the better person and let it all go, but I can't. I end up arguing back when he makes some of his sardonic comments. I'm not a pushover that won't do anything while he keeps throwing indirect remarks in my direction.

He might have apologised for the first time we properly talked to each other and for having hurt me, he might have signed the confidentiality agreement, but he never said he had changed his mind. He never told me he thought differently now and considered me an actual person. And I didn't expect different from him. I'm his enemy, the personification of what he is fighting against, regardless of my current situation.

William Stone, twenty-one years old, is an immature boy and he drags me down with him.

I kind of hate him more for that.

And you'd think I wouldn't run much into him. The Dream House is huge, I mean, it has a farm and all, and it's not like I can move much, so I'm basically just in the house for as long as I'm healing, with the kids, helping them with the homework and with Clarisse, understanding better how the Dream House works and trying to give her some advice to improve their finances. Yet, I still run into him a lot. Not only during meals but when I'm heading somewhere else, or when I want to be outside to make use of the chill air and clear my head, but he's there.

"Is the princess bored already?" he asks one day when I'm just patting the head and playing with the ears of a huge german shepherd they have in the house.

I sigh deeply when I hear his voice, hating how he's always calling me princess just to annoy me.

Will helps a lot, like with heavy workload but mostly the animals. I've learnt he's studying to become a vet, although he took some time off, but he still helps with all the animals in the orphanage, making sure they are healthy and securing the best conditions for them. He is mostly outside, either working or just spending time with the animals.

Every time I get out of the house and run into him I remember why I shouldn't bother to set foot outside, it always gives me a headache.

"Why you ask? Are you going to apply to become my royal buffoon?" I retort, squaring my shoulders and giving him a defiant look.

"Oh, I'm sure it'd be an easy job. Just letting you see my lowly lifestyle would make you burst out laughing."

I do my best to control my temper and not shout at him every time he suggests I'm this horrible kind of person, but I'm not that almighty and he gets under my skin too easily.

"I'm not that easily amused. Unless I don't see you crawling, begging for help and crying I won't even smile." His smirk turns into a grimace as I say that. "It has to be utmost misery to make me happy."

"Are you also a sadist, perhaps?" he asks, and although he tries to say it mockingly, I think some part of him is seriously asking me this.

"Why you asking? Does it surprise you I'm like this? I thought you already had me figured out. Don't you know me better than I know myself?" My sarcasm isn't subtle, at all.