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“Anyway, I wasn’t thinking. It’s just that my dad’s a bit of a control freak. Well, not exactly a bit. Very controlling and as much as I love my mom. Well, she’s like a puppet on a string and does everything that he tells her to do.”
“Has he ever abused her?”
I dart my eyes towards her for a second, when she doesn’t answer, and I don’t like the tone of the conversation. I can sense that my feelings were right and it doesn’t make me feel better guessing that her mom is an abusive relationship, but then something about it doesn’t seem right.
“Maybe.”
I’m about to say something else.
“That’s a lie. I knew a few times when I was a kid, and she said that she fell down the stairs and other things that they weren’t true. This is part of the reason I never went home after my break-up and why I avoid going there like the plague.”
“Why doesn’t your aunt or anyone do something about it? More to the point why does your mom stay with him?”
She sighs, “For the same reason that I stayed with Sam for so long. Insecurity. Maybe she feels that if she left him she would be alone and she couldn’t bear that.”
“So, being beaten up is a better solution?”
She winces, “You don’t have to be so crude. I just told you a big thing. Something that I’ve never shared with anyone else. I didn’t expect you to mock me.”
Then as I stop the car and we arrive at the hospital. I regret my words. She’s right. It must have been hard for her to witness that growing up. Maybe that's the reason she came to spend time with her aunt?
I hate families and their secrets. She’s already in the hospital by the time I get out of the car and start heading inside. There’s a woman that I saw sitting at their table during the auction, she’s walking with Scarlett, and I follow suit.
I don’t say a word because I’m tired. I tend to sleep a few hours every night. Just to rest my mind, but since Scarlett’s been with me. I haven’t slept. Friday we didn’t finish in the playroom until the early hours of this morning, and as I held her in my arms tonight, I kept thinking about tomorrow and having to say goodbye. I can’t keep her in my life.
No fucking way.
I don't believe in love, either love at first sight, but there’s a connection between us that’s so intense that I need to keep her at bay and as we start to head to her aunt’s room. I know exactly how to do it.
Scarlett rushes to her bedside, “Aunt Betty you scared me.”
Her aunt’s laughing, “I don’t know who called you, but I told them that I’m fine. They shouldn’t have bothered you.”
Scarlett starts to cry and says, “Don’t be silly. If anything happened to you, then I don’t know what I’ll do,” she hugs her one more time, and I imagined Ms. Young to look her age without make-up. If she did go into surgery, then she must have had a stylist on stand-by, because her hair is perfectly shaped in her short bob.
Ms. Young’s in her room and as the nurse smiles and reassures Scarlett that her aunt’s just bruised her leg. I walk closer to Ms. Young, “So what happened?”
I was abrupt and could have started with the niceties the same way that Scarlett did when she entered the room, but there was just one thing. I had an idea to end all of this, and I intended to use it right now.
It was the best thing for Scarlett, and most of it was the best thing for me.
Scarlett was too sensitive and nice to deal with a man like me. One of darkness, she would be hanging pictures on my walls if she had her chance. The idea of it annoyed me. I’d hardly had anyone in my house. They knew where it was, but I didn’t entertain unless it was fucking women in my playroom. I never even gave them a tour or let them spend the night. If we hadn’t been woken up, then Scarlett would have spent two nights in my house. She wouldn’t come back after my plan’s carried out. That part I knew for sure.
“Oh, and you brought Mr. Moore with you. Oh no, I’ve ruined your weekend. It’s not even over yet.”
She sighs, and Scarlett and I ignore her comment patiently waiting for her to explain why she’s in the hospital in the first place.
“Well Daniel’s away, and I decided that when he gets back from spending time with his family, I’m going to ask him to marry me.”
Scarlett shrieks, “About time. Congratulations.”
“I know it’s silly to pretend that he’s my driver. That he doesn’t mean so much to me. He does, and when he gets back, I’m going to show him.”
Wendy comes into the room and then it dawns on me that she was talking erratically on the phone. I had assumed that it was because she was worried about Ms. Young. But as she sighs and flops on the chair, I can tell that she’s clearly drunk.
“Anyway, so Wendy decided to make a cocktail and then we decided to play truth or dare.”
“Aunt Betty, how old are you? Truth or dare!”
