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“So, Greyson… How are you enjoying the evening?”
“It’s been… fun,” I respond. “Thank you for having me.”
“Well, it was rather unexpected,” she replies, her voice deep and croaky, so different from her daughter’s. “We didn’t really have time to say no.”
I spot Orpha roll her eyes at Indie who inhales sharply, widening her eyes at her mother who seems to not be affected by Indie’s silent plea for civility.
“Well, it was unexpected for me too.”
“But you brought yourself here,” Marilla responds. “To this part of town, to see our girl.”
The words “our girl” cause me to seize for a moment, for despite Marilla’s somewhat prickly demeanor, I know that behind it is love and concern for someone precious to her.
And that she sees me as some obstacle to her well-being. This thing that will fuck it all up.
“Yes,” I concede. “I brought myself here.”
Her whole body seems to lift a few inches as she inhales. “Indie, do you mind leaving us for a few minutes? I’d like to chat to yourfriend.”
“God,” she mutters.
“It’s my birthday, wildflower. I get to make unreasonable requests.”
Wildflower…
“But a perk of being the birthday girl doesn’t includemurder,” she whispers, inclining her slim frame towards her mother.
“Sadly,” deadpans Marilla, eyeballing me in a way I've only seen the most insufferable of wealthy clients do when I inform them they need to start behaving for the first time in their lives.
Indigo’s head tilts a little in my direction and her lips part as if to say something, but she doesn’t, instead getting up to join Yoshi and a few other people at a table over to the far left, turning back to look at us once along the way.
I steel myself for what I imagine won’t be the most comfortable of conversations. Luckily, I’m used to dealing with the most unreasonable of people, so very little intimidates me… only in this case, I can’t shake the feeling that their concern is right.
So why did I come? Why couldn’t I stay away like I was supposed to? Endure the torture for longer?
“So, you wanted to talk to our girl,” Marilla drawls, her voice a whirl of sharp rasps. “Why?”
My eyes drift to Orpha who offers me a smile, albeit a muted one.
I contemplate the answer, contemplate the layers of distraction, frustration, irritation, desire and unbidden obsession that have plagued me of late, but I’m not sure my answer will be met with much compassion.
“I wanted to talk to her. Ineededto.”
“Why?” she repeats more firmly.
“I felt that things ended between us without closure. For either of us.”
Her sharp pale eyes pierce me as if a needle whittling its way through my skin. “And what makes you think she neededclosure? Did she tell you that?”
“No,” I reply, but maybe it was all the times she told me to go fuck myself by text message, or told me to stop asking her how she was, or called me a prick and ignored me for days if I did. Or maybe it’s that I had the arrogant presumption that if I’m this messed up about her, she must feel some of that too. “But I… I felt it.”
“Youfeltit?” she sneers.
“Marilla, dear,” sighs Orpha.
“It’s my birthday, darling. I get to be a cunt,” she snaps.
“What’s your excuse the other 364 days a year?” Orpha snorts, batting her eyelids, only for Marilla to slide reptilian eyes at her before coming to face me again.
