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“A proposal actually. I’m going to ask Lillian to marry me.”
The horrendous noise that seeps up from her mouth stills, dying there on her tongue. Her palms press, flattening into the edge of the desk. Throat bobbing.
Up.
Down.
Up.
Down.
Up and down, she takes in the serious expression etched permanently across mine.
“You can’t be serious,” she splutters.
The thin line of my lip upturns for the first time since her arrival, coaxing. “Lillian is who I want.” The only woman I’ve ever desired.
She winces, pushing back her shock. If she thought she'd had me she thought wrong. Lillian is who I will always choose.
Lorna’s face shifts the longer the news settles in the room, thickening as she quietly simmers in her spot. Gradually, like the sun setting before night, she turns more into that darkened ball of resentment.
If she thought she had me, she thought wrong.
“I love her,” saying the words even though they’re unneeded.
Shaking, her skin glows, ashen and pale. Her tone is lethal as she scrapes words from her mouth. “You can’t do this to me. I will not be…rejected,” she seethes.
A blaze of something flashes across her pupils.
“You and Lillian are what? Going to have the perfect life, with your perfect little family while I get what? Nothing!” Jumping from her chair, it slams to the ground with a thud. “I’m not a handout, Abram.”
“I never said you were.”
Lorna’s face has always been stretched too tight, but now it creases, outlined in her rage. Chest rising and falling in rapid breaths, she stares at nothing.
She swallows and it’s then like her vision clears from whatever doubt she’d had before is replaced with certainty. I could wince at the danger behind it.
“I refuse to raise this child alone. It takes two people to make a baby.Youoweme.”
The woman is as deranged as she is unhinged.
“Why shouldsheget the world when we’re equals?” Her vision carries that foggy, distant look again. It’s less filmy but still very much there.
They aren’t and never will be the same. She’s too far gone for me to try and explain this to her—rationally of course.
While Lillian is kind and graceful, Lorna is spiteful and siliceous.
“I deserve this life,” she decides. “You will marry me, Abram.” Adamant when she has no right.
My head arches on a laugh. Her joke making me feel the lightest I have in over a week. There isn’t a chance that is happening.
“You will,” she restates as if reading my mind. So sure of herself. “Make me your wife, or I will make you regret ever thinking you could abandon me.”
I wave her off, unconvinced. She’s the one who thought she’d be forgotten, not me.
It’s only after that action do I fully understand I messed up. The putrid of her wickedness glows, bouncing off the whites of her eyes. Shining with venom and hatred the longer they have to cast over.
“You will do this; you’ll choose me or-or… or I’ll makeitgo away.”
