#19: What Are You Still Doing In My House?

Ava:

A look of fear flashed across Belle’s face before she quickly caught herself. In all the time she’d known me, I’d never once been curt with her. Once could say I always walked on eggshells around her.

After my father’s disgraceful arrest, Belle and Amelia had become my only friends. Like a starved child, I had practically treated them like gods, doing everything possible so they wouldn’t leave me. Unlike Amelia who quickly shut me down and reminded me that we’d been friends long before then, Belle reveled in the new me. I easily became a fool for her, letting her walk all over me and sweetly lead me to my doom.

“Ava,” she said, clearing her throat and standing straight. “It pains me to say this, but Scott and I are extremely disappointed in you. What you did tonight was despicable. It was so unlike you. I don’t know why you keep hanging around Amelia even after the stunt she tried to pull with your husband. Can’t you see, Ava? She clearly wants you to get on his bad side and lose him so she can swoop in and have him for herself…"

My lips remained shut as I stared at her, her words rage baiting me to the point that I couldn’t even react. I was looking beyond her, at the past. The past when I would have put my head down in shame and not reacted to the obviously demeaning way she and my husband had treated me.

"…are you even listening?" she asked with an edge to her voice. I didn’t even know when her voice had trailed off in my head.

A lot of things had changed in this new life; a few which made me chuckle at the absurdity of it all, but this wasn’t one of them.

I was enraged.

Why did I even think my plan of pretending to still be an idiot would work? Each time I tried to, the sounds of their mocking laughter while I lay in bed, dying kept ringing in my head. How they had become done with me once I no longer had anything to offer them anymore. How I’d been so afraid to accidentally step on their toes but no one had batted an eye while they slowly killed me.

No.

I was taking a totally different approach now. Obviously they still needed me and this time, they would be the ones to have to concede to my demands. I wouldn’t bring down myself to use treachery and manipulation like they did, instead, I would be uncompromising and assertive. And once I had them right where I needed them to be, only then would my approach change. Like venom from a painless and unnoticed bite, I would destroy them from every angle until they crumpled and suffered for what they’d done to me.

While she was still speaking, I walked into the kitchen and grabbed a snack as I had just realized I was hungry. As expected, she let out a flabbergasted sigh and stumped down the stairs, stacking up a thousand words in her head to reprimand me for my insolence.

“Can’t you see I’m still talking to you?” Belle bawled after me, her voice getting dangerously closer as I fixed a peanut butter sandwich for myself in the kitchen. “What the hell is wrong with you? It’s almost as if something has possessed you and made you forget your place. Do you know what will happen to you if Scott hears what you’ve done? Have you forgotten what’s at stake here?”

I let out a dry laugh as I took a bite and gulped on a club soda from the fridge.

“Pray tell. What’s at stake here?” I asked, using a soft but taunting voice.

“You’re…” she started to say, but caught herself at the last moment.

Their treatment of me was something we were all supposed to understand. It had somehow always made sense even though it’d never been explicitly explained. I’d never acted out because I’d always known what was ‘at stake’. I was the pathetic one. The one who needed validation and some relationship since I’d lost everything. I’d made them multi-millionaires in my past life, but that was nothing compared to the hand of companionship they’d given to me when I clearly had nothing after running away from the world and shutting myself from it.

I had to give them that. It was quite clever.

I cocked my head to the side while I took more bites of the sandwich, letting her know I was still patiently waiting for her reply. From the corner of my eye, I saw Gemma cleaning up the front of the kitchen I was sure she’d already cleaned up before. She was clearly eavesdropping. Who could have imagined the day I of all people would make Belle bite her words?

I saw the exact moment Belle came up with something different. It was almost laughable. As if reading minds was a superpower I now possessed, I could easily tell things I couldn’t before. I could see her exasperation. Clearly, being soft and manipulative wasn’t working as well as it used to on me, so she had to do something fast to show me she was still in control.

“Look. I don’t know what’s up with you today, but I really think it’s best you don’t upset Scott any further. If he comes down here and sees this, who knows what he’ll do.”

I smiled again. Using Scott against me. How clever? She was the sweet one who never lost her temper, but Scott was the one who could put me in my place if I dared stray. That fact had made me lean into her constant presence and ignore the obvious signs of what both of them were doing right under my nose.

“Please tell me. What will he do? And what exactly have I done that I have to be worried about?” I asked.

This time, my fake cluelessness irritated her, rather than gave her time to come up with some new scheming tactic.

I’d made everything so easy before that she’d basically lost the need to be creative. She just had to smile at me and I would happily let her rub mud on my face. But right now, I was making things difficult, actually demanding explanations, which she’d never bothered to come up with before.

“Ava, I…I…” she stuttered, unable to come up with some retort until I finished my entire sandwich.

I couldn’t blame her. Not only was I actually standing up to her, but after the humiliation she’d faced at the ball, being tossed out because her name hadn’t been on the list and what happened after, it was almost laughable to assert dominance now especially when I wasn’t making it easy for her.

Plus, her scheme all along was pretending to be sweet to me and have me go the extra length by myself to be appreciative to her, so she couldn’t just show her true colors yet and that had to be frustrating.

“Since you’ve suddenly lost the ability to speak and I’m really getting tired, I’ll ask you once again. When are you leaving my house Belle?”

She frowned and crossed her arms over the other, standing her ground. How nice, I thought, gulping the last of my drink, while Gemma swept the front of the kitchen for the hundredth time.

“Scott is upset and hurt after what you made him go through today and I’ve been here to comfort him and you’re asking me to leave? When did you become so uncaring?” She asked, her voice breaking.

I stared at her for several seconds, noticing how almost perfectly genuine she looked. Had she played this part for so long that she now truly believed what she was saying? If I hadn’t overheard them that morning, I would have almost been convinced her brain had warped everything to make her feel like the good person.

Clap. Clap. Clap.

I let out a slow, rhythmic applause. Each strike of my hands was a physical insult, and Belle just stood there, staring in confusion as the sarcasm echoed between us.

“What a lovely performance. Amazing,” I mocked while she pursed her lips and looked away. “Well, you’ve done your part don’t you think? It’s almost midnight and I don’t want you going home so late after you were so kind to take care of my own husband all this while. I’m home now, so frankly, don’t you think it makes more sense for his own wife to comfort him?”

The more I spoke, the clearer the discomfort on her face deepened. Her expressions changed from shock to confusion to guilt and then anger, which didn’t last long. No matter how she decided to spin it, she knew I was right.

She opened her mouth and closed it a couple of times, her carefully calculated words failing her. She was quickly losing control and she absolutely hated it.

“What the hell is going on here?!” Scott’s deep voiced thundered in the room.

Embarrassingly, I flinched for a second, my brain having been so accustomed to dreading either of them being disappointed or upset with me in the slightest. I quickly regained my self and turned to him. That was when I noticed Gemma standing right behind him after being gone for a minute.

I rolled my eyes and started to make another sandwich. Clearly, I would need more food because the pests in this house weren’t going to let me peacefully do what I was already going to do.