chapter 15

Chapter 15

I'm not sure if I'm depressed, I mean I'm not sad but am exanot happy either.

I haven't laughed or joked in a while but sometimes when I am alone at night I forget how to feel.

So many years of education yet nobody ever taught us how to love ourselves and why it is important.

They tell us to be ourselves and then judge us by our smallest mistakes.

I decided to flip through the pages of my journal and I saw a quote be an Indian philosopher

Rupi Kaur: it says

What's the greatest lesson a woman should learn?

That since day one she has everything she needed within herself : it's the word that convinced her that she did not.

How I got to this point I don't know.

I realized a little bit late that the window in which we view the world is flawed.

Laughter was meant to be timeless, imagination was supposed to have no age and dreams were meant to be forever.

But the society we lived in put a verdict on everything.

Time has a way of taking away our memories little by little until all we have left are dreams, even those dreams are slowly being taken away from us.

I almost had my happiness with me.

The word in the world is the word almost .

Where did all the memories go, the ones,we hide away with locks and keys just so it will last forever?.

How easy it is to forget that while we spend our time chasing sunlight the darkness spends it's time chasing us.

Funny isn't it.

I hate how nobody sees how i am falling apart, at the same time I don't wanna cry and look weak.

I have been taught right from childhood that showing your emotions to people is like bleeding in front of a shark.

I don't know what it means to live a balanced life.

When am sad I don't cry

When I am happy I don't smile .

When am angry I don't yell I burn

You should see me when my heart gets broken, I don't grieve when I shatter.

Because people expect more from people like us I feel jealous when I see girls laugh, cry or yell as they please, while I am forced to uphold decorum that was forced upon by society.

My engagement party is just a few days away and I had my final fitting with Danike.

I tried to act normal around him in front of everyone but I kept flinching anytime he moved a muscle but no one seemed to notice.

Maybe they did but didn't care enough to mention it and it made him smile.

It was a fact that I had made peace with myself.

I was getting married to Danike Blackwell.

The person who was going to become a daily part of my routine.

I still found it weird.

I still remembered dinner last night

"i think he his good enough, we chose the right man for you"

Lies.

But I simply nodded blankly to avoid any more discussion on the matter.

My parents sent me to give him lunch again today.

Here I am again, acting like a medieval maid waiting.

Go through those revolving doors again, seeing the faces of all the hoes he fuck under one roof made my skin crawl.

But not the less I didn't let it show. I walked across the lobby with my back straight and my head high, these bitches were never going to catch me lacking.

Entered the elevator this time with no unwanted guests as company and I was thankful.

I entered his floor and his secretary wasn't insight.

Maybe luck has decided to shine in my favor for once.

Only for my eyes to be assaulted as enter his office, I should have known it won't be as easy as it has been.

As I turned around to leave, he called my name "Irene, you didn't tell me you were coming today" , his tone sharp.

I turned around to see that Miss Secretary had finally gotten off his lap and positioned her fake boobs properly in her dress and had a smile on her face while looking at me with smudged lipstick.

I didn't know why I was expecting him to look remorseful at the fact that I caught him in his adulterous act.

"I came with your lunch" keeping my face blank and my voice empty.

"You can leave Bianca and bring in the files for the Casablanca castle hotel" he said with a steady stare at me.

Bianca so that's her name.

She walked past me with a mocking smile on her face but I couldn't care less.

"place my food on the coffee table"

My eyes snapped to him because of the audacity he had.

But today I was feeling courageous because I can't stand being insulted at every interval because of my parents' wrong judgment.

Yes, I am not blaming him because my parents really are to blame.

"Don't you have shame Danike" I said in a tone that I didn't even know I could use.

At that he raised a brow at him as if not knowing what I was talking about.

"If you wanted to insult me in public at least do it with someone that is worth my class, not hoes that you can find on the street" I said looking him in the eyes, but he laughed in response to what I said and it only fueled my anger even more.

He stood up from his seat and was coming towards me.

Was I scared? Yes, definitely.

But I refuse to be insulted by someone with low standards as him.

Why hasn't the media said something about him to the public or his he fucking them too.

"Irene, should I be honest with you ?" He said in a calm tone.

That's when I felt a shiver down my spine.

"Do you know why I agreed to this marriage ?"

He continued taking my silence as an answer.

"You are Irene Snow Porter, heir to the Montego empire, yes Rivers Ruiz was a catch but you were a bigger catch than her".

"What do you mean?" I said, losing my newly found confidence.

A smile spread across his face as he continued " where luxury hotels had started to see decline, your family decided to venture into economy class hotels.

Don't you think I have seen the math?"

He paused as if waiting for what he said to properly sink in then continued while watching me closely.

"travel has become a rising trend to the lower abs middle classes, Montego has been riding that wave"

"It's just lucky nothing else" I said trying to keep my voice steady not knowing where this conversation was going.

He scoffed "luck, well it plays a big part in the business world…."

He eyed me head to toe like a predator that has seen fresh meat and it made me uncomfortable and he noticed it because he smiled.

" you are turning eighteen soon, had your family given it a few years, you finished your degrees suitors would have been swarming in"

He kept the smile steady and it scared me.

" I did my research on you Irene, I would have been a fool not to. You were already taking part in the hotel management from when you were fifteen, you were partly responsible for the HR department of your companies and I know you were behind a few policies that got the world talking."

That was not common knowledge, yes I will admit.

But nonetheless I looked at him blankly.

There were certain things about my family that were kept under wraps and that was one of them.

My Grandma made sure I had little privacy growing up.

She said that will help me feel like a normal child.

"Where are you getting at with all this"

"You don't still get it do you? Here I was thinking you were smart, you are not yet of marriageable age, and your hypothetical suitors would have at least waited for you to finish college, but here you are been poached from right under their nose marrying at the age of eighteen, have you seen the figures now?" He said those last words like I was a child.

"weren't you taught that marriages in our type of society weren't for love? Or are you one of those girls that Disney has fooled"

He said infuriating me more

" Let me break it down for you, you are banned from continuing your studies and you are the only heir of your family, so who is going to manage your company once your father retires ?"

Danike Blackwell was my immediate response, my heart skipped a bit I didn't think that far.

"All the benefits are tipped in my favor, wifey and I didn't have to lift a finger because your did all the work. Why? I don't know" then he laughed

We get a family name. Something that has been around for over two centuries.

But was it worth my future ?