two months later
Liville heard her stomach growling, and she knew she was about to be berated for it.
She sat at the breakfast table, along with her family. Her bowl of porridge was already eaten and finished. But her stomach still growled from lack of satisfaction. She was humiliated by it. Liville had stayed at Sejanus's house for too long. Her body got used to the three course meals everyday, and she was still struggling to jump back into being given such small amounts of food.
She thought after two months at home, she'd adjust back to the diet she grew up on. But it seemed now that her body noticed how much nourishment it had been missing, it wasn't willing to go back to it.
Liville's two younger sisters sat at the table, as did her two younger brothers, and their parents. Her sister beside her, Castle, heard the small sound from Liville. She glanced over, before her eyes nervously darted to their mother, because she too knew what was about to be said.
"Are you still hungry, Liville?" her mother asked, speaking for the very first time that morning.
Liville placed her eyes on her lap. "No, Mrs. Wanless."
"You sound hungry still," her mother continued. "Was your porridge not enough for you?"
"It was plenty, Mrs. Wanless."
"Hm," her mother commented. "I see. You must've liked it. You've finished it all." Her mother's eyes glanced at her sister's bowls. "Dia and Castle only ate half of theirs."
The comment weighed on Liville.
"I trusted that you would stick to your diet at the Plinth's," her mother said. "I see that did not happen."
She swallowed. "I did-"
"I have not asked a question."
She shut her mouth.
"Girls, why don't you all head upstairs, we have not had you weighed in a few days," their mother commanded.
Her sisters both gave a polite, "Yes, Mrs. Wanless."
When the girls left the table, they took their brother's plates to the kitchen for them. And once they washed their brother's plates, they headed upstairs.
Dia snapped at Liville on the way up. "We haven't had to weigh at all while you were gone," she commented cruelly. "Now she's back to doing it weekly. Just because of you. Just because you came back fat."
Liville hugged her body, more aware of how much bigger she was than when she left. It was especially noticeable when it came to fitting into her clothes here. Clothes that were far tighter than she remembered them being.
Dia was only a year younger than Liville. She was going to be sent to live with her betrothed next year, on her seventeenth birthday. The stress it caused gave her sister a bad temper. She was more nervous about it than Liville had been. Then again, Dia's betrothed was never as responsive with her when it came to letters. He wasn't a penpal in the way Sejanus was to Liville. Dia's betrothed was a colder boy from the Capitol, one who hardly wrote to her, and hardly wanted anything to do with her at all.
"Mother told us you gained weight," Castle commented as they reached the upstairs bathroom. "I thought you'd be with child already."
Liville hated the way that always came to everyone's mind so fast. As if her existence was merely that of a womb waiting to be filled.
"Yes, why aren't you?" Dia asked. "Did your betrothed not like you enough to touch you?"
Her face burned red. "Do not speak to me with such a rude tone," she snapped defensively. "My relationship is none of your business."
