The Guardian Wars: Part One #Wattys2016

Chapter Four

I watched the digital clock on the dashboard of the car as we drove from the apartment building and out onto the main road. I knew that it would take exactly thirteen minutes to get from my apartment to my parents' house. I savored every second of the drive.

"It won't be so bad this time," Rowan said, as he peered back at me through the rear view mirror.

"Your parents are too wrapped up in Lynette's wedding to..," he trailed off as he searched for the right words.

"Judge me? Analyze me? Critique me?" I offered up a few suggestions.

"Yeah," he agreed dryly. I stretched my fingers out on the leather seat beneath me and took a deep breath. Maybe he was right. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad. My parents and I had never gotten along. To call me the black sheep of the family would be a huge understatement. My mother and father were the picture of social perfection and I was odd and uncomfortable in any type of elegant situation.

 Margaret and Travis Tremaine lived in an exquisite home filled with designer furniture. The second they rolled out of bed, they dressed themselves in the finest and most overpriced clothing. Lynette and I had been raised under the ideal that life without money was not worth living, because in Sector 1, money equaled happiness. Lynette grasped the concept much more organically than I did. I enjoyed having nice things, but for some reason, I did not find the joy in possessions the way that the rest of my family did. 

I also didn't carry myself the way they did. I found it difficult to behave as though I was entitled to things just because I had money. My mother and Lynette had tried for years to train me on the art of snobbery, but it was no use. My awkwardness to social standards always won out.

My mother was sweet to the naked eye, and I knew that she most likely meant well, but I knew her sighs, facial expressions, and other tells. She could make the cruelest insult seem like a friendly side note, and with just a look, she had the power make me feel like a misbehaving child. She wanted me to be like Lynette so badly, and when the two of them were together, I stood absolutely no chance. Sometimes, I really felt like they kept me around solely for target practice to perfect their passive aggressiveness.

My father, on the other hand, was angry most of the time, and he really didn't try to hide it. He rarely raised his voice, but he always seemed to want to. He spoke through his teeth a lot, as if opening them would release all the fury he kept pent up. We didn't speak much, and we had spent very little time together when I was a child. Any hope for a normal relationship with any of my immediate family had been lost long ago.

"Row?" I asked as I gazed out the window.

"Yes, ma'am?" he replied.

"Before I have to marry whoever my test has chosen for me, will you kidnap me and take me away to one of the places you talk about in your stories? Somewhere where we can always be together and I never have to see another socialite again?" I looked up at his reflection in the rear view mirror as I waited for his answer.

"Olivia, not a day goes by that I don't wish for that," he responded. He smirked back at me, but his expression fell quickly. "We both know that's not possible, though," he continued. I watched as his eyes fell back onto the road and I let my heart fall with them.

"A girl can dream." I muttered staring back out into the traffic beside us.

"Dreaming of a better world with you is my favorite thing to do, but soon you and I are going to be apart, and we have to start preparing for that day." Even though his voice sounded like ice, his words burned me.

"Why Rowan? Why can't we be together always? I don't care what you think, I'll never be happy being married to someone else. There's no one good in my life now except for you. It's not fair that they can just take you away from me whenever they are ready to marry me off! No one cares what I want! I don't want a husband, and I don't want you to leave!" I declared, louder than I had intended. I had been becoming increasingly more anxious about the day that Rowan would have to leave me. I couldn't help myself as the anger over my helplessness in the matter built inside me.