The Marriage Demands (#Wattys2017)

Chapter 23

What a day! Full of such pleasant and unpleasant surprises.

To say that I was still a little bit shaken from having met my wife's parents was an understatement: baffled would be more like it. I still hadn't recovered yet I had to because I was constantly feeling a dangerously dark aura from Bree and I wasn't ashamed to admit that it had me on edge. Ever since we got back to our suite, Bree has been working on her presentation and has been trying her best to act like nothing happened. I didn't want to provoke her but I was basically left tongue tied due to those ridiculous demands--and I was regretting so much on why I ever agreed to them.

However now I had understood why she made me agree to them in the first place: though try as hard as she did, I could clearly see the hurt in her eyes when she had faced her parents.

When I had realized that they were her parents, I knew then and there that she was meeting with them after a long time yet she was cold as ice towards them.

She had fully taken advantage of the fact that I wasn't so good at speaking or understanding urdu, the conversation that transpired between them had left me confused. and yet they spoke in Urdu, I had understood a little or at least I think I did: I came to know that she didn't even tell them that she got married and that too to an American and the hurt was evident in her parents' eyes. And I thought that it was completely heartless of her to disregard their feelings.

I glanced at her in the corner: she was so busy with the notes and various papers in her hands that she didn't notice me approach her. I sat down besides her and touched her hand. "Bree?" I muttered.  She flinched at my voice and stared at me with confusion then carried on with her notes. "What is it?" she asked nonchalantly.

"Don't you think that we should talk about this?"

"About what?" her eyes were still on the papers.

"You know what,"

"No I don't,"

"Amber," I caught her wrist and slowly lowered the papers on her hands. She looked at me with an annoyed expression but I presented her with a sweet smile. "About your parents. Do you wanna talk about it?" I offered.

She stared at me with a look that displayed different emotions until she filtered them and stared back at me with empty emotions. "What are you talking about?"

Oh so now she's about to feign ignorance. "Don't pretend like ypu don't know what I am talking about Bree," I insinuated. She signed and turned towards me. Oh, no u had her full attention. "Honestly, I had hoped against hope that you wouldn't bring it up. But you did." she said icily that I flinched at her indifferent attitude.

"Of course I would." I replied with a light note to my voice so that she Amy also cool down but her guard was up and the indifferent and stoic Amber was sitting beside me. "We'll don't. If you don't want to breech any of my demands and break our contract, then it will do you good to not proceed any further then you have." she spoke with such eloquence that it frightened me out of my wits. Why is she acting this way?

I clenched my fists and felt my anger building up but I kept my anger in check and breathed in deeply. "I now understand why you placed those demands. But they don't restrict me asking about the present. All I'm inquiring about is if whether you want to talk about how you're feeling with me. I'm not inquiring about your past or forcing you about anything." I stipulated.

"Then know: I have nothing to share or spare."she said in monotone and continued to read her papers. I sighed and got up. I was feeling suffocated in this atmosphere. So I left the room and went to the lobby. It was very quiet and less lively now. Of course that's how it ought to be so late at night. I just strolled there and tried to clear my head: clearly the conversation earlier with my Cranky wife left a bad taste in my mouth.