Tempted by love

Chapter 3

Chapter 3   

When the morning came, I was the first to wake. The snow continued to fall outside the window just as it did yesterday. It made everything outside white as if preparing for an angel’s arrival. It was beautiful and the sight had taken my breath away. I hadn’t seen anything quite like it - spectacular. Like a place, passionate photographers would capture with their lens. With everything white: the trees, their roots buried deep beneath the soft snow, their branches hanging with a canopy of snowflakes that contrasted with the green ferns beneath. There was hardly any green and even the small stream in the distance was a pale color.   

I yawned from my morning fatigue.  

Glancing at the wooden floor for my fluffy leopard print slippers, I shivered from the room’s drafty chill. There wasn’t much furniture inside it. There was only a four poster bed with a red quilt covering. A mahogany cupboard that sufficiently managed to encompass all my clothes I had brought with me. It stood against one of the four walls with an antique oval mirror hung above it. There was also a rocking chair in the corner and a desk next to it with my laptop on top of it. Besides that, there was nothing else to look at but the bare pale yellow walls.     

When I finally spotted the pair of slippers hidden half under the upturned quilt, I walked over to the bathroom across the hall to clean myself up. I looked at my face in the mirror as I brushed through my tangled mane of blonde hair, braiding it as I ran through a list of possible activities that I would do today. It would all start with breakfast in the kitchen. The soldier was not up yet. I knew this because I peeked through the small crack between the door.

I went downstairs to the kitchen, making sure to make breakfast from the perishable items. I sat in the lonely silence that stretched throughout the house, chewing daintily on the piece of bacon in my plate. The kitchen was fairly modern with its state of the art sleek black appliances. My father had clearly been preparing this house to hide both me and the soldier in for a while now as if he knew all this time that he would bring the two of us here under one roof. It was evident through the stock pile of food in the fridge and the pantry to the left of the sink. There were even photos of my father in the army during his younger days hung across most of the walls like artwork. Though, it was creepy seeing pictures of my stern father hung in the kitchen as I ate my breakfast. Shouldn’t there be pictures of food in a kitchen? That seemed like the more appropriate option.

I could hear a rustling noise from upstairs. The soldier must be awake now. But, he never came downstairs. I wrinkled my nose in frustration to why he never came out of his room. Soon, I found myself on the Persian carpet on the floor in the living room, painting my nails in a cotton candy pink color. Just as I was about to let the brush coat my index finger on my left hand, a jolting bang echoed off from up above. I realized it was the soldier banging his bedroom door in haste.  

I looked up to see his brawny lean figure rushing down the stairs and into my father’s office. With another bang, he shut the door closed. I couldn’t help but roll my eyes to whatever had his panties in a bunch. The man was strange and I couldn’t figure him out. Yesterday he held a knife to my throat because he thought I was the bad person. Then he snapped at me for asking a seemingly personal question. Now he was banging doors like a crazy person. Great my father had stuck me in a house with a lunatic.    

I went back to painting my fingernails with deep concentration. Though soon, I felt a presence hovering over me, watching and waiting for my attention. I took a deep breath in and sighed out loudly.

“What is it, Jack?” I asked. His false name slipped off my tongue, forgetting that his name wasn’t Jack. And, I subconsciously scolded myself for the slip.