wild life | l.p

Chapter Four.

Arianne wakes up to the smell of bacon and waffles being prepared downstairs, and as much as she wants to enjoy it, she opts to lay in bed on her phone for the rest of eternity instead. For the rest of the morning, at minimum.

She hears a soft knocking on her door around noon, two hours after she woke to the smell of freshly made breakfast. It’s Lydia, her dad’s assistant. She creaks the door open, popping her head in and smiling warmly at Arianne, who looks and probably smells like trash.

“I made you breakfast. Wasn’t sure what time you were planning on waking up today.”

“I wasn’t actually. Imagine my surprise when I did.”

“Oh, Ari.” She smiles, stepping in fully to the white, vacant feeling bedroom. “It won’t be so bad.”

“Can you be sure of that? Would you like to bet money on it?” Arianne suggests, tossing her phone to the side and sitting up to face Lydia.

“I mean, we could,” Lydia ponders, taking a seat on the ottoman at the end of the bed, “Or we could just try to make light of a rather unfortunate situation.”

Ari scoffs, rolling her eyes and tossing the blankets off of her body, “I hate the way you people talk to me. Like you’re speaking to me as though I’m the Queen of England or something.”

She stands up and paces across the carpet into the walk-in closet. It’s fairly empty and her voice echoes off of it’s clear, white walls whenever she talks inside of it. It felt more full before she moved out with her mother of course. Back then it was full of childhood momentos, pictures, and more clothes than she ever could have imagined needing. Now though, all it contained were a few empty hangers, a pair of slippers that Lydia had picked up for her the day before, and the suitcase in the middle of the floor. She didn’t unpack it purposefully. She wasn’t intending on staying longer than the dinner that she was obligated to go to in order to make amends with her father's intern.

“How would you prefer we speak to you, Ninny?”

It was a name that Lydia and Lydia alone was allowed to refer to her as. When Arianne was younger, she had the tendency to pronounce her name as “ari-an-nen”, leading to the nickname “Ninny”. Her mother and father found it cute when she was younger, but the name faded the older that she got. That, and Arianne refused to allow anyone other than Lydia to call her by that name.

Lydia had been in Arianne’s life for as long as she could possibly remember. She was formally referred to as her father’s assistant, but to Arianne it seemed such a false way to view her. Lydia had taken Arianne shopping for her first training bra, brought her items from the drug store when she got her first period. She had gone to every single one of Arianne’s dance recitals as a young girl, and-- though they’ve never brought it up-- she knew that she never did tell Arianne’s father when she caught her sneaking out to go on a date with her childhood crush Toby.

“I’d prefer…” Arianne said, re-emerging from the closet with a onesie zipped lazily over her sleeping attire, “That you just let me live my life the way I want to.”

“And how do you want to live your life?” Lydia said simply, amusement in her voice.

“I want to live my life as though I were a normal nineteen year old girl. I don’t want to be told what to do by my parents and be showcased around as some token daughter to people that don’t care about me or my dad.”

Arianne lifted the corner of her duvet to begin straightening out the sheets. Lydia stood up, walking to the opposite side and helping her fix up her bed. Arianne was never ever really upset with Lydia for anything. She knew that she was hired to help her dad with work things and some minor errands, and she knew that her job didn’t have anything to do with Ari or her life. But, she was always there and she was always available to Arianne should she ever need someone. Ari knew that she wouldn’t have been there for her if she didn’t care, so it was nice sometimes having her around. She was used to Ari’s moodiness and never bothered to get her to correct it, which was nice in of itself.