Forbidden Pleasures

[26.]

I escape to my room in panic. That was ... embarazoso. Embarrassing and careless. This could make her lose her job.

Okay, technically, Adrian could be the one who'd fire me. But that still doesn't make it okay. This is another painful reminder of who I am, especially to him. I should stay his dirty secret. And now his wife found us in a very promising position.

I can't even be mad at him. It's not really his fault, I should know better, too. There's a tightening feeling in my chest – the feeling that tells me I did something wrong and something I shouldn't be proud of.

I'm scared to go out of my room and face either of them. I don't know if I'll be able to look Mrs Welch in her eyes ever again now. Even though they don't have the real marriage, this is still their house and I'm not proud of anyone seeing me like that.

I have a war in my mind. I kind of hope that Adrian will come in here and tell me everything is alright, but minutes clock by and he's nowhere to be heard or seen. And I can't hide in here, either. I have work to do. I'm at least honourable enough to want to get paid for what I do and I want to be efficient – even if it's just cleaning.

I take some deep breaths, putting my hands on the stomach because it's actually starting to hurt. I keep burying myself a hole and soon it'll get so deep that I won't be able to get out. This is getting more complicated than it should be.

I go out of the room and go to my business. I avoid the kitchen. I don't hear any yelling. I don't hear anything, actually, and that makes me feel a little better, although I'm scared someone will appear from somewhere and not make it that easy for me to avoid it.

I move quietly around the house, although I soon find out that I don't even have to because there's no one. Except for Milena and I also see Roswald a few times wandering around, meaning that Adrian and Mrs Welch are probably both at home, but doing God knows what. Maybe I won't have to hide from them, after all. They're doing that by themselves. The rest of the day, actually. They don't even show up for dinner, which worries me. I asked Milena about it and she said she doesn't think they went anywhere.

Milena doesn't know what happened. I don't tell her, either. It's too embarrassing to share this with anyone.

And later, when I lie in my bed for hours, I'm just a tiny bit disappointed that Adrian didn't come to see me so we could talk about what happened. Or just to reassure me. I know I'm not really high on his priority list, but it still stings a bit.

Although he doesn't owe me anything – I realise that. It would just be a nice thing to do.

I sleep with a heart that's a little heavier today than other days and the worrying keeps me up for hours. I don't know what future holds for me, but I know I'm messing it up by continuing playing this dangerous game, pretending that I don't know how it's going to end.