OLDER MEN | THE WEEKND

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BREAKFAST THE MORNING AFTER is a procedure Bella would be reminiscing with a tinge of loathing her entire life.

Hadid stares into her plate of two perfectly poached eggs, drowned in jolly golden hollandaise sauce, and feels bile rise in her throat — she hears the unmistakeable footstep pattern of her father descending down the stairs.

Hastily, she stabs the egg so that the yolk explodes over the white of the porcelain. Gigi gives her a glare, stuffing another forkful of her own breakfast into her mouth hastily. "We've gotta hurry," she mumbles in-between bites. "Eat up, sis."

"Morning," — the soft, sleepy voice of her father is enveloping the room, and Bella felt her face heat up with fury. She throws a quick glance at her mother, who smiles at Mohamed Hadid cheerfully. "I see Marzia's made your favorite today, Bells, huh?"

   Bella chokes on the hot americano she's drinking, and thinks that she can feel her throat blistering. She slides the edges of her mouth outwards — the feeble attempt at a smile.

   "I went to bed quite late yesterday," her father muses, propping down onto a chair at the head of the table, "One of the producers was trying to get me to sign some awfully long contract. My diplomacy skills were on the edge of wearing out, really." 

  Gigi snorts gracefully into her plate. Bella can't help but think of the way his voice softened when he said "baby" into the phone last night.

   She chops up the pillow of green asparagus in concentration as her father continues his reminiscence of yesterday's events, — conveniently leaving out the part where he was chatting on the phone to his mistress bitch, Bella adds bitterly.

   "—Abel Tesfaye is going to go far in life, indeed. I just can't place a finger onto his intentions yet, nonetheless, his ulterior motives..." —her father trails off as Bella strains her ears to listen.

"..don't be too harsh, dear, he's at the rise of his career." Her mother's voice is as soft as silk. Bella feels her heart break. "You know when you were—"

"Doesn't matter what I was, Yolanda," her father's voice has notes of unmistakeable steel in it, "I—" he catches Bella's intense stare and his lips flutter a tight-lipped smile. "Bella, did he come after you and Luca yesterday evening? Were you two alright?"

"I thought you liked him," Bella speaks with forced indifference, though he voice is strained.

"Tesfaye's character is too complex to be liked, Isabella. One day you—"

"—he saved me from Nicholson's disgusting love confession which I had to endure because of you!" The girl stabs her second egg with her fork and shudders.

   Intense fury seems to be heating up her chest like wildfire.

   But her father doesn't need to know that. He doesn't need to know that his daughter had masked the puffiness of her now dry eyes with a bright ivory concealer minutes before. He doesn't need to know that the knife in her hand could right now be at the pulsating vein of his throat.

  Just then, as her father is staring at her indignantly, an idea pops into her head. No, not pops — it crawls from her bloodied heart, somber and retributive, ready to enslave, to punish. 

   It is the least and the most Bella can do — she ignores the fluttering in her chest at the reminiscence of last evening — to hurt him just as much as he had hurt her.

   And she knows exactly how to do that. At that moment in time, any tinge I'd annoyance, any level of pain she can cause her father is a welcome gift to the feeling of vengeance which is ruling her thoughts.

  "Besides," she says quietly, yet the utter silence allows her words to thickly layer upon each other, "Abel's far more caring than Luca. In fact," she flushes at her own words, yet continues coldly, "I like him."

  Bella blinks and flashes her father a calculated smile. His gaze turns to stone.

   "Isabella." His voice is entreating and at the same time threatening. Bella dares him with her eyes to call her baby. "Have you gotten up from the wrong foot this morning?"

   "I've been texting Abel all night," she lies with venom, and notes, pleased, her father's irritation with her words. "So I may be a little tired, daddy."

Her mother's facial expression seems to morph from shock into exasperation next to Mohamed. Gigi chokes on her asparagus, gulping her coughs down with a sweetened cappuccino.

"If you excuse me," Bella says lightly, though her heart is tearing into two as she seeds her mother grab Mohamed's arm, "Enjoy your breakfast."

And, without looking at anyone else in the room, Bella storms out from behind the dining table, her short baby-pink skirt fluttering as she does so.

She hopes that nobody can see her whole body trembling.