"I'm fascinated by everything you do. Your smile, your touch, your laughter. Believe me or not, I have spent my entire life waiting for this moment."
"Was I in your dreams?"
"I rarely sleep. My mind has this scary capability of being dark and twiste...
b l a c k - h e a r t e d (adj.) - cruel and wicked; corrupt and immoral.
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
"Don't slouch. You're slouching."
My mother's hissing remark pierced my ears as she whispered it a bit too loudly for me to be the only one to hear it. Instinctively, I straightened up my shoulders, my gaze wandering the floor emptily.
"And stop fiddling with your skirt, for god's sake. It's Armani. Is this why I got it for you, so that you can ruin it so carelessly?"
My fingers froze over the fabric, clutching into balled fists shortly after. I felt the familiar tension rise in my jaw and in my forehead. I glanced over at my mother.
Grief was the last thing one could assume she was feeling right now, with her corrosively sharp stare pinned at the holy man mumbling something in front of us. Which was funny, considering we were burying her fourth husband today.
I thought she could at least make it seem like she was mourning Julian. She could pop like a tear or two. Or at least pretend to wipe her eyes.
Like all of her previous husbands, he was a decade older than her and loaded with money.
However, unlike the others, he was someone I genuinely liked. He would always tell me corny jokes that would crack me up and make my mother roll her eyes in the haughtiest manner possible. She couldn't stand the man and it was glaringly obvious. There was no love there.
The soft rumble of voices around me snapped me back to reality. The service had come to an end. Thank God. I adjusted my knee-long black skirt over my waist and stood up.
I had no desire to watch Julian's other three ex-wives throw themselves against the coffin with a magnitude of despair characteristic of an award-winning artist. They were vengeful and bitter, glaring at my mother for she had been the last one to marry him and inherit all of his wealth.
The atmosphere was crackling with tension as she returned their gesture with a subtle, gloating smirk. Just enough to show she was enjoying her victory. I felt like I was in the middle of a snake lair, so I desperately searched for a way to get out of there.
I used the opportunity to glide past my mother, heading for the bathroom. The clothes my mother had picked out for me were so tight I was suffocating, feeling so confined as if it were me who were locked in a coffin right now.
My breathing accelerating, I rounded the corner, the old wooden floor of the church creaking underneath my footsteps. I caught a glimpse of a woman entering the ladies' room, so I came to a halt to wait until she was out. In the meantime, I noticed my shoe laces were undone, so I promptly dropped on one knee to tie them before I trip over my feet in the middle of this godforsaken church.
"It's a bad habit, you know."
My gaze snapped as a pair of freshly polished leather Oxford shoes stepped right in front of me. I felt mildly uncomfortable squatting while someone was talking to me, so I quickly got back to my feet.
