❝all that is gold does not glitter,
not all those who wander are lost;
the old that is strong does not wither,
deep roots are not reached by the frost❞
- j.r. tolkien
in which she has problems money could never fix.
[crazy rich asians 2018]
[nov 30...
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──── ❝ chapter x ❞ ────
❝ you called me a gilded rose ❞
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THE WEDDING WAS TODAY, AND with every second that ticked by I was dreading it. Asher wanted us to arrive together. I couldn't imagine sitting in a room with him with 20 feet of distance between us let alone in a church pew with photographers and 1000 of our family members and friends surrounding us.
I stared at my dress with disdain. It was nice, sure, but it wasn't the dress I had flown in from Italy last month. That one was gold. It had skin-tone pads underneath the layers of sheer golden fabric that swirled with an intricacy only a trained hand could make look uniform. On the right shoulder was a shimmering array of genuine rubies that were arranged to look like a flourishing bouquet of roses. It wasn't terribly long, ended a few inches above the knee, and there were no sleeves. But my favorite part? The ruby rose hairpin that went with it...
No, this wasn't the dress I was to wear. Asher didn't like this one. Gold didn't go with his tuxedo, nor his skin tone. The one he commanded me to wear was varying in shades of vomit green and looked like what an old white woman would wear to church. It was patterned with black lines, and in comparison to the dress I bought, these lines looked more like the scribbles I'd find on my second cousin's coloring books than floral print. Perhaps the worst part was the dress's structure. The sleeves were long, the dress's skirt reached my ankles, and the neckline reached my chin.
Modesty, Asher told me, was of importance if I was to pretend to be his girlfriend. I never got on other girls for wanting to uphold these kind of values, so long as they did it for themselves and were happy in doing so. But because this was mandated by the likes of Asher, looking at the dress made me feel ill. This wasn't a dress for a wedding, it was my prison uniform.
For all of ten minutes I stared at this dress. Was this pain truly worth it? The only good thing in my life was already gone. My family doesn't truly understand me nor do they care to. If Asher just send out that photo... Why should I care?
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"It's um... it's me again... I know that you're probably not even... look I just... the uh, the wedding is today. And you're gonna, um, see some things? I know this- Okay not like- I mean you- you're gonna see me with Asher but I... I know this isn't what you want to hear. I'm not making it any better by... saying this. I-I'm sorry... I hope that... that when I come home I can properly explain all this... I'm sorry."
