5. Chapter 5
Chapter 5
-Annabella-
K ace and I had spoken little after I assured him I would stay and continue to be married. There was no way I could divorce him, yet my head was screaming at me. It told me that I was being an idiot for staying, but I didn’t know what else to do. I couldn’t go home.
Everyone would only continue the teasing and whispering behind my back. I would rather enjoy some peace and quiet while the gossip died down.
I slept most of the day and night away, but then I woke up early with a very growling stomach. So I went to eat. Mariam had set it all up outside on the porch, so I could enjoy the heated sun on my skin too. Yet I couldn’t stay out for long.
My skin was not friends with the sharp rays, and instead of getting brown, I turned into a red lobster. However, the rays were milder in the morning, and therefore it was nice to sit there.
“Is Kace not hungry?” I asked before seeing the shocked expression that formed on Mariam’s face after I spoke. But was it so weird that I asked about the man I married?
“He is eating in his room,” she replied.
“Again?”
“Yes, it’s where he often eats,” she informed me.
“But it’s so nice out here,” I said, gesturing to the beautiful backyard and the shining sun.
“He hasn’t come out a lot after the accident,” she explained.
“But it must be depressing being inside all the time.”
Mariam shrugged and instead poured me some coffee. Yet I didn’t like hearing it. How could we try to work on a marriage if he was stuck inside all the time?
I left my seat, Mariam calling my name, but I wasn’t listening. I walked down the hallway and knocked on his bedroom door.
“Enter,” I heard. I pushed open the door, poking my head inside, and found him at another table, eating breakfast.
“Annabella, morning,” he said.
“Morning.” I stepped in but did not close the door, and his eyes scanned me from head to toe.
I wore nothing but a tight little top and a pair of sleeping shorts. I hadn’t even thought about what I was wearing when I came to see him, but now I felt almost naked. I wrapped my arms around myself and tried to smile.
“It’s nice outside,” I began.
He turned to look at the window. “It’s sunny,” he remarked.
“And nice. Warm,” I added.
“All right.”
I shifted my weight a little back and forth. Where the hell did my bravery go? I shook my head, telling myself not to be such a coward.
“Mariam has it all set up outside. You… want to join me?” I asked, looking everywhere before my eyes settled on him, meeting his sharp blue ones that were completely unreadable. That has to be an advantage for him in the business world , I thought, but it made me fear I had overstepped.
“Okay,” he replied.
“Okay?” I echoed, shocked, because he had waited so long to give me an answer.
“Sure, I will join.”
“All right… um, great. Need any…”
But Kace’s chair wasn’t just a standard one. He could control it with a little remote by the armrest, and so there was no need for my help. He rolled by me with a smug smile on his lips, and I spoke a soft ‘of course not’ to myself before I followed behind him and outside.
We went and sat at the table, and I placed myself in front of him just as Mariam came outside again. But she seemed to freeze when she noticed us.
“Mariam, good. I need some coffee,” Kace informed her.
“Right away,” Mariam replied and went to get the pot so she could pour him a cup.
Yet it was still very quiet as we sat there, and he drank his coffee before he ate a little.
“You’re right,” he said.
“About?” I inquired.
“It is nice,” he observed.
“Told you so,” I teased, seeing a smile almost appear on his lips. “So, eh… what are we going to do?”
“About?” he asked.
“Our marriage… stuff.”
“Stuff?” he echoed.
I’m not good at this , I thought, but I didn’t know how to talk to him about what to do next. Eating this breakfast together might be the first step toward acting like a married couple, but what about the rest? How did we make time for each other?
“Yes, stuff, like future plans,” I explained.
“Future plans?” he pressed.
“Where do we see all of this going?” I asked.
“Hopefully, we will have a long and happy partnership,” he stated, as if that wasn’t a given.
“I meant more like… kids,” I explained.
“Kids?” He perked up, looking excited, and it made me feel taken aback, even more so when a wicked smile spread across his lips. “Want to get started on that already?”
“What? No! I mean… I mean, is it even… possible, considering…” Oh God, I couldn’t ask, and the longer I paused, the more annoyed he felt.
“Are you asking me if my accident ruined more than my ability to walk?” he asked.
“Well… yes,” I replied, feeling stupid and nervous. Was I crossing too many boundaries? But shouldn’t we talk about these things?
“Don’t worry. I haven’t lost complete feeling. It is possible,” he assured me, and the wicked smile returned.
“Oh, okay, well, do you want any?” I inquired.
“What?”
“Kids.”
“I thought it was a given,” he said, as if marriage were a direct way to say, ‘Yes, let’s have lots of babies’.
“You do know today people don’t just get married to have kids, right?” I inquired. “People actually have a choice.”
“Most people who marry do have kids.”
“But not all,” I countered. “And it shouldn’t be expected. Many are happy without kids!”
“I think they might not be that honest with themselves.”
“Then maybe you should spend more time with child-free people, and then maybe your insulting attitude toward them might change.”
Kace seemed taken aback, clearly not expecting me to get so worked up, but such ideas made me furious. It was an old relic of a time when it was always expected that women wanted kids.
“What?” he asked.
“Yes, how do you even know I want kids?” I challenged.
“I thought—”
“Because I’m a woman?” I interrupted, seeing him go mute.
“Well—” he began.
“Because I can tell you, despite my gender, it doesn’t automatically make me the perfect mother or make me have a desire for kids.”
Kace went completely quiet, and a thick tension filled the air. But his words had gotten me worked up, and I would not sit there and just take it.
“And it is incredibly insulting to me that that is all you see me as.”