36
Ella
October 3rd, 2018
W hen I was younger and first imagined the night before my wedding, I imagined a night in with your friends, face masks and cheesy films with a bottle of wine or enough cups of tea to make you feel sick.
Never did I imagine I would actually spend the night before my real wedding, sitting in the dining room at my parents’ house surrounded by my parents, Anthony, Amelia, and Dean, just like we were when they set the date for my supposed arranged marriage. Nor did I ever imagine I would be scolded like a dog in training for simply… being human.
Who’d have thought love — an emotion you can never control — would be the one thing I’m being scolded for. We spend our lives teaching children that emotions are okay to have, to never feel bad for having them and that they’re uncontrollable, and yet here I am. I’m just a doll when you think about it, being shaped and moulded, moved around and modelled, only I can break the spell.
“I didn’t think you could disappoint me any further, Ella, and then you do this,” Dad laments.
His balding head shakes, the blue eyes rolling and looking toward his boss. Clearly, the memo has got to Dean’s parents that I ran away for love. I haven’t yet figured out if they are aware of the seventh member around the table, currently the size of a raspberry and hidden away inside my stomach.
“We need to discuss this.” Anthony clears his throat and puts his hands on the table to show us all that he means ‘business’.
I meet Dean’s gaze from across the table. A tiny, tiny apology is in his eyes. I notice the dark bruise on his lip where Matt left his mark defending me.
“Well, there isn’t much to discuss. Ella and Dean can give their notice of marriage at the next available opportunity. The wedding will be four weeks from then. Given the circumstances, I think it will have to be a small affair; whichever location is available. We still have the dress, and everything can be as it was, just… smaller,” Amelia suggests.
“I think that is fair enough, don’t you, Adrian?” Anthony nods.
I open my mouth, wanting to tell them that I am still a human being, but the moment I do, Dean shakes his head at me discreetly. It’s a warning that neither of the ‘macho men’ are in the mood to be challenged by the likes of me.
I am nothing but a pawn to all of them; all of them, except my mother. I wonder if Anthony and Amelia know I know their secrets.
I bite my lip, the words threatening to boil over the surface like water in a kettle.
“Not the wedding we had planned, I know, but it will have to do,” Dad agrees reluctantly. He turns to look at me. “Ella, I think you have something to say to Dean and his family, don’t you?”
I stay silent, looking at my dad, narrowing my eyes in challenge. I know he wants me to apologise. He’s done this type of ‘suggestion’ to me before, whether it’s apologising to him for being too noisy while he was on the phone, or whether it’s apologising to Mum for not eating food, or whether it’s simply leaving my clothes on the floor.
Well, fuck him. He’s not getting to save face this time. I don’t want to apologise and I’m not going to.
The only thing that makes me think before speaking is the very small fact that Mum is putting her neck out to save me. To save myself, Matty and our baby, I have to play along.
But even if I was going along with this, I know in my heart of hearts that I would never apologise to Dean, Anthony, or Anthony’s disgusting gremlin of a wife. No way.
The smirk I’ve been holding onto disappears. My teeth let go of my lip, and I look at Dean. He’s watching me closely, studying me as if I were a business contract. That’s exactly what I am and always have been to these people. Maybe not to my mum, but then she’s still culpable to all of this because it’s taken this exact situation for her to finally stand up to her husband.
“Ella,” Dad warns.
I glance at my dad again, his eyes gesturing for me to apologise.
“If you want me to apologise, Dad, I’m not going to.” I keep my words simple and look at Dean again. I put my feet on the chair, my knees hugging my chest.
“To be honest, Ella, an apology is the least you can do after letting your family, and ours, believe you were dead—”
“With absolutely no respect, Amelia, you are not my parent, so I wouldn’t appreciate being told what to say or do, thank you,” I cut her off. As much as I know Mum will be wishing for me to keep my mouth shut to play along; playing along is exactly what I’m doing.
The thing is, this is me, now. After spending three years living by myself and doing pretty much what I wanted, with whoever I wanted, I’ve worked out who I am. The person these people tried to mould me to be has evaporated. I was like an ice cube, but summer has now arrived, and I’m melting into the water I should’ve always been.
“Young lady,” Dad warns, and I snap my eyes over to him.
“Oh, come on. We all know exactly why I’m here; we all know Dean’s told me the truth. Let’s not keep this from each other any longer!” I finally release the smirk I’ve been holding for a while. “I’m going to put my cards on the table for you now—”
“Ella, I wouldn’t,” Dean warns me.
“You don’t get to talk to me like that,” I say. “You all want me to sit here and willingly marry him, then you all have to stop playing pathetic little charades and put your cards out. To start us all off, I’ll say my piece—”
“Ella—”
“No, Dad. You did the talking with your fists earlier. It’s my turn to speak.”
I don’t know where the sudden confidence has come from, but when I look at my mum, she’s smiling, her eyes glowing with pride, so I know I’m doing good. Maybe it’s my newly formed responsibility, or maybe I’ve spent so long with Matt that his confidence and stubbornness has transferred to me. It’s probably the fact I’ve worked out that my dad only sees me – his only child – as a walking, talking bank, and that’s all I’ve ever been.
“If you want me to willingly marry Dean because you want to keep your secrets, well, secret,” I point out. “Quite frankly, I don’t feel comfortable defending a woman who—”
“I’m not listening to this from the girl who knew she had to keep to a contract and ran away with an orphan !” Amelia cries.
I’ve rattled her. The tears coming down the face of a woman I have never seen cry, tells me that.
“Oh, then you clearly don’t care about your secret that much, because the new deal is that if you want me to walk down that aisle, you tell us all exactly why you’ve treated me like a pawn for the past twenty-one years!” I demand, standing from my chair and pointing with my finger on the table.
“You are in no position to make demands right now, Ella,” Dad bellows.
“You’re just as bad, Dad. I’m nothing but a cash machine to you, am I?” I demand. “You literally only care about your money. You looked me right in the eyes earlier while you beat up the man I love—”
“You don’t love him, Ella.”
“You can shut up,” I snap at Dean. “Have you told your parents all about Quinn? You told them how you promised me you wouldn’t touch me before the party?”
“Yes, he has,” Anthony pipes up. I scoff, glancing at Dean. “Ella, you think you have the upper hand here, making us air these secrets, but it’s nothing we haven’t all heard before. Yes, Amelia had an affair with one of her pupils. Yes, Dean had a girlfriend despite his promise. Is that what you wanted?”
“No, I want you to admit you’re all doing this so you can protect a paedophile! Since I was sixteen, I have not been able to do anything for myself; not wear a dress to a party without Dean picking it out for me or choose a fucking wedding dress. I can’t have an education without asking my father’s permission for it. I can’t breathe if it’s not what appeases you. For once in my life, I want you to do something for me and admit why the fuck I haven’t been able to be a human being!”
The silence that fills the room is enough.
I turn on my heel and push the chair onto the floor as I pass. It lands with a bang that resounds in the deathly silence as I walk out of the room.
∞∞∞
“Ella?”
“Fuck off, Dean.”
“Let me in, please. I just want to talk.” He taps on the door again. I wipe the tears, knowing this isn’t good for the eyes that are meant to be made up in the morning, but the thought of spending the night here, even just the effort of pretending to leave Matty physically burns.
“What?” I demand. He opens the door and walks in, nervously running a hand through his black hair as he approaches the bed. He perches on the edge, uninvited, just like every single time since I was sixteen.
“I’m sorry.”
“What?”
“Ella, I’m sorry. I’m sorry I told them about Matthew, that I told them where you were, and I’m sorry I told them about—” His voice stops, and his eyes fall to where my stomach is.
“No. You’re not sorry. I know you’re not. You want to protect your money, Dean. It’s always been about the money. From the moment we were both told. You can throw the fact that I blanked you at me all you like, but don’t pretend this was ever about anything but protecting your fortune. Not once did you think about me, or how I might feel. Not once did you think about whether I deserved to know the truth, and not once did you think about me when you found out about Matt.”
“I am sorry.”
“No, don’t pretend to be.”
“I’m sorry that you’ve had to deal with… feelings,” he stammers.
I laugh, looking at him. “Feelings? You’ve been shagging someone else! Did you ever think about how you felt about her, is how I feel about Matt? I asked you about an open marriage. If you’d thought about me, Dean, like you’ve claimed to all along, you would’ve known – in fact, you did know – that I was asking for a reason. If you’d just let me have him, we would already be married. Did you ever think about that—”
“Constantly.”
Who knew one word could have so much weight behind it? I should be focusing on the fact that he’s admitting that, for once, he used his brain or that he’s just admitted to trying to think about me instead of just himself. But the only thing that one-word confession tells me is that as usual, Dean’s selfishness wins.
“Yet again, Dean Atkins just shows his selfish streak. I should’ve known.”
“How long would it last, though, Ella? How long would you and Matt have been at it until one of you wants more? Until you would’ve approached me for a divorce? How long until you would’ve fallen pregnant with him instead of me? How long would it have been until we needed to provide children of our own and you would’ve kicked off about that? Huh? You might have it all worked out in an open marriage, Ella, but at one point, one of us, or all of us, will have inevitably wanted more out of it all. Then what? If we wed, we cannot divorce, not at least until my father passes away—”
“Do you not get tired of all of this, Dean? Like… who cares? Really? You said you don’t care about your mother—”
“I care about the company, Ella. If we’re doing this, then I’ll tell you now, I am only in this for the money. I don’t want the company to bust, I do not want to lay off all those employees, and I don’t want to lose my money,” he admits.
“You’re finally telling me the truth, huh?” I laugh. “What I can’t get over is after all this time, it takes me to run off to finally get the truth out of all of you! Why couldn’t you just admit that to me years ago?”
“Because it hasn’t just been about the money. This has been about you and the money, Ella. Have you not realised how much I love you?”
I stop short. He admitted it, and I’ve always known it, but hearing it now is still a shock. Maybe my subconscious thought he was lying, or maybe I thought seeing me with Matt may have made him fall out of love with me.
“You know my feelings; you must have known if you knew about Matt.”
“I knew I would never be your first choice. Like I’ve said before, I thought maybe once the reality happened, we could make it work. Maybe even come to be in love properly one day. And then you told me you saw me like a brother so it became about the money.”
“What about when you groped me at the party? That wasn’t about the money then, was it?” I snap.
“No. It wasn’t. Other things happened, Ella—”
“Like what?” I demand. “Go on, we’re at the point now where there are no secrets, right? If we’re going to become man and wife, we vow no more secrets.”
He becomes uncomfortable and shifts around before saying, “My father offered me a way out—”
Some invisible force makes me jump off the bed. “You, you what ?”
Dean sighs. “I’m not going into detail with you, Ella, because it’s irrelevant. He offered me a way out, but… the deal wasn’t ideal. So, we’re still under the cont—”
I don’t know what strength comes to me, but my fist collides with his face instantly, forcing him to grab his face in shock. Hopefully, the pain that shoots in my knuckles radiates in his face and he gains another bruise.
“I don’t care if he offered you a hundred quid to tear up the damn contract. How the fuck could it not be ideal?”
He doesn’t answer; he’s too busy glowering at me.
“All along, you’ve claimed to care about me. You’ve known about Matt for years, you admitted it. Yet you have crushed and ruined everything for me. I’ve always defended you and claimed our parents to be the villains in this. But you , you have always been the one spying, moving my chess piece along the board to where you want me, the one manipulating me. You’ve been the one to control me more than those four ever have done. Get the fuck out!”
I shove him toward the door, but he doesn’t budge an inch. He glares at me and moves his hand from his mouth. A red mark has already formed where I punched him.
“Why the fuck would you do this to me, Dean? I had it all worked out; I was getting married; I’m having a baby with him for fuck’s sake—”
I can see the new anger, the new determination in him, and I think it’s come from my punch.
“Not for much longer, Ella. You’re going to get rid of it tomorrow. Then in four weeks, we’re going to be married,” he snarls. “You’re not running away this time. If you so much as try, I will kill him, Ella.”
He turns and walks out of the room, the door slamming after him.