Our Loveless Marriage

Chapter 7: Breakfast

-Megan-

I turned the whole night thinking about that stupid kiss. It was not that I hadn’t been kissed before. It was that I hadn’t been kissed like that. It was annoying that the most amazing and soul-stealing kiss I should experience was with... him.

“New day,” I whispered as I sat up and rubbed my tired eyes, seeing the sun shining.

I walked over to the bathroom wearing only a long, baggy t-shirt. As I approached the mirror above the sink, I noticed my hair was a mess and I had dark circles under my eyes. Today was shaping up to be just another hell, but I still brushed my hair and teeth, took a shower, and got dressed in some blue shorts, a white bra, and a tank top.

After braiding my hair, I went downstairs to make some breakfast. However, when I entered the kitchen, I could already smell the wonderful aroma of breakfast.

“Maya?” I asked.

She was in the kitchen wiping the surface of the counter. She looked over her shoulder and smiled. “Morning. Breakfast is outside.”

“You made breakfast?” I inquired.

It's not like my parents didn’t have people to make them breakfast, but I often made my own as I got older. Mostly because I wanted to spend as little time as possible with my parents and because I woke up quite late. I wasn't a morning person, but clearly... Nathan was.

He was sitting outside in the sun, having already eaten, and was working on some things on his computer that he had in his lap. I couldn’t see his eyes, since he was wearing sunglasses, but it's not like he was going to notice if I sat down at the table outside on the big porch.

“Not even going to say good morning. I thought you wanted to try to make this work, but then again,” he remarked and looked up, “I am not sure you could call this morning.”

This was actually early for me. It was 10 in the morning. That’s early! I reached over and grabbed a piece of bacon, not even answering him.

“Still mad?” he inquired, looking at his computer.

“Not mad.”

“Really?”

“No. I don’t know what I should be mad about. We had a nice dinner, and we fooled our families,” I stated and poured myself a glass of water.

“I see. So, we are playing that game,” he observed with a small smile.

“What game?”

“Don’t,” he retorted in a harsh voice, and looked up at me again. “It doesn’t suit you, this attitude.”

“Then don’t kiss me without permission again,” I asserted, holding his eyes, even if I couldn’t see them.

“We fooled them, as you said. Necessary sacrifice.”

“Next time I will aim for your private parts instead of your shin.”

That made him look quite irritated and his eyebrows disappeared behind his sunglasses, making me smile pleased at him.

“My birthday is coming up,” he mentioned after a long pause.

“Happy birthday,” I responded in an indifferent tone.

He sighed, rolling his head around. “It means we have to go out and be seen together.”

“Why?” I inquired.

“Good publicity. We are newlyweds. Wouldn’t it be weird if we didn’t do something together on my birthday?” he reasoned.

“I thought you didn’t like your birthday,” I recalled.

I didn’t know much about Nathan, but I did know this. Gossip that circulated in the circles, and while I usually didn’t pay attention to gossip, I wanted to gauge his reaction to see if I was right.

“Not my... favorite day,” he admitted.

“Why is that? I mean, who doesn’t like their birthday?”

He sighed and then started to crack his knuckles. I watched for a while, hoping he would see the way I flinched every time he did it, but he didn’t.

“Could you stop that?” I requested.

He held my eyes, continuing to do it, and I groaned, irritated.

“You would think you weren’t turning 28, when you are this childish!” I exclaimed, yet he did not listen to me. “Nathan!”

He smiled, as he finally stopped, and I rolled my eyes. He closed his computer and put it on the table.

“We are going out next Friday.”

“I thought you would be in Seattle,” I remarked.

“I am coming home before that. My grandfather wants to celebrate. We will humor him for a little while and then hit a club.”

“I don’t want to go clubbing with you,” I stated.

“You don’t like clubs?”

“No, I don’t like you,” I retorted, which made him smile. “And I don’t like that you can just pull me out of the closet like some nice suit when you need me for the right occasion.”

“Who said you would be the ‘nice’ suit for special occasions, and not just the one I need because I don’t have anything else?”

I wanted to throw my plate at him, but I just sat there taking his insults and crossing my arms, while looking away, trying to will the tears away.

“I am f*cking trying, Nathan,” I stated after a little while. “Why can’t we just both try?”

I turned to him and saw the dark look on his face. “I told you why.”

“I can’t live in a marriage like this, where I am that thing that you take out of the house when you need me. I already feel trapped enough. Why can’t we just... make it work? A partnership, like your grandfather said,” I suggested.

Nathan sighed and fell back in his chair.

“This isn’t a partnership. It’s a business. You don’t mix business with pleasure,” he stated.

“You think I want ‘pleasure’ out of this?”

He shrugged, but I wasn’t sure if it was because he was saying, ‘I don’t care’ or ‘who wouldn’t want to sleep with me?’.

“I just want... I want us to be able to be in the same room or sit at the same table without wanting to strangle each other,” I expressed. “I don’t mind separate bedrooms or that we don’t share every meal, but I do hope for a little more than what we have now. We don’t have to like each other, but if we can tolerate each other, this might get a whole lot easier.”

For a moment I thought he was actually considering my words, but then this crooked smile spread on his lips, and I knew before he said a word, he wasn’t considering anything. He had decided what he wanted from this marriage, and I couldn’t change his mind. I would still try though. I had to if I didn’t want to drown in it.

“You need me,” he stated. “Your family’s little black sheep, your sister, screwed up badly, which means the little mouse needs to help them save face, and with the alcoholic mom and the, having at least three different mistresses on the side, father, you need to be the good example, and that means you need me. By being my good little wife, you will make your family shine, but that also means you have to listen to me, little mouse, and do as I tell you to.”

“Stop calling me that!”

The nickname started a long time ago, when I was around seven, and some of the other boys tried to scare me. It elicited this funny little sound from me, almost like a mouse squeaking.

Nathan got out of his seat and grabbed his computer.

“Don’t forget. Next Friday. Charm my grandfather and then my friends.”

“Hard to believe someone so arrogant as you can have any friends,” I mumbled as he walked away.

The small little pause he made told me he had heard me, but he didn’t comment.

“Wait? What am I supposed to do for the next week while you’re gone?” I inquired.

“How the f*ck should I know?” he yelled back. “Rearrange the house. Do some gardening. Go shopping. I don’t give a sh*t.”

“I am not my mom!” I yelled.

He just walked away, leaving me there with no appetite.