Margaret’s heart stopped. “My stepmother has already collected the money?”
Emmanuel laughed hysterically, “Face them, not me”
Margaret’s knee buckled, she hit the ground before she could stop herself. Emmanuel chuckled and walked into the house.
Her hands were shaking as she fumbled with her phone and dialed Bianca, but there was no response, and the same went for Odette and Bella.
She sat there in the wedding dress, feeling like a fool and remembering everything Bella said to her in the past.
She wasn’t as hostile as her mum and sister, always quiet and never seem to have any business with Margaret.
“No. I must get my money,” She sprang to her feet and ran after Emmanuel into the house.
The living room was deserted, but his suit was tossed on the couch.
She gulped hard and made her way upstairs, trying to find his room. Then she heard a giggle and a familiar voice. “I told you things would be easier. Margaret is very foolish”
Emmanuel’s voice seconded. “You have to see her face when I was telling her you’re my girlfriend. Did she really think she could be my wife?”
They both laughed, each echo of the laughter hitting like a slap.
This was true; she bolted through the room where the voices were coming from; pushed open the door, and the sight emptied her completely.
Bella was in his bed, Emanuel’s hand in her hair both of them mocking her.
Margaret’s breath caught in her. She wanted to close her eyes and look away, but the shock nailed her feet to the floor.
Bella laughed “All thanks to mum, I wouldn’t have thought of using her this easily”
Margaret’s leg trembled, grabbing the wall for support.
Bella giggled again and resumed her strokes, not aware of the frozen Margaret on the doorway. Her muscles screamed at her to run, but she couldn’t move.
For a moment, she felt like the third wheel, too shocked to react until the two of them changed positions and he got on top of her.
Even though Bella saw her when she turned, she ignored and continued her shameful act until Margaret couldn’t take it anymore.
“No..” she breathed. “No…” she gasped again. “No!!!!” Margaret finally yelled and Emmanuel stopped.
“Bella… How could you?” Margaret gasped again, tears welled up in her eyes. “I trusted you”
Bella giggled through her heavy breathing. “Trust is not in my dictionary sis”
Emmanuel was also breathing heavily, “What did you want?” he demanded.
Tears choked Margaret’s throat, and she was unable to speak for a while; then she remembered she had come back. “I… I came to ask for my payment. We have an agreement, Bella”
“Agreement?” Bella sneered. “Why should I waste precious money on paying you just to stand at the altar?”
“But I… I tried to please you” Margaret cried. “I tried my best to act natural even when Bianca hissed at me!”
Bella got up and grabbed a cup of water from the bedside… “Aw, don’t blame me. Blame your silly brain that kept obeying us as a repayment of some long dead debt”
Margaret turned to Emmanuel in a daze, “You knew that what I did deserved to be paid for! You also promised me!”
Emmanuel sighed, and ran his hand through his hair. “You annoy me to the core,” he bent over, pulling the drawer out to draw out a bale of dollars.
Margaret thought it was for her until Emmanuel picked out two 50-dollar bills and handed them to Margaret. “That should be enough to get you off my neck”
Margaret felt punched in the chest. The bills fluttered down landing at her feet like garbage.
“Did you really want to be my wife?” Emmanuel snickered. “Not even in my dreams will I think of having anything to do with an ex convict”
Her soul cracked.
She was really an outcast, a slave, and a mere tool in her stepfamily’s hands, and now, they’re using her for outsiders.
She realized that all this while trying to please her family was just her own delusion.
She never mattered to them, they only wanted to use her while she clung to the belief that she owed them.
She turned to leave. But she stopped before stepping out and looked at Emmanuel. “Remember the whole world knew me as your wife, not Bella?”
Then she left without picking his money, more tears dropping from her eyes.
“I hate you, Natasha Royce,” she cussed her mother, the woman she had never seen before, saw bitterly. ‘I hate you so much that it hurts me that I hate you’ she cried again, stepping out of the warm house on a cold night. ‘If you hadn’t abandoned me to these wolves… perhaps life would be better’
She was too hollowed out, shattered, broken, and defeated to care whether she was wearing a cardigan or not.
She flagged a cab with trembling hands, and glanced at her tear stained face and white-turned-brown wedding dress, but said nothing.
“Here,” the kind-hearted driver finally offered her a tissue, which she accepted with trembling hands.
Margaret pressed the thin sheet to her face and sobbed more bitterly until the cab arrived before their house.
“We are here,” the driver announced, jolting her out of her thoughts.
She took a deep breath and stepped out of the car.
At first, she was hesitant.
Then, with shaky hands she opened the door and met two pairs of eyes, staring at her with extreme hostility but never surprise.
“Good evening, mum,” she greeted, nodding at Bianca as if she were never therem making her way to her room.
"Stop! Why are you home? You should be consummating your marriage now?” Odette spat with malice, making Margaret stop.
“I’m divorcing him tomorrow mum” She replied confidently. “You said I’d be his wife until he got the company. He has it now and I’m done!”
“You should still be there, so what happened?” Bianca asked while the maid set cucumber to her face.
Tears choked Margaret’s throat again.
Their pretense as if they didn’t know about what Bella did made her sadder but she still managed to answer. “He… He sent me away”
Odette walked around her for a while, “Sent you away, huh?”
“Bella was there. They’re both… They’re both dating and….” Margaret stopped again, then looked at Odette. “You must have known what happened, so don’t ask me anything again”
As she said this, Bianca and her mum burst into sarcastic laughter.
Margaret felt foolish, still standing here with a tear stained face.
“M…Mum…?” She wanted to call but stopped and changed her tone. “Why did you do this after I suffered in prison for two years?”
Odette stopped, a sly and annoying tone reached out her hand to raise Margaret’s jaw. “My dear, blame Natasha for all these. She left you to me so she could elope with my husband. So I have no choice my dear”
“But that was Natasha!” Margaret cried. “I obeyed all your orders, just to show you I’m not Natasha!! I wanted to be good for you…”
“You can never be enough!” The woman asserted. “I will make sure you pass through the hell I passed because of your mother!”
The pain of those words stung like bee.
Now the truth is finally here.
‘I’ve been stupid. I’ve been too stupid!’ she scolded herself inwardly. ‘I thought they saw me as me, but they saw a guilty bird out to use…’
With this anger, Margaret lashed at her stepmom. “I refuse to pay for the sins I didn’t commit again!! I paid for everything already… Let it stay that way!”
Odette raised her hand and slapped Margaret, “How dare you talk back at me?”
The trace of the woman’s hand against her cheeks is now very visibly red. Bianca got up with agitation, “Margaret what has come over you?”
Margaret wasn’t taking it easy. “The biggest mistake I made in my life was believing your lies and going to prison”
“Margaret!” Odette yelled.
“You sent me to scholarship only school while your daughters attended private schools, yet I didn’t complain”
“Stop right there, Marg, or else—”
Her hands tore the hem of the wedding dress. The sound of it ripping was the most satisfying she’d heard all day.
“I will hate Natasha Royce till I die, but before then, if I have a chance to taste wealth, I will destroy you, Mum”
“Margaret!” Bianca screamed this time and raised her hand mid-air to slap, but Margaret caught the hand mid-air and looked her sister in the eyes.
“I am no longer yours and your sister’s pawn or stand in. I will make sure to tear each part of your body and feed it to the birds I have the chance to”
Margaret now stood on the doorstep in just her slip, her shredded wedding dress pooled at her feet like shredded skin.
Before leaving she reminded Odette, “I’ll be back, but stronger”
Odette laughed.
She heard Bianca’s mockery. “You’ll be back to where? You have nowhere to go, Ex-convict”
Margaret didn’t let that faze her, she closed the door after herself with hot tears. “It’s really over”
