•Leiara•
I come to a stop on the pathway. My hands tremble over my steering wheel as I remain fixated on her.
She sees me through my car's windshield, and a big smile stretches on her heavy makeup filled face.
I never understand why most women do this. They spend hours to spiff their faces up. Some even go overboard.
My eyes narrow quietly as a part of my heart pulsates with a sharp sting.
It probably isn't that I do not understand why they do it. It's just my jealousy speaking.
As the esteemed wife of the Hayes family, I am not allowed to indulge myself in fancy things like most women my age do.
So I'm sure…. that it is just my jealousy speaking on this.
I start to deviate from the current matter at hand but her smiley wave at me zaps my body with my current reality.
I return my focus and gaze steadily to her for some moments.
I'm no fool. I very well know what she is doing in front of my door with her luggages. And giving that the door isn't even locked, she could have seen herself in before I came.
However, knowing her, she remains out there to make it the first thing I see when I come home.
All to get a reaction from me.
I do not pull into the driveway. I stop my car and get out.
With the same graceful poise I always use, I walk calmly to her.
I'm going to handle things maturely and calmly. The reaction she wants from me, I will not show.
I clench my fists slowly, unwilling to acknowledge the pain that stings my heart.
For no reason will I break down in front of her. And I'm sure as hell not letting her stay in my house.
I reach her and halt.
"What are you doing here?" I ask quietly.
Her big smile never wavers.
"Hmm? Are you also blind now, Lei?" She questions, eyes lit with mocking excitement.
"Don't call me that," I whisper.
My voice breaks softly, almost faltering my resolve in her presence.
Hearing my whisper, her smile stretches all the more. But she doesn't say anything.
She seems to be able to fish every emotion hidden in my eyes and my facade of putting up a front. And she seems to feed from that.
She turns to her luggages, and starts grabbing them.
"Cheers to us co-wives, should I say? Our fate intertwines so much we are going to coexist from now on."
She moves to start pushing her luggages forward, but I speak and stop her.
"Co-wives?" I ask.
The irony of it almost makes me laugh.
"You seem to be misunderstanding something. He never married you," I remind her.
She lets go of the bags and turns to me. Her face is tight with indignation, a sharp contrast to the blooming smile she had on a while ago.
But I don't stop. I continue.
"You are but a mere mistress, Willa. I am the wife that was married. And you to me aren't any co-wife but a side piece. The mistress."
I say to her face.
Her eyes burns with fiery rage, face still tight with anger.
Seeing her like that somehow loosens the tightness in my chest. Since I'm always the one with that face, it feels a bit refreshing to be the one stirring such emotion for the first time.
But Willa's anger doesn't hold for long.
Her tight face soon loosens into a soft smile. She pulls closer, and leans her face into mine.
Then quietly in a gentle voice, she asks.
"Am I really?"
Her question flies me into panic. The ropes tightening my chest seem to instantly unravel and choke my heart instead. My eyes flares open and the sound of my heartbeat hit the roof.
THUMP! THUMP!
With the loud poundings of my heart came the echoes of her question.
'Am I really?'
My body and mind seem to register the answer already. Like it is already ingrained from the very beginning, my nerves pulse in response.
From the beginning, who am I deceiving? Calling myself the wife, while deluding myself that she is the mistress.
Is it really so?
"Common now, Lei, we both know you're the big brain between us. You know the truth," she continues.
I shut my eyes tight.
No! I cry in my subconsciousness.
I don't want to hear it, BADUMP! I don't want to.
"You know right? That you're the mistress."
My eyes remain close. I turn my face away.
But she doesn't relent. She continues, to make me register every word.
"You were the one who came between us Lei. Colson and I have been together since the beginning. We still are. We've never broken up. I've been the main woman in his life from the start of everything. And you…. are the other woman who came between us," she pauses.
The loud pounding of my heart mixes with her words and causes my head to ache.
I feel her breath on my ear and flinch slightly.
"You are the mistress," she spells out into my ear.
A stinging breeze grazes my skin, and goosebumps seem to constrict them painfully.
I am the mistress. That I am for sure, but….
My eyes squeeze as I can think of no words to further delude myself.
Slowly, I open my eyes. My gaze is cast low and my eyes are soft.
My mouth feels too heavy to move and counter her words.
Met with this, I result to the only way I know best to handle things; put up a front while masking the pain eroding every fiber in my body.
"So what?"
My voice is cold, and my face is blank, devoid of the pain throbbing deep beneath.
"So what? Leiara I know your shamelessness knows no bounds, but it baffles me sometimes."
She pushes a strand of her black, wavy hair aside. Her green eyes glow softly in the night, alight with exciting thrill.
"Anyways, the proof of you being the mistress is obvious itself, isn't it?"
"Seven months. Seven good months. You've been married for this long yet unable to produce an heir," she mocks.
"Knowing the duties that come along with being a wife in this grand family, you should know producing an heir takes priority. But you've been unable to do that because of your incompetence."
My throat fills up with irritation. Anger seems to simmer because I am tired of everyone putting the blame on me regarding this matter.
Incompetence? How's that my fault?
It's just that in these seven months, my husband has never… never…
"Never touched you?"
My gaze snaps up at her as she completes my words. She seems to read me like an open book.
"That is exactly why…. you're the mistress Leiara."