Back Again!
1318 Words
I woke up with a start.
I was panting and trembling. I looked around me and couldn't recognise anything. I felt like I knew this room, this bedroom. Everything was upside down; clothes were lying in a corner at the end of the bed with all kinds of shoes, there was a table next to the other corner with a lot of make-up on it. This was my bedroom at home.
The door opened suddenly.
" Francine, you can't be sleeping now. There is so much to do before the weeding."
"Penny?" i said dumbfounded
"Who else? Do you see someone else trying to make you live your dream other than me?" She said.
"My dream?"
"Yes! Marrying a loving rich man? You always say that it was your upmost dream!"
" Have i?"
Have i? I couldn't remember ever saying that. Even the first time.
"who am I marrying?"
She looked at me like I had grown another head.
" You are pulling my leg, right? Is the name Oscar Dupré ringing a bell in your little head?"
It did. But it didn't make sense. Wasn't I already married? Wasn't I pregnant? Didn't he betray me with her?
"Do you perhaps have cold feet?" she seemed genuinely worried about me.
I relaxed. Gosh it wasn't true. I knew it.
" I just had a nightmare. Thank God it's finished and, of course, I am over joyed."
" I bet you are". She chuckled.
Maybe it was the chuckle, the envy in her words or the slight disgust in her eyes when she looked at me for a second. But I knew then it hadn't been a nightmare. Then what was it? For sure, I was still there, not married nor pregnant. Was I dreaming right now? Was i dead? Was I even a human being?
" Are you going to wash or what? We need to start"
" Right! The weeding. Sure. I'm on my way"
I saw in her reflection the way she was looking at me, with contempt and hatred. Nightmare or not, Penelope did not seem happy at all.
I took my time washing myself. If the last three years have been a dream, then it was the strangest one I have ever had. If it was the truth, then I may have died from bleeding like they wanted and I was now in... what? Paradise? I didn't think so. I may have seen my future in advance, like Nicolas Cage in that movie. But it wasn't just a vision, I lived that life. What was it?
"Francine Dubois! You going to get married in that bathroom? You can't be that dirty! Can you?" Penny shouted just outside the shower curtain.
I felt irritations crawling up my head.
"Can't you knock before entering?" I shouted.
She wrenched open the curtain and turned the water cold. I was so shocked I couldn't turn the tap fast enough and the cold water hit me like bullets. We were in winter, it was beyond cold.
"That will teach you to be sassy with me."
"what..."
" You shut up! Did you forget everything I have done for you to secure this good future you are going to have? Ungrateful brat"
I was speechless and the water was still battering. I looked at her eyes and had that feeling for the first time: she wanted me dead.
She suddenly turned the water warm and her face changed.
"Oh my! Francine, look what you have done. In winter you need to wash with warmer water. I know you like to do things your way, but just let me teach you the right way, okay?" she smiled.
She then closed the curtains and got out of the bathroom.
I remembered this happening in that nightmare, but it wasn't because I had complained about her not knocking. It was because I wasn't sure if I should marry Oscar since I had only known him for a month. She then got angry like today, reacted like today, talked like today. Actually, everything was exactly like my nightmare. Even without saying the same thing, I had the same result.
I remembered thinking then: This girl could kill me. Penny could really kill me.
How much of that nightmare was reality didn't matter anymore, because it seemed I was going to have the same ending.
I turned off the water. What should I do? If things continued like that, I was going to end up dead.
I needed to get out of here, away from them. But how? In the nightmare Penny never let me out of sight. Was she afraid I would escape? But she only started tailing me when I told her I wasn't that sure about marrying now. I needed her out of my hair to think and act. Penny had always belittle me. At the time, I thought it was just how she loved me. What if she had never actually loved me?
I came out of the bathroom and sure enough she was there, arranging my make-up.
"Hah! Here you are! Your table was a mess, but don't worry, I prepared everything for your make-up, since you are incapable of doing so by yourself", she sighed.
" Hum, thank you Penny. Sorry for earlier, I don't know what was going through my head"
" Well, you must be thinking you can do whatever you want now that you are marrying a rich and beautiful man! Just don't turn arrogant. Oscar won't like that", she said, pointing her finger at me.
What a sweet sister she was.
"I will be humble. Sorry!"
"Right" she clapped her hands with a huge smile.
"Now that you know where you are lacking, sit here so I can do your make-up for you"
I looked at the furniture she arranged for my make-up. Everything seemed normal. But in my nightmare, I had developed an allergy that lasted a month. So, to take care of me, she had to come to my honeymoon with Oscar. But while I was always in bed, guilt-ridden to be such a party wrecker, she was taking my place next to my husband. And I was so grateful and thanked her for such kindness. Foolish!
However, since my face was the most affected, I had always wondered if it was the make-up. But I trusted Penny. Then.
"Penny, my head is killing me. Do you have something on you to relieve the pain? I am afraid to fall before reaching the altar"
Just like I thought, she jumped on her feet and hurried to the door.
"I can't believe you! You can't do anything right. Can you?"
"S...sorry"
" Whatever. I will ask around, someone must have something." she said before getting out and closing the door. Then I heard the keys turn, and fury rose in me.
She locked me in. It was her. She did that in my nightmare too, then acted like I didn't know how to open a door.
I turned to my table and inspected the furniture. There was a little bag at the bottom of the box, with white powder inside. I took it to my nose and sniffed it. Pineapple powder.
That's what she put inside my face powder and blush and basically everywhere. I had an allergy to pineapple. On my skin it gave me pimples, a lot of them. But it lasts only three days with medication. Which means she never gave me the right medication from the start, because she needed me ill so she could crash my honeymoon.
"What a..." I took the box full of make-up, ready to throw it away, anywhere, and that was when I saw it, the note.
It was just sitting there on the table, under the box, with a single sentence.
" Take better care of this second life you have been given".
- Writer
