The Legacy We Burn

Chapter 4

It was getting harder to act like I wasn't feeling the weight of his gaze on me. The silence was unsettling. I looked up from the work I was doing on my laptop, and just as I thought, he was staring. We locked eyes for a brief second before he looked back down at his computer. "Trust me, I hate this arrangement just as much as you," he said as his fingers rushed through the keyboard. I didn't respond. I had no intentions of making a conversation with him even though the silence was eating me up. The only sound in the room was the clicking from our keyboards. "What's in it for you?" I hear him ask. I look up to meet his eyes. "Huh?" I asked, confused. "What's in it for you?", he repeated, "You said there's something in it for me–maybe there is, maybe not, but now I'm sure there's something in it for you and I'm curious, what?"I stared back at him for what felt like a whole minute before I gave up. I let out a sigh, my hands leaving the keyboard as I leaned back to rest on my chair. "When I was a child, there was this country club I loved going to with my parents. They always had this annual competition with the children where we got to play golf and some other sports. I played sports all the time so I easily won every competition. Well, one time, I was seventeen and it was almost time for the competition. I was walking past the judges' table but they didn't notice me. When I looked down at it and saw that before the games had even started, my name was already written down as the winner, my parents made sure of that. I was competing with other kids from when I was six years old to about sixteen, and I never which of those competitions I really won and which my parents rigged. That day, after discovering that and confronting my parents, it was as though for the first time I could actually see how everyone saw me. They didn't see me as this unconquerable and intelligent girl I thought I was, they saw me as an undeserving Beaumont girl. Everyone doubted me, and I doubted myself for a long time. But I worked hard to get to where I am today, even when no one believed I could. I have built so much for myself on my own even when everyone said my only job was to smile, look pretty, and marry well." I held his gaze, it was heavier now, though he said nothing. "This project–" I gestured around the room, my throat tightening "isn't just about Montrose District. It's about finally proving I belong here. That I'm not just filling a seat until someone more capable comes along. I am that someone"