Page 13 of Beautiful Villain
I sat alone in the room they’d given me.Calling it aguest roomfelt generous.There were no personal touches, no soft attempts at comfort, no decorative pillows silently judging my life choices.This was a room for temporary problems.A holding space.
For people no one had decided what to do with yet.
Me included.
The blanket smelled faintly of old detergent and nothing else.No cologne.No memory.Just clean fabric that had never known commitment.Either no one had ever slept here before me, or anyone who had hadn’t stayed long enough to leave a trace.
Neither option was comforting.
I lay back and stared at the ceiling, wondering if this was what safety felt like now.It didn’t feel like freedom.It didn’t feel like peace.
It felt like a pause.
Temporary.
The story of my life.
I pressed my palms to my knees and breathed—slow, deliberate—just to prove I still could.No one was chasing me.No organ music thundered like a funeral march for my freedom.No priest cleared his throat.
I wasn’t getting married.
The thought landed gently, then expanded until my chest ached with it.I had escaped.Somehow, impossibly, I’d slipped free of a future handed to me like an invoice I’d never agreed to pay.
And right on cue—because my brain is efficient if nothing else—guilt followed.
George’s face surfaced uninvited.Pale.Tense.The way his hands had shaken when he’d straightened my veil, whisperingjust get through todaylike today was the problem, like tomorrow didn’t exist.
I wrapped my arms around myself.
He had always been like this.I’d just been too young to see it.
After my mother died, George stayed.Everyone said I was lucky.He could’ve left—taken his things and walked away—but he didn’t.He remained in the house my mother had owned, slept in her bed, ate at her table, accepted sympathy meant for both of us.
I mistook that for love.
At fifteen, grief blurs lines.Gratitude fills spaces where judgment should live.I told myself he cared because he hadn’t thrown me out.Because he’d stayed.
I never questionedwhy.
Once, he’d held me through nightmares and promised no one would ever hurt me while he was alive.
Sweet.Comforting.
Deeply ironic.
Because as I got older, the pattern sharpened.Everything George did served him.Affection came with conditions.Safety came at a cost.I learned how to be agreeable.Useful.Quiet.
I needed him.He knew it.
And somewhere along the way, the man who claimed to protect me became the one shaping the hurt—always with an excuse that sounded reasonable if you didn’t look too closely.
I stood and went to the bathroom before I could spiral any further.
The shower was hot enough to sting.I welcomed it.Let the water hit bruises I’d forgotten about, grounding me in pain I could understand.I stood there longer than necessary, steam fogging the glass, thoughts drifting without landing anywhere dangerous.
When I stepped out, I felt… steadier.
I wrapped myself in a thick bathrobe hanging behind the door and tied it tight.The fabric was soft, unfamiliar, and mercifully neutral.I picked up a brush, hesitated, then gave up on the idea of taming my curls properly.
