Chapter 2 Two

• With my heart heavy from the scene I’d just witnessed, I walked back into the reception hall, my eyes puffy and red. Mother, ever so insightful, spotted me walking in. The expression on my face must have been morbid because she stormed towards me and pulled me to the side, away from the crowd.
• “Wipe that look off your face,” mother warns sternly. I blinked back the tears that threatened to run down my cheeks and took in a deep breath.
• “Why did you do this to me, mother? Why did you condemn me to such a cruel fate? I just caught Sorren with another woman, mother! He’s cheating on me barely hours after we passed before the altar,” I spoke in a calm tone, my voice breaking in the end as more tears welled up my eyes. Mother rolls her eyes at me.
• “Don’t be dramatic, Tessa. So what if you caught Sorren with another woman? Did you forget you also cheated on your fiancée with a man you don’t know and got pregnant?” She retorts.
• “Maybe I didn’t and Abel was already cheating on me before I got pregnant. How will you explain the fact that he got married to my sister,” I fired back, already knowing the demise that awaited me for talking back at mother.
• “Enough! I’m warning you Tessa. Don’t make me say it again. Get your act together and don’t let others see you like this. You should have expected a bitter fate when you got knocked up by someone else barely a month to your wedding. If you ever want to see your child again, you better make this marriage work. I don’t want to hear any complaints from you. Now get yourself together and get back in there,” mother warns before I watch her walk away.
• I stood there in the corner of the room, exhausted and defeated. This wasn’t how I envisaged my wedding; all sad, my sister happy with the man I was supposed to marry, my husband cheating on me on my wedding day. But nothing topped the pain of being separated from my child.
• I didn’t even get to see my daughter. The midwife had been kind enough to tell me her sex before she brutally seized her from my arms, her tiny hands gripping mine, silently begging me not to let them take her. Her cries haunt me at night. I wonder where she was. I wonder if she was well loved and fed. I had to do as mother instructed to be reunited with my child, even if it meant enduring Sorren’s waywardness.
• I dried my eyes and began to walk back into the crowd. My gaze landed on Sorren, smiling from ear to ear with a woman standing next to him. His smile fades as he slowly realise I knew what transpired between them. The woman next to him was petite in figure.
• I scoffed. The nerve of him bringing his mistress to our wedding. For a split second, I thought about staggering towards him and giving him a piece of my mind, but as soon as I was about to put that thought in effect, a voice echoed over the megaphone, urging the newlyweds to the center of the room for the opening of the ball.
• Sorren’s hands on my waist shouldn’t have made me shiver. He gazes into my eyes like he’s here for me and no one else. Like the rest of the crowd doesn’t exist. Like the woman I caught him with was only a figment of my imagination. It’s misleading and disquieting, and I keep ordering myself not to feel the thousand butterflies that caused somersaults in my tummy.
• I tell myself ‘I will not be attracted to this man, irrespective of how good he smells and how insanely beautiful he is.’ He pulls me closer, our linked fingers cradled against his chest. Even though I know this is all part of a charade, the fluttering in my chest feels all too real.
• “Are you ready for our first night together, Tessa?” Sorren whispered in my ear. Goosebumps spread throughout my body. When he pulled away from me, a smile graced his lips.
• “Hell no! Over my dead body will I share a room with you. Not after what you said at the altar and certainly not after I caught you with another woman! Have you no shame, Sorren? What if someone had walked in on you?” I whispered. If Sorren took any offense to what I said, he didn’t show. He maintained a calm demeanor and an almost pensive face,”
• “Why do you have to be so ingenuous, Tessa? Your fleeceable nature makes it easy for everyone to walk all over you, your family included,” Sorren says. He steps back, holding me at arms length and spinning me around. When I least expected, he pulled me back into his arms, my petite silhouette slamming against his chest. His lips grazed against mine like satin sheets on an exfoliated skin.
• “And what is that supposed to mean?” I bite back, ignoring the way my heart thundered in my chest.
• “It simply means that you have to toughen up and not believe whatever you see. The world is cruel Tessa, and you are too fragile to make it through its toughness with your gullibility,” he pressed.
• I wanted to scream at Sorren. Scream and tell him he was the ingenuous one for not recognising the woman he slept with and got pregnant.
• Instead, I blink, trying to comprehend where he got the audacity to gaslight me. “No, you’re the cruel one, Sorren. I caught you with another woman barely hours after we tied the knot. You might have been forced into marriage with me, but where is the respect you promised me back at the altar?” I clapped back. I was loosing my calm, and for whatever fucked up reason, Sorren loved the effect he had on me. He wanted me to throw a tantrum so everyone will know that just like him, I didn’t want this wedding. But he didn’t have anything to lose whereas I already lost something because of him and I was not about to risk the only chance I had at getting it back. The goddamn fool doesn’t even recognise the woman he knocked up and he dare talks about me being naive?
• “Fuck you, Sorren,” I spat. Just then, the music came to an end. Sorren leaned in, tightening his hold on my waist and whispered.
• “I intend to, wife, but only after you prove yourself worthy of me,” and just like that, he pulled away from me, smiling broadly as the entire crowd cheered at us. Shortly after, just as we exited the dance floor, mother walked up to us. She smiled tensely at me. Next to her, Denise and her husband, stood.
• “Sorren, darling, congratulations once again on your wedding,” mother whispered in a calm and lovely tone, one in which she’d never used when talking to me.
• “Thank you so much, Teresa dear. Your daughter is truly lovely,” Sorren replies lightly, the smile on his face different from the mocking one he gave me seconds ago.
• “Congratulations, brother. Tessa is lovely I tell you. I would know since I almost married her,” Abel spoke up in a tone that screamed anger, sarcasm and condescension. Next to him, Denise tensed, visibly displeased at the fact that her husband said something nice about me. Sorren nodded at his brother and I witnessed the tense exchange between them.
• “We won’t waste anymore of your time. I assume you’re eager for the honeymoon?”
• Sorren’s face brightened. “Very eager,” he says to his brother, then turns to me, pulling me further into his arms. He smiles at me, as though pleased and somewhat proud of me being his wife. But, I saw past his facade.
• “We shall take our leave now, Teresa. See you in three days,” Sorren says to mother before walking past her. I smiled tensely and nodded at both Abel and Denise. Just as I walked past my mother, she grabbed my arm.
• “Don’t forget what I said, Tessa. Screw this up and say goodbye to ever seeing your bastard child again,”