Amelia picked up her phone, chatting with her friends online.  Ava stared at her, wishing she could report to her mother that Amelia had a phone; but it was open news now.  No one cares.  Her future–in–law had insisted they needed the means to get in touch with Amelia, and they needed her number in case of emergency.   Ava walked into the room brushing things on the floor without picking them back up.   Amelia stared at her favorite brush on the floor, followed by her favorite mirror broken into pieces.   It's okay, she thought to herself.  ‘Ava was trying to get a reaction from me, but I won’t give her the satisfaction’.  Her eyeballs were red and her lips were bruised from biting it.

“Are you glad now that you have stolen my groom?” Ava stood in front of her with puffy eyes.  Amelia dressed in a baby pink gown Mike had delivered through an agency, closed her eyes, and put her eyeliner back in her makeup back.  It was her first date with Mike, not that she was looking forward to it, but she was finally going out without supervision from her parents, that surely was an improvement on her part.

“How does it feel to go on a date with the guy your sister was supposed to marry? Do you feel like you can call yourself a human?”

Amelia frowned, “What do you want from me, Ava? It wasn’t my fault that they insisted to have me as their daughter-in-law”

Ava hissed, raising her hand up as if she wanted to hit her, but took a deep breath and released her hand back.  She clenched her teeth.  “It wasn’t your fault.  Yet here you are putting on makeup and trying to look more beautiful for him.  You are fake, Ames.  You pretend you don’t care, but I can see through you that you really want to marry Mike.  You are greedy, selfish, and self-centered.  I hate you.”

Amelia nodded; it was nothing new.  Those were the vocabularies everyone in the house describes her with.  She shut her mouth.   Just when she was about to respond, her phone rang.  She picked it up when she saw it was Mike, moving away from Ava’s view.

“Hello.  I’m waiting outside your house.”

She whispered while glancing back at Ava who had refused to leave her presence, “I’m on my way.”

She took her cleanser and wiped the makeup off.  “If you think not having makeup will make a difference.  I’m glad to make your dreams true.”

Ava’s face was void of the excitement she thought she was going to see.  She moved downstairs and excused herself, but she heard footsteps following her.  She smirked.  When she got downstairs, her parents were sitting on a couch with an expression she couldn’t decipher. She smiled at them.  Angie hissed, moving towards the staircase, when she saw Ava; she grinned but shook her head before resuming her walk on the staircase.

Ava strained a smile towards her father; no words were exchanged.  She moved outside and stopped when she saw Mike.  He leaned on his car looking casual in a shirt, and jeans but still looking handsome.  She smiled at him; wishing she had met him casually, and not as a match paired by her parents.  The moment he saw her coming towards him, he stood upright and smiled at her, “That’s my beautiful, Fiancée”.  He pulled her in for a hug, which she accepted willingly.

He opened the car door for her, and she sat.  Immediately she sat down, she looked towards the door, Ava stood there glaring at the car.  Amelia was certain; she was wishing her some sort of accident. 

“Where do you want to go to? Mike asked.

She was quiet for a while, “I don’t have any particular place in mind.  I will be fine with anywhere.”

He nodded and started the car.  There was an awkward silence in the car for a while.  

“Did you think about my proposal?” Amelia said, trying to avoid his gaze.  Luckily, he focused on the road and not her.

“What proposal?”

She sighed, “Remember the first day we met?  I spoke about us getting a divorce three months after our wedding, so did you think about it?”

He shook his head, “I’m sorry, darling, but I don’t think that’s possible.”

She frowned, “Why is it not possible? We are both adults and we can come up with an excuse why we think we can’t stay married to each other anymore.  Moreover, this isn’t a love match, so I think it should be easier to break it off.”

Mike sighed while turning his car in a new direction.  “Is this all you want to talk about on our first date?”

Ava shifted in her seat, “Let’s be realistic here.  You don’t like me. I don’t like you.  I don’t know why you agreed to this marriage, but I know I need my freedom, and right now you are the gate to that freedom.  Three months of marriage, and I can be whatever I want to be.”

Mike parked the car and turned his attention to her.  “Why do you think I don’t like you?  Yes, I don’t know you.  But I think we should give this marriage a chance.  It’s bad to be starting a marriage with an expiring date.”

Ava huffed, “What do you propose then?  How many months should we give this, and if it’s not working, we can each go our separate way?”

Mike smiled at her.   He wasn’t going to let her go.  He had no idea why she badly wants out of the marriage, but he doesn’t want out of the marriage.  It might have been his parent’s idea in the first place, but he likes her the moment he set his eyes on her.  He wanted Ava for himself, and he was going to have her for himself.  She might be trying to escape him, but he was going to make her believe he is the best for him.

“How about we give it a one-year trial?  If you don’t like it after then, I will agree to your divorce?”
Ava bit her lips; what game was he trying to play?  What’s the difference between three months and one year, if they were going to get separated in the end? She sighed.  This was her only chance at freedom, so one year should be nothing.

“Okay, deal.  But we need to stay a few rules while co-habiting.  First is keeping our marriage to each other secret from the world.”

“Why?” The idea didn’t sit well with Mike.  He wanted the world to know she belongs to him.

“I think it’s just because that’s best.  When we finally get divorced, we can both move on with our lives without any attachment.  It will be easy to move on without being a divorcee.”

Mike narrowed his eyes at her, “Fine, but during our marriage, we will only be faithful to each other.”

Ava smiled, “Deal.”

“Deal.”