As soon as they arrived at the place her twenty-six year old self has been living in for half a decade now, Cassidy was completely thunderstruck and speechless for some time.
Her home has turned out to be this palatial mansion in a huge estate. Grandiose wall exteriors and imposing decorum adorn the house while a vast greenery and a lush plethora of plants stretch all around it.
It's just like those sceneries she often sees in movies. There's a splendiferous water fountain along with a line of maids and butlers that greeted them the moment they stepped out of the car.
"Welcome back, Sir Millicent," the houseworkers chimed in perfect sync.
Not only do they look spruce and well-groomed, but they also seem to be trained properly. It's almost as if they're serving royalty with how they're treating Adrian with so much deference.
"Okay, the key word here is 'how they're treating him'... The thing is, I don't think I'm at the same level despite the fact that I'm the wife," Cassidy found herself deadpanning a moment later.
It just happened that the servants didn't even bat an eye on her. It's almost as if she's just as good as thin air. All they really did to acknowledge her presence was bow a little, though it's only a few of them who did that.
Now, Cassidy is having doubts if she's really Adrian's spouse. Not only does she not feel as one, but she's entirely not being perceived that way at all.
What's worse, she senses that many of them are seeing her as someone even lower than a guest.
"At any rate, I'll try to get to the bottom of this as soon as I can. I'll definitely learn what's up with this cold treatment. For now, though..." she trailed off before finally taking a step inside the resplendent manor.
"Let's breathe in the air of luxury that I've never had the chance to breathe before!"
With an ecstatic grin on her face, Cassidy strides inside the mansion and tries to imitate how a celebrity walks down the red carpet. Her eyes can't help but gleam brilliantly at the sight that comes into view - a long hallway with embellishments made of pure gold and small porcelain chandeliers that are hanging from the ceiling.
Everything about this place screams opulence, and this one is just but the tip of the iceberg.
While Adrian and Charles walk in front of her, she just continues to behold the sumptuous ornaments that they pass by along the way. Without her noticing, though, everyone she walks past through is starting to the act the exact opposite of how the other servants behaved earlier.
Now that Cassidy's attention isn't on them no more, their confused eyes keep trailing after her.
It just turns out that instead of sauntering all elegantly just like how a true celebrity does the thing, she ends up gliding down the hallway like a gangster - without her realizing it, that is.
Her walk comes out laboured, slow, and very relaxed. She's unknowingly drawing attention to herself, implicitly telling others that she stands out from the crowd - an illusion of toughness and the spirit of a real thug.
The maids and other houseworkers are thoroughly confused at this point. They never saw their mistress behave so improper and ungraceful that she's starting to appear like a completely different person.
"Ma'am... Cassidy...?"
And alas, her two companions finally took notice of her.
While Charles is looking at her as if she just grew two heads, Adrian has his brows scrunched tightly together in bafflement. Only when the secretary called her name did she finally realize that everyone's eyes were on her.
This got Cassidy halting on her tracks in surprise, blinking rapidly and scanning the crowd like a deer that got caught in the headlights.
"What?" she asked, dumbfounded.
Her husband only heaves an exhausted sigh at how oblivious she is. Now, almost everyone in the mansion is somewhat aware of how much that bombing incident affected her - while she did get out not fatally scathed, her mental state seemed to have shrunk back to a juvenile, and a troublesome one at that.
"Oh, I see...!" Cassidy enthused out of nowhere, looking like an important realization just dawned on her.
"Should I also wave my hand while walking? That'll make it more cinematic, don't you think?"
Still imagining that she's in some sort of a Hollywood movie, Cassidy makes a shy hand wave and tries to act as demure as possible, batting her eyelashes and imitating a fragile damsel - an action that pulled the last straws and made everyone's jaw drop in incredulity.