"Why did you even bother?" He asks me.
I just look at him, in his dark navy suit and white shirt. His Rolex shining brightly, no thanks to the morning sun and his hair half dry from the shower he took right after walking into our home this morning.
His clothes from the previous day smelled like alcohol and maybe sex? The red lipstick stain on his collar gave me that idea.
Where he sleeps? I'll never know and I don't think I want to know. I just know that I need to be a dutiful wife to my husband... one that obeys and does what they are told to do.
"I am not hungry. Feed it to the dogs." He says to me and walks out, mug in hand. I hear the elevator doors open, making a bell sound and I also hear the man, who he so mockingly calls 'The Bell Boy' greet him so enthusiastically and getting only grunt in response, every time.
However, the joke was now on me because we don't have any dogs. I am to throw out my third attempt at family breakfast but I eat my food. I must be fed.
I need to eat because I must not worry the public. They don't need to know my struggles and I must never look like them.
They can never know that I remain untouched, in my marriage that has been going on for almost two years. Yes, that I am still a virgin and almost 25.
They can never know that I do not know my husband's affection, I have not been lucky enough to know his love language or the size of his other leg.
No....
I have been pretending. Pretending to not want to kiss and tell, not that I want to. I don't love my husband and he does not love me.
I do not have sleepless nights because he does not sleep in the same bed. No, I have sleepless nights because I am capable of love.
I would like to get to know him so that I can love him, be more of a wife than I am now. Runny scrambled eggs is not going to cut it for me, I am more than that. I am more than just a silly little housewife who is incapable of doing more.
I have two degrees.
I was a somebody to many people.
I had a life.
I enjoyed my life before it all went to shambles because of our parents.
My life was ruined the day I was born. I was sworn to him... while I was cooking in my mother's womb and while he played with building blocks in his playroom. It was then that our families chose one another, to keep the fortune in a small circle.
How can I blame him?
How can I hate him for the way he treats me? When he is also suffering?
Maybe it is easier for my husband because he has known all along what I was to him.
The entire time he kept watch of me. Making sure none of the boys ever dared to touch me, even as kids on the playground. I was his, I belonged to him.
What I don't understand after all that time, after trying so hard to keep me pure, he leaves me like this.
We are without a child.
I stay in this home he chose for us for hours and hours while he prances about in the city. I can go out, I am not locked in but I have lost my friends and everyone I have ever known since they found out who I was to marry.
The Dawson's.
The Dawson's are old money. A founding family, the city's first family. They decide who will be the next mayor or councilman. They choose the chief of police and even the headmaster of all the schools in the town and there are only two. One private and one public. They do all of this under the table, naturally.
The city is divided in two.
The rich and the poor.
It is kept that way for a reason and we are not allowed to mix around with the other side, it is a rule you are taught as a baby and it is instilled within you so deep, they repeat it and you repeat it back like a robot, over and over again until they are appeased.
The Dawson's control the town and they are not loved. The other rich families like mine? We tolerate them. They can neither make us or break us but they are at the top so we show respect but hated nonetheless.
Handsome boys have only ever been born from that family. It is like they are hand crafted by God himself, where he picks the noses and lips. They are born tall, blessed with a long legs that can run for miles. A smile so dazzling, you forget their last name and an aura to match.
The Dawson's know the power they have. They yield it with confidence, from the first time they take their first steps. Their sex appeal oozes out of them as they become teenagers, they don't know acne.
I am a Fowler.
We come in second and I guess that is why I was promised to the Dawson's. My family wants a way up and the Dawson's couldn't possibly go any lower.
I have four brothers, who were all born before me. They unfortunately only get to choose girls below them as The Dawson's only ever breed son's.
It begs the question, what will ever happen if one was to give birth to a girl? Surely it has happened but nobody ever dares to ask out loud. We can think it but we can never go against the first family!
I finish the food on my plate, throwing out his food and placing the plates and utensils in the dishwasher. Daisy, our housekeeper walks in just in time and I leave her to do her job.
Already in my gym clothes, it was time to get out of here and play pretense. Time to tell the world that my husband and I couldn't be happier and that I love dull, boring life.