Chapter 99: SOFIA
It’s been more than thirty minutes already and that wooden door was still locked tight.
What was happening there? What could they be discussing that have stretched this long?
I was so anxious. I couldn’t stay at a place. Couldn’t think without thoughts overlapping and crashing at what was discussed behind that door. I paced with such frenzy and yet, I wasn’t at ease.
It felt like whatever was being discussed held a hand in my fate. What had begun as a joke, now held serious implications to my very existence.
But really the worst that could happen would be marriage. And for someone who had once believed that marrying Charlie was better than these caprices that adorned my life, I wasn’t really ready.
Yes, there’s a possibility of finding happiness in such a union, but why was I in high dread of it?
This time it feels like it wasn’t just about my resolve against love and marriage, I wanted more... I need more, more than such an ordinary life.
I have dreams, goals and aspirations, I couldn’t just throw all that away at a shot at normality, a life of uncomplicated decisions.
The course of one’s life should never be decided by another, other than the owner. If I had married Charlie at my own will, that would be different. But marrying him because I was told to or left without any other choice, and for the rest of my life, I think I would hate him and my life as well, because it would feel forced.
These assumptions, as scary as they were, were nothing compared to the fact that they were still in there talking about my life. Discussing my future like I don’t get a say and when it comes to it, do I really have a say when Alicia has something on me, something that when revealed would make living out the rest of my life as a wife and mother whether forced, a sweet dream as opposed to the nightmare of being the daughter of a high profile criminal.
I guess for some of us, the frivolity of choice making is oblivious to us. At one stage, we are allowed to fool ourselves into thinking we have a choice on how it will go, but that is past when we find ourselves conformed to the ultimate choice made and decided within any involvement of us.
And unfortunately, I am one of these people, affected by the choices made without my knowledge. My mom’s choice to stay in love and marry a man of such a reputation wasn’t known to me, and yet I suffer from it.