Chapter 5 Give My Award, People

• Carrie
• Boredom is a disease. I'll tell you.
• Two weeks have already passed since my father's decision to call off the marriage. But I have been stuck in my room since then. And now, I think that my hotel room is my designated purgatory. Nothing I did was fun.
• Even Netflix was boring to me.
• Shocking right?
• I mean, I should be jumping and throwing pillows recklessly since I am not getting married to a stranger anymore.
• But no, I just went into the bathroom to take my fourth shower. Yesterday, I took six showers. I truly deserve an award for the cleanest woman of the week.
• So, give me my award, people.
• But, man, I miss LA. I wish I could escape this hell and go back to my usual life. But no, my father refused to show me his face ever since he sent Gary to announce the wedding annulment.
• And since I can't run away to LA without letting my father know how grateful I was for his decision, I have to stay put.
• A sigh was already leaving me when a knock came on my door. I was expecting it to be Gary since he was the only one that visited me since I was grounded, but my expectations were wrong.
• It was my father.
• With his grey and white hair looking scantier than before, my father walked into the room, his lips pressed into a thin line.
• I got up from the bed and rushed closer, eager to hear what he had to say.
• "I have been busy," was all he said.
• "Oh, I-"
• Another person walked in. And it turned out to be my mother. Walking in after her was my Uncle Steve, my father's younger brother.
• Seeing how they were all in my room, I guessed that they wished to speak to me about the wedding.
• "Carrie…" My father began to speak once the door was securely closed. "I am sure you know that I decided to call off the wedding."
• "Yes, Dad, I-"
• "I was trying to help you, Carrie." The wrinkles around his eyes deepened and that sight made me worry. A sigh left my old man and his feet danced for a second. "You keep living your life as if you don't have one. You never act like you have a purpose."
• "But, I do." The path our discussion was leading to was one that we have threaded a lot in the past. And I am more than willing to use this opportunity to get what I want. "Dad, you know what I want to do with my life."
• "You have no business with running or owning a business," his response was sharp and he eyed me in the condensing way I always hate. "You should look for something else to do. Now that you are no longer getting married, you have to-"
• "I want to do it. I want to become a furniture manufacturer. I want to make people's homes a delight to see." My urgency and desperation increased and my forehead creased deeply. With a little ache in my heart, I mourned all the days I wasted because my father refused to support and allow me to follow my dreams.
• Even when I took action and reached out to a friend for help, my father blocked all access.
• His insistence and ridiculous view on a woman running a business has affected me in a lot of ways. I mean, he almost married me off because he continually wishes to dictate how my life should be after he refused to grant me the life I wished for myself.
• So, yes, with urgency, I moved closer to my father and begged, "Please let me do this. Let me do what I want. I promise I will stop being a wild child. I will-"
• "I will think about it," was all my father said, his voice curt.
• "Dad…" I whined and faced my mother. "Mom, please,speak to him."
• "Give your father some breathing space, Carrie." And as usual, my mother failed to take my side. With her permed hair well-settled on her shoulders, my mother said, "He just had to let go of a huge deal because of you."
• "Oh…" Right… The wedding was supposed to come with some mighty wedding presents.
• "Carrie," my father called and I faced him. "I need you to go to the hospital."
• "What? Why?"
• "I know you ran away and who knows what or who you contacted. So,do the family a favour and get some tests done."
• "I mean…" I doubt anything will be found. Alessandro, the gorgeous stranger, didn't seem like someone with herpes or something related to that. But one can never be too sure. So, I shrugged and gave in to my father's request. "If that is what you want."
• "Good. Your punishment is over as if today. So you can leave your room as you please."
• "Thank you, Dad." The fact that I won't get married came to me and I felt happiness all over again.
• My uncle Steve cleared his throat and that was all I heard from him because he left the room right after my father turned his heels toward the exit.
• My mother left after them but not after she gave me a stare I failed to properly comprehend. But if I was to guess, it almost seemed as though she was reprimanding me for getting out of the marriage trap.
• My thoughts are wild, I know, but there's just a chance I might be right. And if I am.
• Oh well…
• ~
• Because of the numerous hospital tests my father made sure I ran, I ended up spending another week in Venice. The weather here is nice and all, but I am dying!
• I want to go back to LA and enjoy a good night in my apartment. I don't want to constantly greet family members who sneer at me for choosing not to get married
• And I certainly don't like the constant check-ups to see if I had run away again.
• At this moment, I just woke up from a long sleep but it felt unsatisfactory. So, with tired steps, I walked out of the bathroom, droplets of water settled on my skin. When I found a favourable position next to my bed, I made to pull off my bathrobe when a knock announced someone's arrival.
• I considered ignoring the person, but the knock came again and I had to heed the call.
• And once I opened the door, a shocking sight greeted me.
• "Frank…" The name of my supposed-to-be husband slipped out of my tongue.
• "May I come in?"
• "Uh..." I adjusted the towel on my wet hair. "Sure." My brow raised in uncertainty as I tried to calculate in my head why he could possibly be in my room.
• "So..." He pocketed his hands as he walked further into the room. "We eventually didn't get married."
• "Nope." I gave him a small smile once he turned.
• With his stressed, somewhat wrinkled eyes dutifully trained on me, he let out a gust of air before saying, "Truthfully, I was looking forward to making you my wife."
• "Uh?"
• He adjusted his Harry Potter glasses. "I don't have much luck with women. So, I didn't mind the little matchmaking our fathers did."
• "Oh."
• Silence filled the atmosphere because I had else nothing to say.
• After a sigh, Frank said, "Carrie, you are a gorgeous woman. There is no doubt. It's just a pity I never got to know you better."
• Okay, maybe Frank is not a bad person. Okay, okay… Maybe I tried to see Frank as a bad person because I was supposed to get married to him. But now that I am free from that insane collaboration, I will admit the fact that the tall man standing in front of me was sort of sweet.
• So, with a softened tone, I said, "I am sorry the wedding was called off."
• "I know you never liked me."
• "Truthfully, I am not ready for marriage. And I wasn't thrilled when I learnt that I would be getting married to a stranger."
• Frank nodded in understanding and I told myself to say nothing more. I tend to speak out of turn sometimes and that could cause some irrevocable damages.
• "Well…" The man placed his hands on his waist and wrinkled his tucked shirt by tapping it with his fingers. "I should uh... I should leave."
• "Yeah. I need to get dressed so, yeah."
• His eyes roamed my bathrobe as though he just noticed what I was wearing.
• "I'll leave you to that." He smiled softly, his eyes still roaming. As I watched him make his way to the door, I wondered what life would have been like had I married him.
• Before I could answer that thought, I immediately shook it away. Why should I invite thoughts of something that won't happen?
• "Frank, my boy!" My father's voice pushed my ex-fiance back into the room. "It is good to see you here. It has been hard to reach you."
• I hugged my bathrobe closer. Can't they see I am yet to be dressed?
• "I have been very busy, sir. You know how business is these days," Frank replied and my father gave him a friendly pat.
• "Brother, you haven't checked the reports," my Uncle Steve's voice followed after his short blonde hair popped into the room.
• Great! I might as well never wear a proper dress again if the entire hotel continues trooping into my room without knocking.
• My father faced my uncle who was holding a brown envelope.
• "Oh it is good that they came early. I want Carrie to hear the results."
• "The results?" I asked, confused as fuck.
• "The hospital results," my Uncle cleared my inquiry.
• "I should excuse you all, this seems like a family issue," Frank said, his roughly oblong face wearing a serious look.
• "Nonsense! You are family regardless of what happened."
• I resisted the urge to scrunch my lips in disgust at my Father's response.
• And when Frank replied with, "I will just stay in a corner and watch.", I realised that I would be seeing more of Frank.
• "So modest, that boy." My Dad said to no one in particular.
• But I knew quite well the statement was directed at me. He was reprimanding me for not getting married to a potentially good man.
• Yeah, yeah. Whatever.
• "Okay, let's have the results, Steve," my father filled the room with his stern voice.
• "Alright." A little scuffle followed. "Okay..." his eyes skimmed the stapled papers in his hands. "There is nothing wrong so far..."
• I threw my father a smile as I did a celebratory backflip in my head.
• "Wait. There is one thing."
• Please do not be herpes. Please.
• "She is-" My Uncle glanced at the paper again.
• "What is it, Steve?"
• My uncle looked up at my father, his eyes carrying an emotion I couldn't decipher, an emotion that instantly worried me.
• "It says here that Carrie is pregnant."
• My knees weakened immediately.
• Preg-what? How? Wh- what... didn't I use the pills? Didn't I...
• "Really?" The calm tone in my father's voice made fright crawl into my soul. That fright found a home in me and made my soul shiver.
• "Yes, it says here that she is two weeks pregnant."