Charmingly Refreshing
Caitlyn sat in her family’s living room, at the base of the carpeted stairs leading to their bedrooms.
She was stamping invitations for the next charity event with her family’s seal, though her heart wasn’t really in the task. Her mind stubbornly lingered on the way Vi teased her about her drunkenness. Such brash and carefree behavior was reserved for the lower-class ones, and deemed inappropriate for such an esteemed House.
Caitlyn clenched her jaw and she flicked a freshly-stamped card onto the table.
Across from her, Caitlyn’s mother, Councilor Cassandra Kiramman, gently set down an empty tea cup. She opened one of the invitations and scanned the details, as though she wasn’t the one who dictated the organisation of the event.
“Will Violet be there?” she asked.
Caitlyn bit the inside of her cheek and nodded mutely.
“She’s an…interesting one, to say the least.” Cassandra folded the card shut and placed it on top of the small stack that had started to form. “Very different from the rest of us. Yet, somehow, charmingly refreshing.”
Caitlyn smiled to herself. Those were the exact words to describe Vi in the usual sea of rich, posh folk. Charmingly refreshing.
“You know what piques my curiosity?” Cassandra said. She leaned forward intently, a small grin flickering to life on her lips.
Caitlyn stamped yet another card, put it down, and looked up. “Yes, Mother?”
“It’s the way you act around her.” Cassandra’s eyes took on a thoughtful light. “Getting drunk. That’s not something I’ve seen in you before.”
Caitlyn bit her lip. She didn’t need to hear it from her own parents that Vi was a Zaunite, a bad influence, someone who would get her in trouble.
“Makes me wonder if, perhaps, you were better off with that Maddie.”
Caitlyn scowled fiercely. Maddie was a criminal, a dirty cheater, and a traitor. She was nothing compared to Vi. Vi was the complete opposite of Maddie.
“Vi isn’t Maddie,” Caitlyn answered defensively. “They are polar opposites.”
“My point exactly,” said Cassandra.
“What do you have against Vi?” Caitlyn demanded. She threw down another card and stood. She felt a fire rising in her chest, and had a strong urge to defend Vi from her mother’s words. “Because she’s from the undercity? I thought you were over that!”
“That was before you spent a night out with her and came home drunk!”
Caitlyn gritted her teeth. “Vi spent the night after that looking after me. She’s thoughtful and brave and honest and loyal. Yes, she’s Zaunite, but that doesn’t define who she is!”
Cassandra’s eyes flared with anger and she stood as well, holding her own despite being several inches shorter than her daughter. “If you want to insist on being with her, go ahead. Don’t come crying to me when she abandons you.”
She turned and stormed up the stairs, slamming a gold-panelled door behind her.
Caitlyn sank into the sofa. She didn’t understand what had come over her in that moment — yelling at her mother to protect Vi. But she knew that everything she’d said came from her heart. It was all genuine and true, and she felt that in the deepest pools of her heart and soul.
Did Vi really mean that much to her? She rarely defended anyone from her parents’ wrath and judgement, yet something had spurred her on to speak her mind and ensure Vi wasn’t spoken of poorly in her presence.
Caitlyn clenched her jaw. An image flashed through her mind. Vi, with her magnetic presence and charming manner that could easily win anyone over if she wanted to subdue them. That aura that commanded attention when she stepped into the room. The charisma she almost emitted when she walked through a crowd.
She could squash Maddie like an ant. There was absolutely no contest between the two.
Caitlyn shuddered and shook her head. They were just friends. How could she be comparing Vi to her ex-girlfriend, as though Vi was a new suitor?
But…a gnawing thought at the back of Caitlyn’s mind refused to leave her alone. What if she is?
~~~
Vi could feel that Caitlyn’s grip on her hand was tighter than usual. At her side, Caitlyn’s jaw was clenched so tightly Vi feared she would break a tooth.
“Hey,” Vi said gently. “You okay?”
Caitlyn had clearly been thinking about something else, but Vi’s question brought her back to the present. “Fine,” she answered dismissively.
“Cait.” Vi stopped her just before the entrance to the main ballroom. “What’s going on? Is this about that night out? I told you, I’ve been worse. It’s not a big deal.”
Caitlyn’s shoulder sagged. She exhaled. “Thank you, Vi. But that’s not it.”
Vi waited as Caitlyn struggled to find the right words.
“It’s…my mother.”
As though she’d heard them, Cassandra Kiramman fixed her gaze on them from the centre of the ballroom they weren’t even in. She smiled and raised her glass to Vi, and Vi returned the smile before turning her attention back to Caitlyn.
“She thinks you’re not a good fit for me,” Caitlyn said. “She thinks I’d be better off with my ex.”
“Why’s that a problem?” Vi asked. “It’s not like we’re really dating. We could just end this and still be friends.”
Even as the words slid off her tongue, Vi knew she couldn’t bear to let it happen. There was just something so…different about Caitlyn, about their relationship that she didn’t want it to end. It was almost as though she wanted a play to come to life — something made-up, fictional, fantastical to be real.
Judging by Caitlyn’s pained expression, both parties felt the same way.
“Okay, that came out wrong,” Vi admitted. “But who's your ex?”
“You might have heard of her,” Caitlyn said, her eyes tightening with pain and anger as she recalled the failed relationship. “Maddie Nolen. She seemed so sweet, so genuine, and yet she had a criminal past. The story of me, Caitlyn Kiramman, dating a criminal spread like wildfire. She was just using me and my family’s influence to try and clear her name. After I found out and broke up with her, she turned bitter and tried to uproot my life and do a bunch of bullshit out of vengeance.”
“Ah.” Vi nodded. “Yeah, I read about her before.”
Caitlyn seemed surprised. “And you still agreed to this?”
Vi shrugged. “It wasn’t your fault. People make mistakes.”
“My mother thinks we shouldn’t be dating.” Caitlyn’s expression soured. “She wants me to break it off, but I just…”
She didn’t finish her sentence, but Vi knew the words that followed. I just can’t bear to.
How had a false relationship, made to shield Caitlyn from whispers and rumours gone so far and run so deep? But Vi understood the feeling.
She cupped Caitlyn’s face in her hands and brushed a strand of her hair from her face. “Hey, cupcake. Look at me.”
“I’m not gonna leave you. Not now, not ever. Not as a girlfriend or just a friend. You’re important to me, and I’ll never turn my back on you, even if the whole world does.”
Caitlyn closed her eyes for a moment. She pulled Vi’s hands from her face but didn’t let go yet. “Promise me you’ll never speak to my mother about what I just told you. Keep things civil between you two.”
Vi nodded. “I won’t.”
“Thanks,” Caitlyn said, with a small smile tugging at the edges of her lips. “Let’s go prove my mother wrong.”
~~~
Vi spent the next few hours as per usual — chatting with strangers, ignoring the lasers for eyes fixated on her back, spending a little more time than usual chatting eloquently with Caitlyn’s parents, going from table to table and dazzling the people, even if it was only temporarily.
Caitlyn and Vi had been sitting together at a table with the former’s parents, but once dinner ended they both slipped over to a quiet corner of the event near the entrance to enjoy a brief second of quiet before the speeches began.
“I’m gonna get us a couple more drinks,” Vi said. She flicked her head towards a waiter gliding across the dance floor, effortlessly balancing a tray of champagne glasses while somehow still looking professional. “You want anything?”
Caitlyn smiled and shook her head. Vi shrugged and headed over to the waiter.
When she turned back toward Caitlyn, however, she saw that a new figure had entered the room. Some girl Vi had never seen before. She had short orange hair in a bob, a splash of freckles across her nose and deep hazel eyes that Vi might have thought were innocent if not for the way Caitlyn was avoiding her gaze and leaning away from her. Vi clenched her jaw as she realised who it was.
The greedy ex had entered the chat.