I was always the type of girl that was overlooked unless someone needed a target to make fun of. As a kid, you develop a sense for recognizing cruel intentions. By the time I was sixteen, I could laugh off any insult thrown at me by giving the impression that it didn’t sting because I did so in the nick of time. I knew how to tune out the suffocating cloak of pity from the school faculty and fool myself into believing that my loneliness was a matter of choice and not necessity.
But then Violet appeared in the picture.
She sat beside me in my chemistry class sophomore year, a cyclone of fancy perfumes and pure sunshine. Everything she did, including being nice to others, was deliberate. She did not act out of pity or the idea of making over some “fixer-upper” project. Rather, she just happened to be beautifully breathtaking, moving through life as if it was made especially for her enjoyment.
I, on the other hand, was invisible. I was the background noise in other people’s lives.
But she didn’t see a ghost; she saw Layla.
“You’re just not aware how special you are, Layla. You see the world differently, and no one else can make me laugh like you can.”
Because of some reason, Violet didn’t leave. I couldn’t quite understand why she would choose to stick around through the embarrassment of high school, the struggles of college, and everything in between. For five years straight, I believed that someday, Violet would get up in the morning and finally decide that she could not be friends with me anymore since it was such a hassle.
It is easy to summarize our most fundamental difference – she had a home while I only had my phone.
To this day, I cannot forget the time when I received a text from my brother telling me not to come home during Christmas. In all simplicity, it said that I should not return because there would be no place, there would be no money, and there wouldn’t be any point in inviting me either.
Anyway, I moved into the city with her right after college. No, not because of some sort of fixation; well, it probably seemed like that to others. It was simply a question of self-preservation—I had to stay close to the only person who actually recognized my existence. The first place I ever called my own was a small shoebox of a place perched over a 24/7 laundromat. It was loud, smelt like commercial cleaning products, and the heating never worked unless it decided to be generous—but it was home.
Violet came to visit during my moving day, loaded down with organic food stuffs and the kind of optimistic attitude I found utterly draining.
“You need curtains,” she said, pointing at my empty window that overlooked a wall made of brick.
“I need rent money,” I told her.
“Come now, don’t be like that. This weekend, my family is coming together at the estate for dinner. Come.”
That is how I came to know Rick, her grandfather.
When I first walked into the Thorne estate, I felt like an outsider among my own kind. The ceilings towered overhead and had their own climatic conditions, and the silverware was worth more than my college education combined. In the first half hour of dining, I spent all of my energy trying to eat my meal without triggering some invisible protocol of etiquette that would result in my expulsion from the estate.
Rick observed me. He was a man who seemed to be chiseled from granite and had eyes that didn’t simply observe but rather recorded you as soon as you came under their scrutiny.
“Is there a specific reason why you’re negotiating with the silverware, Miss Miller?” he inquired in a deep basso tone that drowned out the soft murmurs of his offspring.
There was silence at the table. I felt the flush of shame rise up my cheeks and neck. I met his gaze head-on, and oddly enough, the feeling of intimidation fled and left behind a flash of defensive humor.
“That’s all I’m trying to do, decide who will betray me less,” I replied.
This was the start of an odd chain of events. From then on, Rick started inviting me over even without Violet around. His candor was both exhilarating and frightening for me. He paid attention to what I had to say. He remembered the little details that I mentioned to him casually.
“Money comes before beauty,” he once commented one afternoon as we strolled through his gardens.
“That’s because money dictates what remains beautiful, Rick,” I retorted, remembering the peeling wallpaper in my apartment. “Beauty is a luxury, security a miracle.”
He smiled. It was a smile rarely seen from him and was more like a thin lifting of the corners of his lips. “Either profound or profound.”
“In my experience,” I said, “both.”
Of course, Violet noticed the connection. At first, she looked like she was having fun at this realization. “Grandpa thinks you’re great,” she informed me while we were having coffee. “He normally finds everyone utterly boring. He just loves that you’re the only one who says thank you to the staff and no to him.”
The fun didn’t last long, however. On a rainy Tuesday, Rick invited me into his library for an extremely unusual question.
“Layla, have you ever thought of marrying for security?”
I laughed. I really laughed. I waited for the joke, but there wasn’t any laughter in the room except for mine, as I listened to the raindrops beat against the leaded windows.
“Are you actually making me an offer here?” I stammered.
“Yes.”
This was when I needed to leave, or be offended or shocked. But none of that happened. Rather, there was a stark coldness in the air as I asked the question that would change everything. “Why?”
“Because I trust you more than myself,” he answered, and for the first time, I saw something besides his granite resolve as he responded to me. “To my family, I am nothing but a vault; but you see me as a person. I need someone I can count on, Layla, and you need someone who won’t crumble with footsteps overhead.”
After I told Violet what had happened, the backlash came almost immediately.
“I thought you would have some self-respect, but you clearly lack it,” she responded. “I thought I could trust you, but you’re nothing but another beggar.”
Three weeks later, I married Richard Thorne.
It wasn’t a very romantic wedding at all. It was small, costly, and awkward. I was marrying a man more than half my age. The difference vibrated through the room as a sour note. We exchanged no romantic promises; there were no declarations of devotion. All there was was a contract and an oppressive silence from his side of the family. Violet made an appearance, though she did not even make eye contact with me. Instead, she stood in the shadows.
At the reception party, Rick’s daughter Angela caught me by myself next to the champagne tower. Her smile was cold, predatory.
“Wow, you’ve progressed rather rapidly, haven’t you?” she purred, “from the laundromat to the manor in record time. You certainly have earned your stripes.”
“I do wish this family would be a little more well-behaved,” I answered smoothly. “After all, as of an hour ago, it’s me who gets to control the guest list.”
The confrontation never escalated because Rick cut it off before it became something more, but the damage was already done.
That night, in the antiseptic silence of our bedroom, Rick stripped down to the truth. “I’m dying, Layla.”
My breath left my body in a rush, and I perched at the edge of the giant bed we had yet to make love on. “For how long?”
“Months. Maybe a year if I’m lucky.”
“Why tell me this now? Why not tell me when the deal was made?” I asked.
“Because if you’d known, you would have married me for pity,” he explained, struggling to lean against his cane. “I didn’t marry you for a nurse, I married you to be my partner. My family has been circling overhead like buzzards, waiting to swoop in once my heart stops to sell the business and everything else I have built. I needed someone who understood the pain of having nothing so that you could appreciate money enough to protect the legacy of my business.”
He placed before me proof of his son’s theft from him, the effort by his family to have him declared mentally incapacitated, and then finally the contents of his last will. I would take control of his foundation as well as a place on the board.
“They’ll ruin me,” I said, stepping back in fear.
“They hate you anyway,” he replied. “Make them scared instead.”
What followed next was a cold war. At least until one day when Violet found me and accused me of selling my soul for an inheritance, I remained fearless. “I married him for the safety that you’ve always had since you were born.” You’re not grieving for your grandfather; you’re grieving for a paycheck,” I said.
When Rick had a heart attack at the dinner table, and his kids checked their watches, I held him and heard him say, “Don’t let them silence you.”
He died four months later, but only after ensuring that he took away all of their powers by making one final television appearance at a board meeting. He revealed their corruption and made sure that my position was secured.
When I stepped into the office of the foundation as its leader, the gossip was over. The employees greeted me as I walked in. For once, I wasn’t a problem for anyone or an ambitious social climber. They knew that I was the right person to guide them forward.
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