Thanks to all of my readers and reviewers! I great appreciate it. Here's the next installment of Love is Our Resistance! Enjoy!
Disclaimer: I don't own any characters of Sailormoon.
Chapter 2
The fresh sea breeze blew across her face sending chills down her spine. Serena leaned her temple against her closed fist and stared at the crashing waves. She often felt like her life was a giant crashing wave. She never really understood how she got into this mess. James had always been titled as a playboy in the press, but she never took him for an abusive husband. No, he wore a well-crafted mask in front of everyone and even fooled her.
"What a sham," she whispered as she pulled her coffee cup to her lips.
Mina stumbled out onto the deck with a mug in hand and slippers sliding across the damp wood. She yawned a little bit as she sat across from Serena, "How you feeling?"
"Fine," she lied.
"My brother has been calling non-stop," she mentioned. "He's been threatening to come out here, but even if he tries to do that, it'll take him a while since he's located in Thailand right now looking at a possible hotel merger."
Serena tore her eyes away from seascape in front of her and shook her head at Mina, "Let him threaten all he wants. I have the miscarriage card in my hand and can use that at my disposal."
Her sister-in-law bit her lower lip and winced a little as she asked, "You really don't feel any remorse for losing the child?"
"It was a fetus," she corrected, "and no, I don't feel any remorse."
"Why don't you just get a divorce?"
"And do what? I'll be followed around town constantly by the press still. Getting a job anywhere would be impossible."
"Acting?"
Serena let out a snide laugh, "Mina, just because you can act, doesn't mean everyone can. No, that's not my venue at all."
"Managing?"
"Maybe…"
Serena leaned back in her chair and let the sun's rays beat down on her face. She had contemplated the idea of leaving James. He would take her to court for years and years though. He would have a baseball sized team of lawyers ready to take every penny they could from her. If she stuck it out for one year, the prenup stipulated she would receive 100,000, for five years, she would 500,000, and for ten years she would receive a whopping one million greenbacks. She was slowly trucking through her fourth year with him. They had just celebrated their anniversary a little over a month ago. That's when they had conceived the unwanted child. She didn't remember the night all that well; she had knocked back a decent amount of champagne. If she had given birth to a child, she would have received up to five million, depending on whether or not it was a boy or girl. If she had gone through a voluntary abortion process, all of the money she would have received would have been cut in half.
"Let's just try to get through this next year," Serena murmured.
"You're really going to go through this whole prenup thing?" Mina asked, squinting a little as she lifted her head toward the sun.
"I've made it this far, right?" she replied as she spotted a paparazzi photographer trying to get a snapshot of the two spending a quiet morning together.
Mina looked over at the photographer who didn't bother trying to hide what he was doing. Coming from a famous family had made her accustomed to this type of attention. She threw herself even more so into the lime light when she started going to parties and clubs at the age of sixteen. Once that whole drunken scene was out of her system, she got herself an acting coach and within two years she had made two blockbuster hits, a romantic comedy, and a nice little indie film to give her some cred. She was slowly making herself a well known actress. Now she just needed to land herself an Oscar or Golden Globe nod and then she would move on past the MTV crowd.
"Wanna go inside?" Mina asked Serena. She responded with a silent nod and took her coffee cup with her as she got up from the oak table.
The moment they walked inside, the phone started shrieking at them. Mina shuffled over to the landline and picked up the receiver, "Hello? Um … yes, yes she is. No…. No Mother. She needs a vacation…. I don't know how long we're going to be here…. Yes I'll let her know. Okay. Sure. Talk to you later. S-see you later? What does that mean?! N-no!" Her face started to turn red with anger, "Mother! P-please don't do this. I – hello? Hello?! God dammit!" She hung up furiously and turned to Serena, "My mother is coming to the Hamptons this weekend. Lucky us. We'll have a wrinkly, bitchy, bag of bones for a guest."
"Please, don't hide your love for your mother just because I'm here," Serena smiled. "Jesus, you are just waiting for that woman die, aren't you?"
"The day she does is the day my proverbial chains come off," she responded as she walked over to the fridge, browsing through the contents for something to eat. She decided on a cup of yogurt and opened it up as she continued on, "My mother has always favored my baby brother over me. You know how much of a mama's boy he is. If I was born with a penis, she would have loved me just as much, but because I can't carry on the hotel family name, I'm forever cursed with scrutiny. Plus, the woman is determined to get me married off and knocked up before I'm able to dig up her future home in the ground."
Serena giggled a little bit as she tore open a banana and plopped down onto the couch. The family she had married into was certainly crazy. The only sane one was their father, yet he was the most passive. He let his wife do all of the financial work, let her take over everything including what the children did. However, when it came to the wills, he made sure to include people he actually liked in his life. He kept a secret tally in a notebook of good deeds and bad deeds that people did. Once he was on his deathbed, he would review it and decide who got what based on how genuine they were during his life. He was a regular Santa Claus with his naughty or nice list. Serena had only heard of the list, she never saw it herself. Mina had once walked in on her father writing in the twenty year old ledger when she was teenager, but never saw the full contents of it. She only assumed that she had a lot of "naughty points" as she called it based on her rebellious years as a partying socialite. Some how Serena thought otherwise; the man of the family didn't seem as strict as his wife.
Later that afternoon, Serena decided to get some fresh air and boldly ventured out onto the beach. She didn't care that there were about four or five paparazzi guys snapping her photo. She was sure that she would end up on some tabloid with the words "Too skinny!" or "Hot body!!" plastered over her picture. A sigh escaped her lips as she dug her feet into the cool sand. There weren't a lot of people out on the beach during the week. It was bound to get busier as the weekend approached. Hell, it was bound to get hairier as the weekend approached what with her mother-in-law coming in for a visit. That woman constantly nitpicked at Serena whether it was her clothes or the face wash she used. She even tried to choose her wedding gown! The older woman had balls, she had to give her that.
Serena plopped down onto beach and stared out at the water. How did she wind up here? Oh yeah … love … once.
"Rei are you sure I can wear this out tonight? It's so expensive," Serena gasped as she tugged onto the fuchsia sequined strapless dress.
"Please, I don't mind," Rei replied as she sat down in front of her vanity mirror and started to pin her jet black hair out of her face.
Serena was a grad student, working as a waitress at a café in the morning and a bartender at night in order to try and pay her way through school. It was difficult and finding time off was a risk, but this was Rei's birthday bash. It was going to be huge. Everyone who was anyone would be there. She even had a public relations representative put together the whole thing at one of New York's finest hotels. Serena couldn't believe that her classmate asked her to go with her. Maybe she would want something in return … like that twenty page psych paper done. Serena could hardly handle her own work load let alone someone else's! But she looked at Rei, she could see a genuine person, someone who didn't expect anything in return. Her grandparents raised her well.
Rei stood up and spun around to face Serena, "Ready?"
"Yeah I guess," she shrugged.
How in the world Serena ended up with this upper-class, rich crowd she would never know, but she wasn't about to complain, she was taught better than that. It was strange to her that even though she had met all of these fabulously wealthy people, none of them acted as though they ruled the world or were better than her. Only a few snobs crossed her path and they were easily pushed away from her circle of friends. Everyone else she had met in college and grad school were hard working, appreciative, and most of all sincere.
The two girls climbed into the limo and drove off to the event held at the Copeland hotel. When they arrived they were greeted with a red carpet, flashing cameras and shouts from reporters asking questions, telling the girls to pose, and also crying out Happy Birthday to Rei. She smiled, placed her hand on her hip, spun around, pouted, blew kisses, the whole nine yards. This girl had it down. She walked up to a few of the entertainment reporters and started to answer their questions about her birthday and all of the preparation for it. While she did this, Serena walked into the hotel lobby and looked at her surroundings. It was beautiful; marble floor, chandeliers, glossy tables with thick cushioned chairs.
"You look lost," a voice said from behind.
Serena turned around to find a young man, probably in his mid-twenties, with rather dashing red shirt, sequined bowtie and a pair of black slacks to match. His dark brown eyes smiled at her as he walked closer.
"I'm here with Rei," she said quietly.
"Ah, you're a friend of the woman of honor," he said as he bowed to her. "Pleasure to meet you. I'm James."
"My name is Serena," she beamed as she held her hand out of a shake. Instead he took it and kissed it.
"May I escort you into the ballroom?"
"In these heels I'll need all of the assistance I can possibly get."
The two, arm in arm, strolled on through the glass double doors. The pounding bass from the techno music vibrated through her body. No … wait, that was just her heart beating a mile minute due to the warm touch of the man beside her. She snuck another peek at him and silently swooned at his well chiseled features and beautiful smile.
"Serena!"
She snapped out of her stolen gaze and found Rei waving her over to a table. The couple joined her and a few of their other friends. Amy Carthy was an adopted daughter of an owner of a huge investment firm. Not to mention she was the smartest girl they all knew. She was receiving her masters degree at Columbia, the university they all went to, she wanted to get her PhD from Harvard and she desperately wanted to teach either there, Stanford, UCLA, or NYU. This woman was going places. Her mind couldn't stop moving at a mile a minute, but for the moment she decided to put it on pause and dawn on a blue party dress to match her hair … just for Rei.
"Where's Lita?" Serena asked as James pulled out her chair for her sit down next to Rei.
"She's talking to my PR rep because someone got the wrong DJ," she said. "I tried telling her that I didn't mind, but she insisted that it was my birthday and I deserved everything. You know how stubborn she gets."
"Luckily your cake will be perfect since she made it," Amy quipped. "At least that's one thing that's in her control."
"I'll say," Rei replied. She looked over at James who was sitting beside Serena. A quizzical expression washed over her face as she asked, "And what are you doing here? Shouldn't you be gallivanting around town with some super model?"
"And shouldn't you be protesting for women's rights, animal rights, or some other left-wing bullshit?" he replied.
"Touché sir, touché."
As the night carried on, James became more and more fascinated by Serena which was odd to her. She even expressed to him how she didn't have any time to have a boyfriend, let alone herself. But he persistent in at least getting her phone number. After having a few drinks, she consented and gave him her digits. It wasn't until the ride back to Rei's penthouse that she found out who he was. James Copeland acted like a regular prince charming when really he was a playboy. Serena remembered Rei telling her that he tried to get her to sleep with him when they were thirteen. He had already been with two girls and was working his way up. But she tried to console Serena by suggesting that maybe he had changed over the past decade or so.
Boy was she wrong.
James was a wonderful boyfriend, an absent fiancé when he popped the question, and an abusive husband. He went from buying her flowers to throwing vases at the wall when she wouldn't have sex with him. His temper had gone from non-existent to raging, especially when alcohol was involved. How could she have been so easily fooled? Now she was just another statistic. A regular Park Avenue wife who had become accustomed to having a drink at lunch and made the excuse that it was 5 o'clock somewhere.
Fairytale beginning to a nightmarish ending.
Serena stood up and wiped the sand from her baggy white washed jeans. She wasn't about to sit around and wallow in self-pity. She had done that for far too long. It was time to go bake or watch a scary movie with Mina. She needed to laugh and stop thinking about how stupid she had been to get conned into this marriage.
The next chapter will be coming soon!! Please leave reviews for me! I'd love some feedback! Thanks!!!
