Shy sits at the counter of her parent's kitchen with another textbook open in front of her. She wiggles a No. 2 pencil between her forefinger and thumb as she reads.
"Doth iseth my lady!" A young Hispanic girl, the same age as Shy, enters wearing a gray maid's uniform with a white apron and orthopedic shoes. She is putting her straight, brown hair in a ponytail and her eyes are a deep brown.
Shy doesn't take her attention away from the book as she responds. "It's Greek Mythology, not Shakespeare, Delia."
Delia finishes her hair and leans on top of the book making Shy look up at her with her eyes. "They all die in either. Don't they?"
Shy cocks her head at Delia and snatches the book from under her elbows and closes it over. "It's still not the same thing."
Shy stretches her arms out in front of her as Delia backs away and goes into the refrigerator for bottled water. Shy glances at the large diamond on her left ring finger and begins to twirl it around. Delia takes a look at the ring and takes a sip of her water. She points at Shy's finger and swallows.
"You're a lucky girl, Shy." Delia says.
Shy stops fidgeting with her ring and looks at Delia. "Because I have a ring? Or because you don't?"
Delia's eyes narrow at Shy. "Because Desmond Aurelius is a wealthy man and you won't have to clean the houses of the rich to pretend to be one."
"I know about you and Desmond, Delia." Shy leans back on her stool and starts to gather her things. "I know he sleeps with you because I won't."
Delia shifts her weight uncomfortably as Shy's eyes bear into hers. "We've only done it once and it was before you were engaged."
Shy shook her head. "I was engaged last night. I was also up late enough to hear you let him in and let him touch you in the sitting room. My father's study is across the hall."
"Are you going to tell your father?" Delia's eyes became wider than Shy had ever seen them. They are small eyes. Delia is very beautiful. Shy knew why Desmond was attracted to her. She was exotic and not like herself.
Shy takes a deep breath in and releases it. "No. Enjoy him."
Shy grabs her textbook from the counter and steps down from the stool. Delia watches as Shy start to leave the room without an inkling of emotion on her face. Delia releases a breath when Shy stops next to her and looks in her eyes again.
"Don't tell him I know." Shy says in a very even tone.
Delia nods once with a confused and frightened expression on her pretty face as Shy leaves for her bedroom.
Shy knew that she could have Delia fired for what she has done with her fiancé, but in reality Shy didn't feel any anger towards her. She didn't feel any anger towards her fiancé for that matter. She did not care and, for the first time, she felt truly dead inside.
Shy didn't love Desmond. She tried and tried to, but she could not make herself feel for him. When he touched her, she became frigid and chills ran down her spine. It was not the chills that they write about in fairy tales and romance novels though. It was uneasy, unnatural.
As a matter of fact, Shy had never felt those chills before. She highly doubted that they even existed in real life. She had to believe in them though, because her ancestor was the one of the prime examples of true love.
Helen of Troy was the most beautiful woman in the world. She launched a thousand ships, she caused a city to fall because she felt those chills from a guy she had no business sleeping with.
Shy thought it was all idiotic. She spent four years in college studying the metaphors and meanings behind the story of her very great grandmother, Helen, and other stories of her Greek ancestry and chalked it all up to bullshit. They were fables, myths to stop women from cheating on their husbands and to stop men from coveting other men's wives.
There is no such thing as fate. Shy thought to herself.
And if there was, then Desmond must be hers. There was two days until the party when it will be written in stone that he would be her husband and they were supposed to be happy. She would honor him as her husband and maybe after they are married and she gives herself to him, everything would be better. He would no longer need Delia and they would move away to where she wouldn't even be a distraction. No one would. It would just be Shy, and her husband, and her work. And everyone would be happy.
Shy makes it up to her room and shuts the door behind her. She leans back on the door and slides down to the floor, holding the textbook tightly to her chest. She folds her knees up to her chest and lets the tears escape her eyes.