She had been expecting his counter about doing what he liked. She had not been expecting him to laugh.
They had always been on the same page before, or so Estelle had thought, in spite of all the jibes and taunts and bickering. If they had hated each other, at least they had been on a par, both of them getting as good as they gave. There had been a kind of balance beneath it all: that, whether or not they had been playing with fire, they were equals.
But now she knew she had been a fool all along, because she had come to him on the brink of utter desperation, and he was sitting there laughing at her. The consequences were to be all hers. For the moment, though, the humiliation of this realisation only fed her anger. “No, I don’t,” Estelle snapped, at you look it: she was paranoid that her body had already changed, but she still fit in all her clothes, and she could not see a difference in the mirror, so nor could anyone else. Which meant – “And no one else knows,” she spat. She wasn’t stupid. She could solve this on her own, without her parents disowning her.
And he was talking like this had been inevitable! That didn’t make any sense! Estelle rounded on him, trembling in anger and wishing that he would get up from the couch expressly so she could shove him. “How could it have happened?! We never – but I never went to bed with you!” She exclaimed, because even if they had done some intimate things in that observatory; and occasionally up against a door; and once on a chaise-longue, it shouldn’t have led to pregnancy: however that happened, Estelle had been certain that the bed part of the marriage bed was a necessary part of the equation.
They had always been on the same page before, or so Estelle had thought, in spite of all the jibes and taunts and bickering. If they had hated each other, at least they had been on a par, both of them getting as good as they gave. There had been a kind of balance beneath it all: that, whether or not they had been playing with fire, they were equals.
But now she knew she had been a fool all along, because she had come to him on the brink of utter desperation, and he was sitting there laughing at her. The consequences were to be all hers. For the moment, though, the humiliation of this realisation only fed her anger. “No, I don’t,” Estelle snapped, at you look it: she was paranoid that her body had already changed, but she still fit in all her clothes, and she could not see a difference in the mirror, so nor could anyone else. Which meant – “And no one else knows,” she spat. She wasn’t stupid. She could solve this on her own, without her parents disowning her.
And he was talking like this had been inevitable! That didn’t make any sense! Estelle rounded on him, trembling in anger and wishing that he would get up from the couch expressly so she could shove him. “How could it have happened?! We never – but I never went to bed with you!” She exclaimed, because even if they had done some intimate things in that observatory; and occasionally up against a door; and once on a chaise-longue, it shouldn’t have led to pregnancy: however that happened, Estelle had been certain that the bed part of the marriage bed was a necessary part of the equation.
