Chapter Three - Distrust

"Sorry, didn't mean to bump into you," A small voice spoke, frightened. The voice woke Lara up, and she looked at the doe-eyed teenager. This was her younger sister, who would be 18 in a few weeks; in her past life. She had personally killed this young lady; to think of it, how could she have hurt this sweet-looking girl?

"It's okay" Lara heard herself saying. The girl- Evelyn's eyes contracted, and her eyes showed fear; she quickly ran off. Lara was puzzled for a while and then recalled that she was already a menace to Evelyn by this time in her past life.

She shook her head, walked behind her sister, and headed to the dining room; unlike her sister's speed, she took one step at a time cause any movement just gave her more headache.

Entering the dining she took her usual seat and observed everyone as they busied about, her sister was helping to bring out the few remaining dishes, her father was still not there, and her stepmother was going around moving dishes here and there, looking mg closely she noticed that she was rearranging the dishes so that everyone's favorite was placed closer to their seat.

A thoughtful woman, yet she despised and ruined this woman in her past life. Her stepmother- Kiera was a young lady of 28 years, just six years older than her. That was why she never really liked Kiera. She was thirteen when mc her father bought a nineteen-year-old Kiera home and told her that she was now her new mother. ObvShes pissed and thought of Kiera as a gold digger, but her father downplayed her emotions, thinking it was just another teenage tantrum.

But now sitting here with a lifetime of experience, she looked at Kiera's clear eyes and gentle disposition. She couldn't help but think, 'What a misunderstanding?' and shook her head, which just aggravated her headache more, goodness; goodness, some sobering soup.

As if reading her mind, a hand placed a bowl of soup before her and whispered for her to hurry and drink it before her father came down, she raised her head only to see it was her stepmother.

If it was her stepmother in the past life, she would have thought that Kiera was being hypocritical and probably thrown the soup away or something like that, and Kiera would just ignore her tantrums and take the bigger person stand and not quarrel with a child, which I nturn would just anger her more.

But in this life, she just smiled and said "thank you" before drinking the whole bowl in one go. Kiera was taken aback as that was the first time Lara had accepted her goodwill and with such politeness. The maids peeped outside to make sure the sun wasn't rising from the west; Evelyn, on the other hand, dropped the napkins she was holding.

Carlos, who had witnessed everything that transpired, decided to break the silence. "Happy Morning," he said, waking everyone up from their shock, his loud voice adding to Lara's headache.

"Happy Morning, Dad," Evelyn said; Lara mumbled something unintelligible, and Kiera flashed him a sweet smile.

Carlos took him, and soon everyone was seated and had a quiet breakfast; halfway through breakfast, Lara could no longer feel her headache anymore. She now had time to observe her family. She looked at each and every one of them and remembered their cruel endings and decided then and there that yes, she wanted revenge against those pair, but what she wanted more was a happy life and wanted mostly for all these people to have their happy ending.

Just as they were almost done Lara came up with an idea and broke the silence. " I was thinking…." She started and everyone tensed up. The peaceful atmosphere became tense and the slight smile on Kiera's face froze.

Being the trouble causer she was everyone's heart was on hold.

Lara looked around, saw everyone's expressions, and mentally patted herself. After all, Amira had already added diesel to the fire for the past year.

"Lara!!!" Her father warned giving her a 'don't ruin the moment look'.

Old habits die hard so Lara unconsciously rolled her eyes at him and continued her words

"Since it's the holidays and it's raining cats and dogs, we should all go to a place with warmer weather and spend the next two weeks there ...as a family." She stopped and looked at everyone's look instead of being excited or something similar, all she saw was distrustful looks.

"I won't try anything funny, I promise," she said exasperated. That, in turn, made everyone look at her with more suspicion.

"Think about it," she said when everyone stood still and quiet, just staring at her. Considering she was already done, she dropped her cutlery and walked out to continue her sleep.

A sharp ringing tone woke her up and she looked at the clock to see that she had already slept for four hours. She picked her phone up and saw that it was her best friend Amira calling, she smirked and already knowing what Amira was going to say she was tempted to ignore her call but she decided not to.

"Hey," Lara spoke in a groggy voice into the phone.

Amira, on the other end, was secretly glad to hear her voice and concluded that Lara had just waking up since last night.

"Please….don't…. tell…. me you're just waking up" Amira replied in a worried voice. Listening carefully Lara could pick up the hint of disdain from her words and shook her head at what a great actress she was.

" I woke up a few minutes earlier, but my dad has been scolding my ears off," she replied, trying her best to sound as aggrieved as possible.

"I am so sorry; if I hadn't insisted we go out to celebrate my birthday last night, then he wouldn't have been mad at you," Amira said, sounding very guilty.

Lara shook her head and thought, "No wonder I was wrapped around her finger; she's so good."

"Why don't we go out for lunch, so that I can make it up to you?" Amira suggested.

Lara listened to her words and a smirk played on her lips and replied "Sure, usual place"