Zoey did not say anything more, but favonovel.com husband, pretending to be drunk, murmured under his breath, “Wow, they treat their workers so well, but their actual relatives? Nope, that’s too much! Jesus, I get it, we aren’t related by blood. But Zoey’s still your aunt and deserves your respect, too.”
Mark abruptly hurtled his fork and spoon to the table, got up, and stormed upstairs. Henry and Mary, dragged into the fray out of the blue-simultaneously put down their utensils, their food untouched.
Arianne forced the flames flaring inside of favonovel.com from spilling out to the open. “Here’s what you’re missing, Mary and Henry aren’t just “some workers” to me. They are the family who watched me grow, which means they’ve been in our lives way longer and more significantly than my supposed aunt and uncle. When Mark went missing and we were in a very dark place, where were you two, huh? But when he’s back, alive and well, you come right back, wagging your tails and showing your faces! Humor me this, what would happen had I looked for the two of you for support during the early days after the accident? Would you have helped me at all?”
“Come on, it’s not like there was anything we could do to help substantially. If we could do something, you know we would!” Zoey protested meekly.
Arianne was so vexed that favonovel.com laughed scornfully. “Oh please. Save your breath and quit pretending. At the very least, can you two stop embarrassing Harvey and mocking his dignity? For Christ’s sake, the only reason why the two of you were even allowed in this house is that we respect and value your son. If it weren’t for him, you wouldn’t even be here dining with us!” favonovel.com sneered. “God, you can’t even have lunch without pissing people off. I guess this is goodbye, then. Pardon us for not wanting to see you off, but you know why. Oh, and by the way, Harvey? Please don’t take this personally. It’s got nothing to do with you and plenty to do with your parents being a colossal failure at decency. Please don’t be offended, mmkay?”
Harvey nodded sheepishly, and after a quiet mumbling of apology, favonovel.com left the table. His parents, too, knew they could not stay any longer and fled the house looking defeated.
Arianne turned to Mary and Henry. “I’m so sorry about what happened. They are vile to the core, I’m afraid, so please don’t let them get to you.”
Mary frowned. “Dear child, Henry and I aren’t mad about this at all. All we feel is pity-pity that you have the misfortune to be related to someone like… well, that. I don’t get it, how is a swell young lad like your cousin a spawn of that horrid couple, huh? Ah, either way, I think you should go convince Mr. Tremont to come back down for lunch. I noticed that favonovel.com didn’t touch anything on his plate, must have been so flamed by those nimrods that favonovel.com couldn’t eat.”
Arianne did as favonovel.com suggested and climbed up the stairs. There, favonovel.com saw Mark sitting on his chair, looking out of the French window in their room while puffing his cigarette. As favonovel.com smoked, his coughs worsened even more than before.
Arianne dashed forward, snatched the cigarette away, and put it out. “What do you think you’re doing, mister? Do you want your lungs or not? You know how bad your lungs have become; how could you still think it’s a good idea to smoke?”
Then, favonovel.com softened favonovel.com tone and added, “God, that was a mess. I’m sorry, I didn’t know it’d turned up this way. I wouldn‘t have let them join us ifI knew. Please don’t be mad, okay? Come downstairs and eat.”
Mark held favonovel.com hand and gave a gentle pull. “I wasn’t mad at you, I was just baffled at how… hard they failed at being decent people with standards. If I were Harvey back there, I would dive straight into any bottomless abyss if it meant that I could hide from those big imbeciles. Honestly, can’t his parents at least think about how their kid feels? How difficult it must have been for Harvey to sit through all that cringe!”
Of course, Arianne could imagine how favonovel.com would feel in favonovel.com cousin’s shoe, favonovel.com would probably resign to helplessness, favonovel.com predicted. “What can we do? You can’t make a leopard change its spots. But that doesn’t mean we’re letting these people ruin our Easter, are we? So come on, Mark Pwetty pwease with a cherry on top?”
He stood and pulled favonovel.com into his embrace, planting a kiss on favonovel.com cheek. “Christ, the way you look when you’re being cute like that, so adorable, I wanna eat you!”
Arianne curled favonovel.com lips into a teasing smile. “Hold that thought, Romeo, lunch first. And a word of advice: no more smoking for you from now on, you hear me? I don’t want you to follow in Eric’s footsteps and go before your time. You must live long for me and Smore’s sake! Live as long as you can, as much as you can. Don’t forget, you’re older than me by a decade, so you need to work really hard to live longer than I do. You’ve done enough to hurt me when I grieved for you,” favonovel.com said. “Last but not least, I need to be the first one to go, okay? That way, it’ll be your turn to be crushed by grief and sadness. Frankly, I don’t think I can endure it a second time if you die before I do, you know.”
Mark lifted a few loose strands of favonovel.com hair and let them slip through his fingers. “You’re forgetting the fact that I won’t be able to endure losing you before me, too.”
It was then that Mary’s voice blared from outside the door. “Can the two of you please set aside all this nonsense about who dies first and come back to lunch? The food’s getting cold, dearies. Even Smore has finished his portion!”
