The lowlife dealers with their bad designs

Normally, seeing a person eating food in front of you while you yourself have been denied food might cause people to react in a negative way. But while things may have started that way for the other women present at Rose’s celebratory party, it didn’t take long for that to no longer be the case.

Seeing how much Rose enjoyed her onion soup was too much even for the coldest of hearts to endure. She was so happy and overjoyed, it was practically a meal for all those watching in and of itself.

Rather than wishing things would progress faster so they could get to the actual lunch, most of the people present had the feeling of “Wow, I wish this could last forever!”

But in the end, Rose finished her soup. And she made sure to even avoid getting any tears in it, too, because that would have ruined the flavor. The flavor of the soup that the man she loved had prepared for her.

She looked at Nick with a smile on her lips, set down the empty spoon, and thanked him wholeheartedly for his wonderful gift.

“This meant the world to me, Nick,” she said, not even noticing the other women around her. As far as she was concerned, right now, in this moment, the entire hotel was empty save for the two of them, and she could fully express her gratitude to the only other person in existence.

“Merci… mer- err… th-thank you… Thank you, thank you so much…” Rose wiped away the tears rolling down her cheeks, and trembled.

“Thank you… Nick…”

Nick honestly didn’t know what to say. Well, he did KNOW what to say, but he was too overwhelmed by emotion at first to properly express his feelings. His hands trembled and he forced a smile to his lips, reached out, and took Rose’s hand in his.

“Of course I would do that for you,” he said softly. “You’re important to me, Rose. I needed you to see just how much I love you.”

It wasn’t just about making amends for this morning. Nick had massively screwed up long before Rose’s breakdown, and he would have to do far more than just make her a bowl of her favorite childhood soup to make up for that.

He would, he would give it everything he had.

For now, though, he just wanted to show Rose how much he loved her, and get her to understand how deserving she was of that love.

And judging by the smile on her lips and the glowing light in her bright blue eyes, she understood completely.

Just as he’d hoped.

Mary watched from her seat with a dewy expression on her face. Her heart was warm and alive as she looked at the two of them together, and she felt a smile push up her lips. She was happy for Rose, this was exactly what the other girl deserved.

We may fight a lot of the time, but… I know how Rose feels about him, Mary thought. Her love for Nick is sincere. I wasn’t so sure at first, but… everything she’s done… the way she looks at him, the way her face lights up when she sees him… it’s been that way for a long time.

Mary remembered how happy Nick had been after his date with Rose in Paris. It had just been a dream, a fantasy, and yet for him, it was real.

And she also remembered how alive Rose had looked when she returned from that date, as well. She had seemed like practically a whole new person.

That was when Mary knew for sure.

That Nick and Rose were in love.

She had expected jealousy. After all, she was his wife. Wasn’t it her place to be jealous of her husband falling in love with another woman?

And yes… Mary was no saint. She tried to be a good person, she tried to follow the teachings of Jesus Christ and be the best she could be.

But Jesus was perfect, and Mary wasn’t Jesus. Deep down in her heart, in the part of her soul that made her human, she still wanted to be Nick’s one and only. There was a chance that, one day, she would wake up and those feelings of possessiveness would be gone forever. Without her even noticing. Or maybe they would linger for the rest of her life, and on into the afterlife. It may even damn her to hell, although she hoped not.

What separated Mary from other jealous, covetous woman was that she understood her jealousy. She understood that it stemmed from her desire to possess Nick, and that it was wrong to do so.

Perhaps, that was a matter of semantics. Was it truly wrong, to feel possessive over the one you loved? To not desire to see him sleep with other people?

Mary had spent many weeks agonizing over that question, even after she was eliminated from the show and moved into the Master’s Suite as Nick’s official “wife” for the remainder of the season.

And, ultimately, she arrived at the conclusion that she was not a bad person for feeling the way that she did.

She loved Nick, and Nick loved her. They desired and loved each other in the purest way, as husband and wife should.

It did not make you a bad person for being upset that the person you loved, the person who was enough for you, also desired others.

Mary could not be a bad person simply for how she felt.

And, when she understood that, she understood what she had to do.

“I have to accept that Nick can love other people. Not just me. Not even just Holly and I. He’s fallen in love with Rose. He still loves Dakota. He may fall in love with more women, the longer he spends on this show. Gina. Dawn. Kim. I don’t even know how many others. But it won’t be just us.”

When Mary realized that, she realized that what mattered to her most was that the man she loved was happy.

So… she accepted it. She accepted that love and jealousy were both parts of herself, and she worked hard every day to keep those feelings from polluting her heart.

It wasn’t having the feelings that was wrong.

It was acting on them.

Mary would not act on her jealousy. She would not.

That was the moment that she fully accepted Rose as someone who Nick loved, and accepted that she had a place in his heart. It was when she accepted that Rose’s happiness could also be happiness for all of them.

…Unfortunately, Rose was still determined to be an absolutely miserable human being every now and then.

“I got a bowl of soup just for me!” Rose bragged, holding her head up high and boasting to the entire table. “My very own bowl of soup, because Nick loves me that much! I’m the luckiest girl on the whole island! Ehehehe! Mary? Did he make any soup for you? Hmm?”

…Yes. Just because Mary accepted that their love was genuine, that didn’t mean she had to like Rose’s attitude about it. She forced a smile to her face and regarded Rose with an icy politeness as she aimed a fixed smile at the other woman.

“He did not,” she said without letting her agitation slip out.

“Oh, he didn’t?” Rose covered her mouth and sat back down. Mary was certain that behind her hand, she was smirking. “What a shame…”

Lord forgive me… I should not be having such violent thoughts, and yet I cannot help but wish I had a bowl of soup of my own, so that I could dump it all over her smug head.

Mary knew these thoughts were not proper for a woman who followed the teachings of the lord. So, she forced herself not to let them consume her. She took a deep breath, exhaled, and just smiled at Rose, even as she fumed at the other woman’s pompous, high-handed behavior.

“Fucking bitch” was not a line of thought Mary would ever have about another woman. But the feelings she held in her heart at the moment were a fairly chaste approximation of that sentiment, and anyone who knew Mary well could see it.

Kim jerked her head away and avoided making eye contact. Holly crept away from the table to go get the pasta.

“Shall we move onto our next course, then?” Rose asked, riding the high of Nick’s soup and milking her stardom for every last drop. This was the closest she might ever come to her five minutes of fame (until her wedding, anyway) and she was determined not to squander it.

“Ooh!” Gina hopped up out of her seat, energized. “Let me go help, Holly! I’m the one who made it, after all!” She boasted, following the shorter girl into the kitchen.

Silence fell over the table as everyone looked at each other, not sure how to react to the present situation. Gina had fled like a whirlwind, and actually knocked over her chair in the process. Diligent as always, Dawn walked over and righted it for her.

Then she surveyed the uneasy faces around the table and said what a lot of people were probably thinking to themselves.

“Is anybody else worried about Gina’s food actually being edible?”

The permission structure of Dawn being the first one to ask the question unleashed the floodgates, leaving everyone comfortable to address what she’d just asked.

“I-I think it’ll be fine!” Morgana said. “She… she really put a lot of work into it, from what I could see! So…”

“Plus, she’s been taking cooking classes with Mary for a while, now,” Kim pointed out. “So I think that’s a positive sign, right?”

“Indeed. However, I do not believe that is satisfactory evidence of her skill,” Amelia sharply replied, adjusting her glasses.

Everyone looked uneasily at her, mistaking her cold, matter-of-fact tone for overt hostility.

In truth, Amelia was merely expressing her own experience with cooking, and her knowledge that persistence did not necessarily equate to an improvement in one’s culinary abilities. But this was lost on the rest of the women.

“I-I’d be willing to try it,” Ella volunteered timidly. She didn’t want people to think that she was afraid.

Dani nodded enthusiastically. “That’s the spirit,” she agreed with a smile. “Mary and I have already had some, and it’s really amazing! Right, Mary?”

“Right,” Mary nodded. She looked over at Dawn. “Dawn, you shouldn’t say that sort of thing. Gina tried her best.”

“I know that!” Dawn protested. “I, I didn’t, uh… didn’t mean…”

Her eyes flickered over to Nick and Rose for a moment and her face turned red.

Rose realized what the other girl was trying to say.

“Mary, it’s not like that,” Rose said, standing up. “A few people were probably feeling nervous, given Gina’s… well… Gina-ness, for lack of a better word.”

“Gina-ness?” Nick mouthed to himself in confusion, not sure what to make of that statement.

Mary bit her lip. She looked at Dawn again, and saw the awkward expression on the cat girl’s face. She was chewing on her lip as well, and her cheeks were a little pink.

“I… I just… wanted to put the thought out there so we could address it and move forward,” Dawn admitted, nodding to Rose. “I actually think that… it’s not out of the realm of possibility that she did a good job…”

Coming from Dawn, in regard to Gina, that was actually high praise. Mary was so taken aback that she didn’t comment further.

“I’m looking forward to tasting it!” Vivian chirped. She rubbed her hands together. “Gina seems like the kind of girl who would do something really unique, if she thought it would make a good flavor! Just my kind of person!”

Of course, even though Vivian had access to the best chefs in the world, she didn’t understand cooking well enough to know that one had to be an exceptional chef with strong fundamentals of how flavors worked together before they could go about “improvising” and that certainly didn’t apply to Gina. Gina was absolutely in the “Must always follow the recipe or disaster may ensue” tier of her cooking journey right now.

“If it would make everyone feel better, I could taste the food first,” Octavia volunteered, surprising everyone. The butler had not taken a seat at the table with the other girls, expressing that she did not have any desire to eat. Rather, she had been hanging behind Vivian and Kim like some kind of specter, and had only now decided to speak.

“What do you mean?” Mary questioned.

“Yeah, Mary and I have already tasted it, it’s good,” Dani pointed out.

“Nevertheless, it may set the minds of the others at ease,” Octavia pointed out. She placed her hand over her chest. “I assure you, I am trained in this area. I have been tasting Vivian’s food to test for poison for years.”

“Octavia…” Vivian looked at her butler, stunned. She wasn’t the only one surprised by this admission; everyone looked at the stoic woman in shock.

Octavia blinked. “…Ah. A point of clarification. When I say ‘tasting Vivian’s food to test for poison’ I meant the food that she cooked herself, not the food that was cooked for her,” she clarified.

“HEY!” Vivian glared at her butler in irritation. “Uncalled for!”

Octavia ignored her ward’s outburst and stared straight ahead like the fuming heiress wasn’t even present.

Kim had to resist the urge to burst out laughing, and she wasn’t the only one. Octavia’s statement had blown away any remaining tension in the room, and by the time Gina and Holly returned to the Banquet Hall with their plates of pasta carbonara, the whole table was smiling.

Even Vivian.

In fact, there was only one person who wasn’t smiling, and that was the person who Mary took note of immediately.

Because the woman sitting across from her by luck of the draw, the woman who was seated so close to Kim she had practically merged with the other girl’s shadow, was a woman who always seemed to have a smile on her face.

Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin, Mary thought, staring at the pinched, emotionless expression on the other woman’s face. Is something the matter with her? The way she’s acting, just sitting there, staring straight ahead, it’s as if… something’s the matter with her.

But what could it be?

Mary hadn’t seen much of the assassin this morning, and it wasn’t like they were particularly close as it was.

Believe it or not, Mary actually had a qualm or two about people murdering others. It was kind of a biggie for her. Top ten commandments, at least.

But she knew that Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin adored her husband. While it may not have been the sort of love Rose had for him, Mary knew that it was real, and it was serious. As serious as everything the assassin did.

Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin had clung to Nick from the moment she arrived on the island, and you could always see a smile on her face when he was in the room.

So, for the other woman to not be smiling now, that meant something was wrong- very wrong.

And Mary didn’t like that at all.

We should all be enjoying ourselves right now, and having a good time together, but she’s not, Mary thought, biting the inside of her cheek. She hardly noticed Holly scoop the pasta onto her plate, and just kept focusing on the girl in front of her.

Is something the matter? Is there anything I can do for her? She wondered. Mary glanced over at Nick and Rose. This was Rose’s party; it was meant to be a celebration of her.

And Rose, being Rose, was so absorbed in her own drama that she didn’t even notice that one of her guests wasn’t having as much fun as the rest of them.

That stung. Mary wasn’t sure how she should respond to that, if she was being honest with herself. It made her feel…

Awful.

Right now, her loyalty was split. She couldn’t exactly make a scene and ruin Rose’s party just to go and talk to Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin and see if she could help improve the other woman’s mood.

Hell- for all she knew, Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin might not have wanted anything to do with her, and she would just be meddling. Unlike Mary, the assassin WAS very jealous and possessive where Nick was concerned.

So that left Mary with another choice.

She could do nothing.

Was that the right thing to do?

Just smile and keep going along with the party like normal, and pretend that she didn’t see that Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin wasn’t enjoying herself? Or make a scene and possibly even ruin Rose’s party, just to talk to someone who might not even want to hear from her in the first place, and probably couldn’t even respond?

To most people, the answer would be obvious.

For Mary, it was anything but.

Echo watched her other self with a gleeful, warm feeling bubbling up in her heart, observing the anxiety filling a face identical to her own.

“Oh, Mary… you’re such a sweet girl,” she crooned, cradling her cheeks as she leaned forward over the desk of her study. “You care so much for someone who barely even likes you at all… someone you don’t even know…”

It made Echo sick to her stomach.

She remembered what it was like to think that way. She remembered being Mary.

And every time she did, she despised it.

But- Mary was Mary. She wasn’t Echo.

She would do what was right for Mary… or at least, she would try to do what was right for everyone else.

Whether that ended up being right for Mary or not, well…

That wasn’t Echo’s problem, was it?

“Though I suppose we could see what the audience would want…” Echo mused. That felt like an exciting idea indeed. “Yes! I think… that would be just perfect!”

She rubbed her hands together gleefully and presented the choice to the audience. It wouldn’t need to be a long vote at all… but she wanted to see what they thought. And then, maybe, she could convey that to her other self, and let the chips fall where they may.

Echo was relishing the struggle of her other self so triumphantly that it didn’t even occur to her that she was only digging herself into a deeper hole.

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