When Autumn woke up, she had puffy eyes and a terrible headache she was convinced was a result of her drinking but then she remembered that she barely got hangover drunk. Then it hit her, hard. She remembered what happened when she got back from her night out with her friends. That conversation with her father. The contract has already been signed. Her father's voice sounded out in her head.
Autumn could not help but wonder what a signed contract had to do with her. They were the ones who signed it not her, so why does she have to bear the consequences of their actions. The worst part was that they never even bothered running it by her first. She could only assume that they have always intended to use her as their get out of jail free card.
She sat up on her bed but had no actual will to move. Her mind was stuck on this mess they made of her life. It sucked that they did this to her. The worst of it was them doing this behind her back. She knew it was because they knew she would never have agreed to this, so like always they back her into a corner and force her to do what they want.
Autumn let out a sigh. If she was honest, she knew that no matter how much she refused, once that contract was signed her faith was sealed. The Pierce family were not people you wanted to screw over. She did not know much about the family itself just a bit about their exploits. They were known for being mysterious but also infamous for never playing kind in the business world. To them business was exactly that, business.
Marrying into a family known for its cutthroat approach to things did not seem appealing to her, especially marrying their youngest son. Alexandria Pierce, little to nothing was known about him. He was beyond mysterious; one could barely find any pictures of the man online. Even a google search would turn up only his association with the family. Autumn was reclined to believe that he was either a recluse, or something was majorly wrong with him. The answer being both seemed likely considering that his father went through the trouble of finding him a wife.
Autumn reached for her laptop which sat on her nightstand, opened it to her internet search. She knew she would find little to nothing about him, but she felt she should still try, so Autumn typed the name in the search box and like she had figured she found nothing much, just business here and there.
Mindlessly strolling through the links, one caught her eye, it was a year-old article about Alexandria. It mentioned a number of scandalous affairs with a number of names she recognised, names that held weight in high society. "Could he not have chosen any of them." she murmured to herself, as she read through the article.
The more she read the more confused she was. The man seemed to have been with women who matched his status. Sure, her family was well off but compared to those people they might as well be middle class. The realisation made her groan out another sigh.
She spent more time deep diving to find anything of substance on the man. And from what she gathered, there really weren't any pictures of him on the web, only ones she could find were pictures taken at angles that made it impossible to make out who was in the pictures. The man was not just a recluse but would be totally non existent if it were for his family, business ventures and his younger exploits. He had quite the past, of violence before he disappeared. That did not assure her one bit. Autumn was aware that one should always take everything they find on the internet with a grain of salt but still were there was smoke there was always fire.
"Maybe he has changed." She tried to reassure herself, an attempt that failed miserably. "Maybe if I met him a bit, I would be able to –"
She stopped herself. Why was she even considering this. She had a boyfriend, a plan, a life she was to start soon. Marriage was part of the plan but way later. She had a… duty to herself. To your family. A voice in her mind betrayed her. She shook her head to try and remove those traitorous thoughts, but they persisted.
You saw the man's rap sheet, are you really planning to let Lily be the one to marry such a person. "He might not even be that bad." She tried to argue.
Then what is stopping you from marrying him, being a good daughter, sister. Do you want to fail your father. "That is not…it is not. I have done far too much for this family." She protested.
What is one more. Just one last time. "No, I want to…I have to choose me, just this once. I want to choose me just once. And I need them to understand and accept that." Autumn's words seemed to shut that cruel voice in her own mind up.
She laid back down on the bad, staring at the ceiling. Thinking back to her father's words; I agreed to this only because we will lose everything. And no one can do this but you. She could not get the words out of her mind, they haunted her. They followed her like a ghost meant to be left behind but keeps popping up.
She turned to her side thinking about her life and how she had not made any of the decisions she made, on a whim, nor did she take them lightly. Much thought was put into her choice of career path, much thought was put into her future with Pete. And for her to just let that go now because her family put their needs before hers was unfair. She knew they had not considered what she wanted for herself, they did not care. She was sure of that. It was in the way Rowena made comments about her never needing to know anything much other than how to be a trophy wife, how she always made comments about her not needing to do anything productive with her life except looking after herself so that she could marry well. To them, she was a social ladder. And that realisation her hurt more than she thought it would. After all she knew, deep down she knew.
Autumn spent half the day in her room, curled up in her bed, trying hard not to cry herself into another headache but her luck seemed quite shabby. It was a while before she decided to move and take a long hot shower to calm her nerves. After getting herself dressed she stood in front of her door contemplating whether she wanted to see them or not. The obvious answer was no. But she was tired of running around in circles in her own mind. So, she went against every fibre of her bring and pulled the door and stepped out into the hallway which was surprisingly bustling.
She grabbed hold of one of the maids and asked what the busy chaos was about. "Young miss, tomorrow is your graduation celebration, have you forgotten."
"Tomorrow, huh? They don't waste any time." She mattered to herself. "No, I did not forget, I just thought it would be sometime this weekend."
"No, the mistress made it clear the urgency of the situation." The woman spoke as if she was remembering the moment she was told that very thing, "If you would excuse me miss, I have much to do." She said walking away from Autumn leaving her puzzled.
She should have been made aware, but since they had done that to her behind her back, she kind of expected anything from them, rushing a celebration they never intended to have in the first place was nothing compared to the betrayal of being signed off to some family for a dying company.
She made her way down the stairs to the kitchen to make herself something to eat but found her stepmother there coordinating food for the event. It turned out that Autumn was not ready to see them yet, so she turned and headed out. Part of her told her to run, run far away from them, somewhere they would never find her.
She did not do it though. She was too much of a coward to pull something like that and hated herself for it.