5 Minute Freewrite Prompt continuation : Burnt skin

ireenchew (69)in #freewrite • 5 years ago

"Are you sure you don't want to talk about it?" Ingrid asked gently. "I mean, everything's happened so fast, after all."

For a moment, Cassy considered spilling all, but decided against it. It was difficult to explain. And even if dark portents were in the air-the dog's howling; the "accidents", the smell of burnt skin inexplicably filling up the room-nothing was going to happen.

She loved Bran. She truly did. It wasn't a lie, not at all like one of those lies she told herself all the time, like This is the last drink of the evening, or I'm not going to set the bitch's house on fire. Her love for Bran was something she felt in the core of her bones; there was something about him that felt exactly like home, like sinking into a down comforter into sleep: safe and secure.

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No! She couldn't tell Ingrid what was bothering her. Not this time. The two of them were close. They were not only sisters and occasional rivals but the best of friends. Yet Ingrid would not understand. Ingrid would be appalled, and Cassy did not need her older sister's reproach right now. "Go away, Ingrid, you;re scaring away my new friends," she said, as she accepted the insincere congratulations from another cadre of female well-wishes.

The women had come to celebrate the engagement, but mostly they were there to gawk, and to judge and to titter. All the eligible ladies in this town, who not too long ago had harbored-not-subtle dreams of becoming Mrs Bran Brushman themselves. They had all come to the grand, refurbished mansion to pay grudge homage to the woman who had won the prize, the woman who had snatched it away before the game had even begun, before some of the contestants were aware that the starting pistol had been shot.