Resilience

10| Good thing I didn't ask for your opinion

ARABELLA's POV

"Am I allowed to eat?"

I asked softly, almost like a sound of whisper, as I stared down on my lap.

There was a brief moment of silence in the room.

Just for a couple seconds and then—

"WHAT THE HELL DID YOU SAY?" Mason yelled at me as he quickly stood up, letting his chair hit the floor with a loud thud from the impact, causing me to flinch away from both the sudden noises.

I'm asking myself the same question—

"THAT'S ENOUGH MASON—" Alexander yelled back furiously as he himself stood up, followed by the rest of the family except for myself, as I stayed rooted to my chair.

Mason somehow appeared even more terrified than when our father reprimanded him earlier.

"Of course, you are permitted to eat, sweetheart. You are free to eat whatever you like whenever you want. Why'd you ask that?" Father asked, his eyebrows furrowed, as he patiently waited for me to reply.

"Cora, John, and I usually pray before we eat, so I wasn't sure if I should have started right away." I said lying, which is partially true because I've always prayed to God in gratitude whenever I had the opportunity to eat.

Everyone's eyes went cold when they heard Cora and John's names, a flare burning in them.

Something resembling jealousy.

But why, though, why would they be envious?

I'm sure I'm mistaken—

But I could see a lingering question in their eyes about the omission of the words 'mom' and 'dad' from my sentence.

"Oh sweetheart, even though I find it extremely difficult to believe that Cora prayed, all you had to do was tell us. You didn't need to ask if you could pray, in fact, we can all pray with you." Father said, still sounding pretty sceptical but his voice held so much politeness.

I nodded and looked around, everyone else seemed equally suspicious, except Alexander, who just stared back with cold eyes and furrowed brows, as if he didn't believe a word I said.

Everyone sat back down as Noah and Kyson extended their hands for me to take, while the rest of the group was already holding each other's hands and staring at me.

Okay so prayer time—

I was holding Noah's hand but struggling to raise my injured arm for Kyson, who instead lowered his own hand to meet mine as he stared at my shoulder.

"I think it got numb–" I said quietly as he nodded his head back, followed by a sigh and an incredulous look at me.

I closed my eyes and silently prayed to God, and there was complete silence in the room.

I opened my eyes to see everyone already staring at me with a smile.

I looked away from them and focused my attention on my food, as I began to eat, which was followed by everyone else.

Nervousness began to seep inside me with each bite, waiting for one of them to snap at me for eating.

But it never came—

I ate about a quarter of the plate when I was full and I pushed the half eaten plate forward, indicating that I was done.

"Eat your food Ara—" Alexander said sternly, while shifting his examining gaze at me and my leftovers.