Chapter 3  I'm So Sorry Mom

Ariel Morris stared at her reflection in the mirror and decided there was nothing more that she could do. Her red hair, as always, lay smooth and thick from a side parting to just above her shoulders and was restrained from falling across her face on the other side by an intricately wrought silver slide. It was that sort of darker reddish hair that highlights or streaks particularly well. Not that Ariel had ever succumbed to the vanity of focusing on how she looks or anything, of course.

Her eyes were another sensitive point to her, in a sense. An unusual shade of smoky blue, they were inherited from her father, so her mother had often said with a twitch of her well-bred nose that while she had inherited her unique shade of blue of her almond-shaped eyes from her father, her darker eyebrows and her heart-shaped face was from her mother.

Regarding the rest of her, meanwhile, her ivory-toned, almost translucent skin along with her lack of inches, was also from her Mother Helen, who is exactly five feet two. Ariel only stood only at the same height on her bare feet. Her trim figure, the awful shyness she had suffered from when she was younger, they were all features she had detected from her parents, although they both were ever hardly as timid as she was.

"Ariel! Oh, there you are!" A perky feminine voice cut into Ariel's intense stare at the gruesome fang mark that wouldn't leave her neck. That was where Luciano, her soon to be husband, left a strange mark on. But that was before she ran away from him, of course. And suddenly there were two girls' reflections looking at her modern-styled dresser mirror as Audrey, who was Ariel's best pal, came to move beside her.

"Now, you've kept me waiting for too long Ariel," she said with a straight face. "Why are you back home? I was told by your mom downstairs that you ran off your from wedding two weeks ago. I'm surprised Luciano isn't here banging on your parents door and dragging you back to the altar," her best friend's ranted while loading her head with a lot of eager questions and factual possibilities.

With a sigh, Ariel decide to sit on her double bed while bringing her friend with her so they can talk there together.

I know, Audi," the slim redhead said making use of her pal's pet name. "But, I just can't go through with the wedding..."

"Why?" Audrey interrupted immediately as she rolled her eyes at me in frustration. "He's rich and hot as fuck! Every hot-blooded female, including me, wants him. I obviously would have taken him if you were not my bestie, you know," she confessed honestly.

Ariel suddenly looked surprised, then grinned and moved closer to her friend, "It's not like I intentionally left him. It's not exactly like that,' she admitted softly as she carefully slid on an ankle-strapped silver-colored three-inch heeled sandal.

Her dark-haired, curvaceous and tanned friend snorted derisively. It was a peculiar habit that she can do effectively, yet so elegantly. The fact is, Audrey was, in two words, very elegant, from the top of her upswept wavy chocolate brown hair to the tips of her size four shoes. However, she was also shrewd and uncannily perceptive. Which is why they were best friends.

And, curiously, although she claimed to have been born the ugly duckling in her family of three sisters, when she and Ariel were in high school, she was obviously still a head-turner wherever she went.

"It's a question of style and charm," she'd often say to Ariel. "Style is a more durable and long-lasting characteristic than physical beauty. Meanwhile charm assists one to value themselves more."

"So why are you home with your parents instead of being married and living with your husband?" Audrey asked curiously.

"Look, I just don't want to be in a marriage that I don't understand, Audi. I totally get why you're angry at me and all. But, I also knows my mom is at my door listening to our conversation," the dainty, pearly-white-skinned IT graduate said the last part of her statement louder, ensuring her mother can her perfectly hear her from the other side of her bedroom's entrance.

"I wasn't eavesdropping nor did I send Audrey here to question you," her mother clarified, as she walked into the room looking at anything but her daughter.

'Yes, you were. And you were being smug about it too, mom! Anyone would think I did the unthinkable coming here of all place after running from my own wedding. What was I even thinking?" Ariel asked exasperatedly at no one in particular. "Obviously, this is the first place he would check if he's looking for me. I should have just stayed in the hotel back in Berlin,Germany since he knows every place where I could possibly stay in the United Kingdom, anyway..." Ariel finally stopped talking after noticing her friend and her mom looking at her strangely.

"And why would you do that?" her mother queried a tad angrily. "It's already bad that you left your own wedding, leaving your future family and husband waiting but considering that you stay anywhere other than coming home is much worse. What are you even thinking like that, Ariel?" Her mother yelled at her in disappointment as her tears started flowing down her face.

With a sad look Ariel stood up to embrace her mother, trying to calm her down as she continued to sob sorrowfully and sniff continually.

"I'm so sorry mom. I shouldn't have said that," the repentant daughter apologized with a loving hug. "I just don't want to regret my decision mom and do something that I haven't really thought over. I know you and dad are disappointed with me at the moment but I hope you can both try to understand me as well. Please?"

"Ok Ariel," her mother replied returning her embrace then calmly disengaging herself from her daughter's tight hug. "But can you tell me and Audrey why you made such a dramatic and drastic decision so we can truly understand your point of view?" Her mother asked, taking a seat beside Audrey on Ariel's bed.

"So..." the redhead began. "I left Luciano because he... hmm... he..." Ariel stuttered, unsure how she could tell anyone her reasons without her being thought of as delusional and insane. How the hell can she tell them that she saw him turn into a massive dog in the middle of the night or how he gave her a deep bite on her neck while they were in the middle of making love?

She couldn't even tell them about with how he loves using strange tools on her even if her body keeps betraying her since she does admit to enjoying the strange sexual pleasures that he has introduced her too.

I just can't, Ariel told herself now slightly annoyed with herself. Seeing that her small audience of two curious and expectant females were still waiting for her to continue her explanation, she then relented with a grimace as she blurted out the only statement that came to her mind that made sense. "Sorry, but I just don't think he's the right man for me."