"...I can't wait for you to meet Shirley!" Ivy squeals, Scarlet doesn't know who this Shirley is. She blanked out at the mention of Theo's parents, but doesn't ask. That'd be downright rude.

"I don't want to miss it for the world!" Ivy continues as she leads Scarlet and her daughter through the huge curved double doors into the mansion. They walk in silence into a dimly lit hallway, it's white walls would be bare, if not for the family potraits on them.

Scarlet's brows furrow. She does a double check. She's getting quite a number of surprises. First, this dinner consists of almost ten people, (strangers) and now this.
On the walls, are pictures; family pictures, of Theo and his family.

Not of Theo and his girlfriend. So then, is this Theo's parents' house? Not Theo's and Ivy's?

It takes everything in Scarlet not to turn around and head back home as she gapes at the pictures. How does Ivy get to invite a stranger into her in-laws to be's home? Scarlet doesn't understand. Why didn't any of them tell her this?
Then again she didn't ask? But...

We moved here. Theo said. He did not clarify. Scarlet bites down on her lip. If she doesn't, she may have an outburst. Very small things trigger her these days.

Her surprise and anger don't stop Scarlet from examining the pictures though, in one frame is a lady, a very young looking lady. She's sitting on a large chair, in a beautiful brown gown covered in pearls and sequins, making her look like a queen. You can somehow tell that she isn't as young as she looks. She has striking blue eyes, and high cheek bones with waves of coal black hair falling over them.

She's very beautiful. Scarlet almost doesn't catch Ivy excusing herself to get the others.

"Ce-" Scarlet glances around, Celine is nowhere.

She shrugs, she probably ran off.
Turning back to the next pictures full of men, before she can concentrate on studying the other men except for the one she already knows; Theo, he magically appears.

"Hey babe," Ivy,who was retreating turns around and moves over to Theo, whose expressions---Scarlet has noticed ---never go further from placid or a smirk.

Right now, placid it is.

He kisses Ivy on cheek, lingering a bit as he holds her by the waist. "Hey," he says. Scarlet wants to turn away from their public display of affection, but this is their home, not a public place.

She didn't have to be subjected to it though.

Jealous are we?

Of course not. Scarlet scoffs internally at her stupid subconscious. She's not jealous, just a little uncomfortable, definitely not jealous.

"Scarlet." Theo greets, waking her up from her craziness.
The faint blue in his grey eyes twinkle a bit even if his face remains plain. He must be excited about dinner with his parents. Theo looks Scarlet over from head to toe.

Scarlet squirms. He must be judging her outfit. She doesn't blame him. She doesn't blame herself either. Maybe if she had known, she could have dressed more appropriately.

Her subconscious snorts. Probably seeing through her lie.

Theo gulps.

"Hi Theo." She gives him a friendly smile. Eyeing him over as well, he's wearing a navy blue suit that fits him like second skin, the first two buttons of his baby blue shirt unbuttoned. His hair is gelled back, for the first time, Scarlet notices a small straight scar on the side of his right temple, going up to somewhere behind his ear. It looks...beautiful. And he's looking very formal. It's a strange look on him.

But hot, handsome as ever.

"How have you been?" he asks, staring intently into Scarlet's eyes.

"Um...okay, I gue-" Theo's phone interrupts her. He excuses himself to take it.

She needs to work on the way she stutters around him.

Scarlet doesn't know how they got to the sitting area, but she finds herself standing beside a couch.

For the second time in less than twenty minutes, She is on her own in this unfamiliar yet huge mansion. And like the first time, it isn't long before someone comes.

"Hey beautiful," he says.

Scarlet gasps, and blinks rapidly unable to believe her eyes. She couldn't be seeing clearly. Really, it's laughable.

Theo, Theo...he...he just left a second ago, literally. But he's back, and he's here, standing right in front of her.

Now before you think Scarlet's got it bad for Theo, take a second guess. Because this has nothing to do with the fact that he always looks like he just walked out of a fashion magazine. Not at all.

Theo is the same, but very different.

Scarlet looks at the door through which Theo just walked, then back at Theo standing in the frame of the opposite door.

"Please tell me you didn't just walk out this door,---" she points to the door through which he just walked.
"---then appear through this one---" she gestures to where he is standing.

"---But more importantly, tell me you haven't changed your clothes and trimmed your hair after leaving here a second ago." Scarlet rambles, looking at Theo who is now sporting a pair of blue jeans and a white button down with sleeves rolled up to the elbows. His brown hair is neither curly like everyday-Theo nor gelled like a second ago-Theo. It's shorter, and tousled like he just walked out of bed. Except it looks intentionally tousled. By an amateur.

This is not Theo, at the same time he is. His face is the same, every feature about him is the same, but unlike the Theo, this Theo has a wide dimpled grin plastered on his face as he seems to be indulging in Scarlet's surprise. A....twin?

Oh my God! A twin! Scarlet fights to resist the urge to jump up and down squealing at her most recent discovery.

This must be Theo's twin brother, the one (like everything else tonight) Scarlet doesn't know about. Not that she knows Theo and Ivy that well.

Either that or Theo is Superman himself. Then again, not even superman could pull this off.
Scarlet picks her jaw off the floor, smoothing down the nonexistent wrinkles on her jeans, she opens her mouth to speak again but Theo beats her to it.

Clutching at his chest in mock hurt, "You wound me, oh pretty one!" he cries. "Of all things on this green earth, you think I look like him? I mean, look at me." He twirls.

"I am," Scarlet states.

Theo raises his brows, gesturing for her to continue.

"Well, you're right I guess." Scarlet sighs. "You definitely don't look like him." She decides to indulge him.

He grins. And if Theo is handsome, this Theo is beautiful. Because he smiles more.

This must be the Shirley. Ivy has most certainly missed. He holds out his arm.

"If you will allow me," he says, "I'd like to show you to the dining room." His smile so unfaltering that Scarlet just can't resist.

She links her arm with his.

......~......

"So tell me my dear,"

People talk about love at first sight, how you practically feel a person sweep you off your feet at the first glance. Those people most certainly haven't met hate at first sight, otherwise they wouldn't be praising the former. Which---for Scarlet---is what Gabrielle; Theo's mother is made of. And has wasted no breath in letting it show. Watching Gabrielle's every move, is enticing and each one is as gracious as a movie star's, age has been so good to her tanned skin and entire body that one may mistake her for someone in her late twenties. The way her cerulean eyes glow lights up the dimly candlelit dinner. Even just the way she flawlessly eats her food is captivating, like a firework show. But that's all there is, you're safe to call her; Her Grace as long as she doesn't open her mouth for reasons other than eating.

The woman has done nothing but pick on Scarlet since she laid her eyes on her.
She sits directly across from Scarlet as she continues to prod her. "What do you do with your life?"

Of course she wants to know.

If Scarlet's appetite was still stubbornly lingering, it has most definitely found its way out for good now. Besides eyeing Scarlet from head to toe like she had been pitied and picked out of the garbage, Theo's mother has been throwing in snide remarks here and there since they sat down at the table, like the fact that she had a child---who she referred to as a mistake---at seventeen and not being able to go to college. Doing her best to make Scarlet as out of place as she can possibly get. And well, let's just say it's working.

In an attempt not to explode with anger, Scarlet grips her fork so tight her knuckles turn white. Theo, her host, looks like he just tasted something bitter. Definitely not the food. It would have been otherwise delicious. His occasional "mother please" has been going unheard every time.

"I run a few restaurants in town," Scarlet croaks, forcing the otherwise unwilling words out of her mouth.

"I see." Gabrielle presses her fork into a potato and brings it up to her lips before pausing. "Profession?" she asks again. Scarlet remains silent. "You see, our little Ivy here has made both us and her own parents so proud. She studied and completed college, is now a well established neurologist and owns quite a few investments here and there. She's everything a mother could pray for in her son's wife."

Oh.

Scarlet wipes her mouth clean with her napkin before tentatively placing it on the table. She's had enough.
"With all due respect ma'am," she begins, her voice so soft she almost doesn't recognise it. "I understand how happy that makes you, and I'm glad. But life isn't designed a certain way," her voice becomes stronger with each syllable.
"We all want to be well off in life, some want to be rich and others just happy. But that doesn't mean that if I didn't go to college I won't be able to. We all take different routes leading to one of the two destinations. And with determination, we do get there!"

She exhales. Her anger rising by the second.

"I'm twenty two, I have a daughter. So what? I get that to you rigid minded people having a five year old child at my age straight up confirms my failure in life. Fortunately, you don't have to worry about it. I've reached both of the above goals; I have enough money to last me a lifetime, and that girl, the girl you just referred to as a mistake is what makes me happy. She is what makes me complete.

"And let me make this very clear.--- Listen, and listen good because it's the first and last time you'll ever hear it. I've lived up to here in life without ever having to justify or explain myself to anyone, let alone the likes of you," Scarlet motions to the full frame of the woman whose jaw is already on the floor. And she's just getting started.

"---I do not need a college degree or any sort of paper to tell me that I can succeed in life. And I do not need fucking perfectionists like you judging my life because you don't know shit about me. I don't know what gave you the idea that you needed to compare me with your lovely daughter in law. Whereas Ivy is great person,---and I respect her for that and so much more,---we're clearly two different people. If they didn't teach you that in college I'll gladly indulge you.

"And in no way have I ever wanted to be like her." Besides physically anyway. "I'm doing perfectly fine the way I am thank you very much."

Scarlet gets up, more frantically than she would have liked. She just needs out of here, she needs to breathe. However, everyone's eyes are on her...well, Theo and Shirley's plus their mother, they're the only ones left since everyone else including their dad left the table. Thanks to their lovely mother. Well except Ivy who left in a rush to see a patient.

She ignores their awed or whatever looks and pointedly glances at Theo. "Please get me my daughter."

He nods curtly.

Scarlet blindly scurries through the seemingly never ending hallways and out the house into the night air, welcoming as much of it as she can. She was suffocating in there. That was the last dinner invitation she will ever accept. With whomever. She searches through her clutch for her phone. And as if her frustration hasn't reached its limit, Walters' phone isn't going through.

"What the fuck?!" She kicks a pebble on the gravelled compound, resisting the urge to throw her phone away. She sighs, taking another glance at the mansion. It's ironic how a beautiful house can harbour such ugly people.

"I'll give you a ride home." Scarlet has to turn around to specify who's talking to her. Shirley stands there with Celine who is still busy talking with the Dylan boy. She's too tired to turn him down. She nods.

"Thanks."