Proving myself to Sofia was the main thing on my mind. I took my sister seriously with her threats. If she ever so much senses something weird in Mira and I's relationship or thinks that for some reason I'm not treating her right, she will spill the beans and ruin everything. I really couldn't blame her because of past mistakes, but I just wished she would trust me a bit more. When I say I love Mira, I mean it from the depths of my soul. It just sucked that no one really believed that, possibility not even Mira. People always see me as the daring and charming villain in the media.

Since we had basically the whole week free to roam around my hometown, I decided to start things off a little light. When I was younger, fishing with my brother, sister and mum was my favorite thing to do. We would compete on who would catch the biggest fish or the most fish and if our catches were good enough they'd be served up for dinner. Since fishing was a childhood hobby, every time I came back home I made sure that I did a bit of fishing here or there. So, I decided on taking Mira out to fish with me and unfortunately my sister.

I wanted the event to just be with me and Mira so it could be personal and romantic, but I knew I had to invite my sister. She needed to see how I acted around my girlfriend. Sofia needed her proof and she was going to get it so she could get off of my ass and not tell Mira anything about my past. I was burying certain things for a reason and I didn't need my sister bringing sh-t back up. Out of generosity, I invited my brother as well but thankfully Atticus had to work. Now, I had to only deal with one annoying sibling instead of two.

We went to one of my favorite fishing spots. The amount of people that fished there was very little and the people who did fish the waters were old as hell so most of the time they didn't know me. I didn't have to worry about getting pestered or getting unpleasant pictures taken of me by the paparazzi. The pier was chill and the people who did know me were nice enough to treat me like an actual person. Sure there were a couple of times when grandparents forced their granddaughters and grandsons on fishing trips, which would lead me to get almost attacked by fans but that was very seldom.

Luckily, today the pier was nearly vacant. There were only two old guys fishing together and laughing. By how close they were, I could tell they were probably the best of friends. They were actually probably getting a break from their nagging wives. I shook my head to myself at the thought of being married for so long that I grew old with someone. How did you not get tired of that person after the first five years of being married? I just didn't understand it. Hopefully as I get older, it'll make more sense to me. I loved Mira, but marriage still scared the f-ck out of me. If we went on to date for years, then the big question was going to be hard to just pop out.

"How good are you at fishing, Mira," Sofia asked my girlfriend as we walked unto the pier. I looked over to Mira to see what her answer was. I'm pretty sure she had been fishing before. I mean, who hasn't?

A slight blush came onto the Hungarian girl's face and she looked down at the wooden pier. With a shrug of her shoulders and simple shake of the head, she answered the question. "I'm not sure. I've never been fishing before. My father used to go but I always made excuses for not going. I'm not sure how I feel about touching worms to put them on a hook."

I laughed a little bit and so did Sofia. It was hilarious that the reason she never went fishing was because she didn't want to put a worm on a hook. "There's other things you can catch fish with, kitten. You can use bacon, cheese, liver, shrimp and other stuff like that but of course we're using worms." I teasingly brought the bucket of worms up to her view and she squirmed away. As I shook my head, I also chuckled at her. She was too adorable sometimes. "Come on, it's just worms. They're not going to hurt you or anything. If it makes you feel better, I'll put them on the hook so you don't have to."

We found a nice spot on the pier to start fishing. Trying to instruct Mira on the basics of fishing was a little bit too amusing. She seemed so confused by the simplest things. "So, what do I do if I actually catch a fish," she asked me for the third time. We had finally started fishing but she still had her questions. "How long does it take?"

"You have to be patient, kitten. You watch your bobber, keep an eye on it and you can tell whether you caught something or not."

"Don't worry if you don't catch anything, Mira. Arden sucks at fishing," Sofia spoke. I rolled my eyes at her. She was such a liar! I was an amazing fisher! Out of mum, Atticus and her, I was the best! My sister was obviously just jealous because she could never make a good catch!

"You f-cking idiot! I'm way better than you, mum and Atticus combined! I've been catching more fish than you since I was like six so go and suck a d-ck," I argued with much offense. I took my fishing skill with pride and I wasn't just going to let Sofia downplay it.

"The only reason you caught so many fish was because mum always told Atticus and I to go easy on you. We'd get a catch and just let it pass by because she wanted you to feel special because you're the youngest." I scoffed at my sister. That didn't even make sense!

"Bullsh-t!"

"Want to bet? Let's see who can catch the most fish. The winner gets anything that they want."

Sofia and I shook on the agreement, absolutely counting Mira out. I doubt she'd catch many fish if any since it was her first time anyways. Fishing could be frustrating, especially if you couldn't get a catch. "So, Mira, what made you want to date this wild animal here? Are you like into bestiality or something?"

I snarled at my sister. She better be glad that Mira was sitting between the both of us because if she wasn't, I'd push her right into the water. Mira giggled and looked towards me with amusement. "Well, I don't know. When I first met her, she had fangs and I instantly thought of the beauty and beast. Of course, I'm the beauty and she's the dreadful beast." Sofia laughed out loud and so did Mira. I'm glad they were getting a kick out of calling me a f-cking animal.

"She's a dreadful beast, alright. If you only knew half the stuff she has done." I could literally kill my sister right now. She was so f-cking obnoxious.

"Well, Arden's pretty honest with me so I think I may already know most of the bad stuff she has done in her past," Mira responded with a nonchalant shrug.

As I slowly died and contemplated throwing myself into the water, Sofia raised up an eyebrow at Mira with skepticism. "Really? I can't believe you were so willing to bring up everything you've done, Arden. You must really love her, right? You're so honest that it f-cking hurts."

I could hence the aggressiveness and the ironic tone in her voice but thankfully Mira couldn't. She just smiled and kissed my cheek. "I know. Your sister is the sweetest girlfriend, even when she's an asshole." My girlfriend nudged me playfully and in response, I gave her a slightly fake smile. The guilt was definitely getting to me. Sofia could tell I was feeling bad about not telling Mira everything about my past because she stared at me with a knowing, cocky smirk. I grimaced and looked out towards the water.

We fished for a little over two hours. Today, I had no luck at all. Mira was a beginner and she caught more fish than me. She had five, I had two and of course Sofia had like ten good catches over there. My sister's face gleamed with joy as she snapped pictures of the dead fish to post to all of her social media accounts. "This is the best I've ever done," she admitted as she stared down at her bucket full of fish with admiration. "Maybe I should go professional, you know!? You can keep being a famous rapper and I can be like a pro-fisher. It'd all go together so nicely."

I gave her the middle finger because she won. Now, I had to give her anything that she wanted and what she wanted was probably something outrageous. A new car. An expensive ass purse. World peace. Who f-cking knew with Sofia? "I can't believe I caught more fish than you and it was my first time," Mira also bragged with her bucket of little fish. All of her catches were small as hell, but at least she got some.

"I meant for that to happen," I told her with a shrug. "I wanted you to get more than me so you could feel better about yourself." She laughed, obviously getting that I was joking and lying. I just had an off day and maybe I was thinking a bit too hard to be concentrated on fishing.

-

Fishing wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. I enjoyed every second of it, but it was probably only because I was with Arden. She always made things fun, but today, she seemed a bit off. It was still fun to be around her, but she was cracking less jokes, giving me false smiles and it was like she couldn't even look me in the eyes. It was weird coming from the girl that was so confident and loud at all times. I wondered what was going on with her. Had I done something? Was I not good enough for her family or what? It worried the f-ck out of me. Sofia seemed to like me and so did the rest of her family. They were all acting normal and friendly around me so what was wrong with Arden? Why was she being so distant?

After fishing, we went back to Arden's mom's place. Her mother was already working on dinner for tonight as her nephew ran around the house. Arden went to go play with him but I followed Sofia into the kitchen to ask if Lydia needed any help with dinner. Before either of us could open our mouths to ask, she shooed us out of the kitchen. Apparently, I was a guest and I was to be treated like a guest. I wasn't to lift a finger and Sofia was to entertain me.

"She's so independent," Sofia commented on her mother as we walked out of the kitchen. We walked into the living room and I followed the girl's actions to flop onto the couch. "But what can you expect? She raised three kids all on her own and one of them is mentally retarded. Arden failed first grade, don't let her tell you any different."

I laughed for a second but then bit my lip. "Is something wrong," Sofia asked curiously. Her whole face displayed worry. It was nice to know she cared about my wellbeing without even really knowing me.

"Yes. I'm fine. It's just-Arden, she's been distant today. It all started a little before we went fishing and I can't help but wonder what I did." I looked down at my hands as my cheeks turned hot. It was embarrassing to seem so pathetic, especially right in front of her sister. She probably thought Arden had me whipped, which she kind of did.

Sofia wrapped an arm around me and pulled me close to her body to comfort me. She rubbed my shoulders soothingly before letting out a deep sigh. "Mira, my sister is very peculiar. I'm sure you haven't done anything wrong. Actually, I think she's being distant because she feels guilty."

I scrunched my eyebrows at Sofia. What did she mean? "What does she have to feel guilty about?" The woman sitting beside me took a deep breath. She looked as if she was debating on whether to say something or not.

"Mira, I'm only going to tell you this because you seem like a really nice girl and you have every right to know. Now after I say what I say, don't jump to conclusions. She may have changed but I'm going to let you in on something from Arden's past. No matter how mad she gets, you need to know," Sofia responded softly after a few moments.

My heart sank at her words. What had Arden been hiding from me? Honestly, I didn't even want to hear it. If it was going to break my heart or make me think of her in a negative way then I didn't even want to know. "First off, I can tell you that Arden loves you very much. I can tell by the way she looks at you, how she smiles when you're near and the constant talk of how excited she was for us to meet you." Well, that was comforting. I smiled a little bit even though I was afraid what would come out of her mouth next.

"But...that's sort of the problem. When Arden loves, she loves hard. She's a jealous lover, I guess. You can't give too much attention to anyone but her. She wants things her way and she can be controlling. She'll get possessive over you soon, telling what you can and can't do. It'll almost be like she owns you, and that's not healthy." Sofia thought about every word she said, making sure she said everything carefully and thoughtfully. I just listened to her and took everything in quietly. Even if I didn't want to admit it, she knew her sister better than I did so I was going to listen to her warning about Arden intently.

"When things doesn't go her way, she can get abusive. My friend, Avery, dated her once. It wasn't too long ago and it was mostly on the down low. No one knew but Arden, me, my brother and Avery. Our mum didn't even know, but things went good at first. They went on private dates and stuff to stay out of the public eye but as time progressed, I started noticing things. Avery would go out wearing sunglasses while it was cloudy or dark outside and refused to take them off. She would jump whenever someone jokingly hit her, and she was obeying Arden's every demand. It was obvious that Arden was hurting her. I kind of had to force Avery out of the relationship but now she's glad I did. If you don't believe me, I can call Avery myself."

All I could do was stare at Sofia with shock. How could Arden hurt someone like that repeatedly over and over again? Was that her plan for me as well? She probably just wanted someone she could control and I was perfect because how obedient I was. F-ck! I'm a f-cking idiot! With shame, I didn't dare look Sofia in the eyes as tears slowly fell.

"Mira, don't cry," she told me as she wrapped her arms around me. "She may have changed but I just wanted to warn you. You're too sweet and I don't want you getting hurt. Please don't break up with her just yet, at least give her a try."

"You said she hurt Avery, but like how," I asked quietly. I'm not sure I even wanted to know the answer.

"I've seen her with a black eye, a busted lip and I've seen her with a bunch of bruises. She always claimed it was her fault for getting...beaten but nobody deserves that."

"I knew she had been violent before but not like this." I took a deep breath and ran my fingers through my hair with frustration. What was I going to do?

-

What should Mira do?

Do you think Arden has changed?

How have you guys been? So long, no talk.

KDSh0~d]K