Page 49 of Fragile Twisted Vows
One of the many selfish reasons.
I’m about to ask him about his time in office, but am quickly interrupted when I hear a small, frustrated growl followed by stomping footsteps enter the room.
“Father, did you tell Marcela to get rid of my notebooks?” a young, short girl asks as she stomps into the room and stops directly in front of Michael, unphased by the billowing clouds of smoke from his cigar.
Her light brown hair is long, and braided down her back. She looks different from the rest of them. Different from her well-groomed father, from her perfect and thin sister that’s now sneering at her, and definitely different from the tall, frail looking woman that now enters the room behind her.
It must be their mother, who practically serves as Megan’s twin. God only knows how much botox this woman has had in her lifetime.
He doesn’t look at her when he speaks, in fact, he doesn’t speak at all. Just barks out a short and curt laugh as he rolls his eyes at her, annoyed by her presence.
It seems like everyone in this room is, especially her mother who growls at her in disgust.
“You were getting charcoal all over my sheets and floors, Lucille. Your little art projects are making a mess around the house that I’ve worked so hard to maintain. It’s entirely disrespectful. I wanted them gone,” she hisses and I want to laugh at her, because I know she doesn’t maintain this home.
The maid does. Marcela.
The girl, Lucille, turns to glare at her mother and I see every ounce of color drain from Michael’s face as she does. She doesn’t speak or flinch when Michael shoots up and grabs her small arm, tugging her out of the room and into the foyer whilst muttering a short “excuse me”.
I look at Megan then, because quite frankly, I don’t know where else to look. Their mother pisses me off and I know that if I look in the direction of the foyer, they’ll likely judge.
She’s mentioned her sister only once. She’s eighteen and enrolled in a marketing program at the local university, which everyone disapproved of. So she’s forced to double her major and go to???
Megan offers me a small, plastered smile, one that she’s so good at giving. I swear, if she wasn’t so good at giving head, I might hate her mouth altogether.
I hear Michael bark orders at her, Lucille. I hear her whine slightly and try a rebuttal, and then I hear the hard slap that echoes throughout the room. I’m pretty sure we all do, but none of us react. I don’t move or say anything, because I know this scene all too well. I’ve had it play out in my own home for years. Except I didn’t have a younger sibling like Lucille, I was Lucille.
I know I should probably offer her a look of sympathy when they both re-enter the room, but I don’t. I keep my eyes on the white carpet and take Megan’s thin hand in mine. It’s cold like always.
Lucille doesn’t say a word, but Michael makes a sound in her direction, a wordless command.
“I apologize for my theatrics, Mr. Reed. It’s lovely to have you here,” she says quietly, robotically.
Jesus, this poor girl. Why am I not trying to help her? Why am I trying not to care? Have I really turned into that much of a heartless bastard over the years?
“Damien. Call me Damien,” I say as I glance at her, her bright blue, sad eyes locking with mine as she nods her head silently before knotting her hands and staring back down at the carper for the rest of the time.
I can feel Megan eyeing me close, but I pay no mind to it because her father is already grabbing the bottle and a new crystal glass after he puts out his cigar.
“So, Reed, you like old scotch?” Michael asks as he offers me the glass that I take with a half smile.
No, actually. I fucking hate it.
“Yes sir, I do,” I say as we clink our glasses together whilst he and the women in the room chuckle.
Everyone but Lucille. Who’s staring at me now.
“That’s my boy!” he exclaims as he claps an old, hard hand down on my shoulder.
That night, I became an official member of the family. And like the rest of them, I ignored the quiet, meek, brown haired girl that was condemned to the corner, a quiet shadow in the room that everyone refused to acknowledge.
I became just like them.
“Damien.” I hear her voice cut through the air and I realize the elevator has stopped moving.
“We’re at the garage now,” she says, her blue eyes locking with mine.
I don’t feel much remorse, well, I don’t want to address what I feel, but her eyes are so much different from that night. They’re older now, sadder. Exhausted from the world and dim from all of the brightness that she probably did deserve at one point. I hate that for a moment, I want to put light back inside of them. I hate that I feel like she’s deserving of good things. Nobody really is. We’re all equally as shitty, we’re just shitty in different ways.
