Chapitre 19: Stop it. Stop it. Make it all Stop.

It started out as snippets. Lucus tried to block out his understanding of them, but even so, a few slipped through the cracks. It wasn't enough to understand the full story, but from context, you could come up with a pretty close conclusion. It was like piecing together a puzzle half finished. He didn't want to put it together, but a mind is like a new puppy. It doesn't listen.

"Not enough"

"Girl"

"Engagement"

"Your father"

"Future"

"Company"

"Disappointment"

Each felt like a cold knife to the heart. Trying to stay away from the war, but it kept moving closer. More started to slip through. Little by little. Piling up. Eventually, there was nothing left to keep away. The walls had crumbled to the floor, and the village behind was defenseless. Those were the walls Lucus was painstakingly cementing together, while the rest fell around him. It felt wrong to listen, but he couldn't bring himself to leave.

"Each day, you're becoming more and more like your sister. Your grades are slipping, and you still won't accept the proposal. How on earth are you going to take over the company?" His mother's voice was still as cold as ever. Each felt like ice. An unbreakable, relentless, iceberg. One that could even sink the most unsinkable of ships. This is why the reply Ben gave was out of the ordinary.

"Don't say that about my sister." He mumbled it, but it was the retaliation nobody expected. Nobody else would have dared to say this. Even Allicia would have frozen in fear at the mere thought of retaliation.

"What did you just say?" Asked Ben's mother. It was less of a question, than a warning. She was putting down a line, but Ben seemed to have seen it before. It might have looked deadly, but he saw through something else. Something that gave him the courage to reply. This time louder.

"Don't talk about Nina like that…" he paused. He looked up at his mother, eyes burning with white hot flame. "You don't have that right." His mother looked taken back. She opened her mouth and stepped backwards dramatically. As if he was nothing more than an insignificant bug. An annoying one who dared to try and land on her chemical filled hair.

"Hah!" She actually laughed this time. She put her hand on her hip and cocked it to the side. "I don't have the right. Huh. You know, it is refreshing to hear some sort of emotion from you. I was afraid you were going to be useless too." She made a smirk. Somehow, every motion she made, every emotion she showed, was bone rattling. Even the air around Ben and his mother seemed to grow colder. Tighter too. "I am its mother, and yours too. I have every right to every asset you have. I can say what I want about her, and I think she was nothing more than a coward." She seemed to take pleasure in Ben's horror and anger. It was as if she was a demon, drinking it in. "It couldn't handle the pressure, so it left it all behind. She wasn't able to live up to this world and its expectations so she ended it all by herself." When she noticed the impact it had on Ben, she smiled and continued. "It killed itself. How disappointing. What's worse is that she did well too. Top marks and all. It would have been great for this company. She even looked good on camera." she sighed nostalgically, then frowned at Ben in distaste. "Then she left me with you. Doesn't it hurt? She left you all behind by yourself. Do you find it selfish? Oh, I bet you do. It's not her fault that you've been such a disappointment. At least she covered for you." She spoke as if Nina was an object. Nothing more than a fancy decoration to make her look good. An asset, not a daughter. As if she had lost all meaning of the word family, or what values it held.

"No. She didn't leave me. She's going to come back. She's my sister. She's my sister. She's my sister." Ben was snapping. His hands were clenched and he was shaking madly. He was holding it back, but it was like an earthquake on his body. "She's coming back."

"Still holding onto that false hope? Well I don't blame you. She really was the only person you had. I guess she really didn't care about you though. It left you behind in a legacy she should have known you couldn't fulfill." She spinned in a circle happily, as if she hadn't just degraded Ben into an insignificant piece of lint on her designer dress. She was really enjoying this. "She's not coming back. You saw her. You saw the note. She hung herself on a work trip. Or else, whose body did you see? You tell me. YOU saw her first." Ben was holding in tears, and his face was burning red. He dared not speak, for the simple act of voicing his feelings anymore would have caused the dams he had put up to come crashing down. "I guess the pressure was too much. The engagement, the expectations, the inheritance, the work, the weight of the world…" she smiled viciously and tilted her head upwards looking down at him. They were around the same height, but with heels, not only was she taller, but Ben looked smaller than ever. "Having to care for the company and you." She let out a small laugh. She looked down at Ben expectantly. Waiting for him to break. Waiting for him to cry. She didn't say this though. "Oh now, don't cry boy. You need to smile. Don't want to embarrass this family any further." Somehow, nobody noticed the exchange, that is, nobody stopped to watch. Everybody who caught a word hurried along without comment. They seemed, scared in a way.

"Stop it." Ben clenched his teeth together, holding in the tears. A few still dripped out. "Just stop it."

"Oh? What was that?" She cupped her hand on her ear to show she was listening. She had a cheerful tone in her voice. It was like a little hop.

"Stop it. Stop it. Stop it. I can't do this. I can't. Make it all stop." He was talking to himself at this point. His mother opened her mouth to speak. Perhaps it would have been something to console him. Doubtfully so. After all that, the chance was one in a million. More likely she was about to spew some degrading comment about his insignificance or past failures. Nothing he hadn't already heard. She might have said the most horrible words a mother could say to their crying child, I'll let you decide what that is, but she didn't. She was cut off. Not by Lucus. Not by a random byepasser. Not by a waiter. But by Allicia. A drunk, screaming, Allicia.