Lie To Me

30. Myers

NOAH WHITE

Pretending can be such a tiresome activity.

Placing a mask over my face every single day to pretend I am the perfect son with perfect grades, a perfect family and a perfect life just so I can hear society claiming that I will be such a successful businessman one day. That is all bullshit; an exhausting bullshit. I don't even bother complaining anymore, it would be useless. My parents wouldn't care about it, they never did and I lost hope they'd ever do a long time ago. I doubt they even know what love truly is. All they ever cared about was the image we gave to this family; their utmost concern was to keep all of those words spoken about us as positive as possible, all the while stuffing their pockets with more and more money.

You get used to it, eventually, to the point where I don't even care about them anymore. There had already been way too many days in which my brother and I both craved and searched for some affection from our parents when they were too busy with business meetings, work, planning social events that we were too young to assist... But, now, I gave up; I had given up a long time ago.

«I wonder what kind of posh party my mother is planning this time» I thought as I dodged the maids that were running around the mansion like headless chicken.

When I finally arrived to the dining room, my footsteps halted lightly when I saw no sign of my brother there. Where was he? However, when I was about to retract back and go in search of Charlie, my mother's gaze fell on me as she interrupted her conversation with our head maid.

"Noah, dear," she smiled at me and momentarily turned to the maid. "Excuse us for a moment." The woman bowed her head down in respect before quickly scurrying away towards the kitchen while my mother took a few steps in my direction and ushered me to sit down. "Good morning, son. How did you sleep?"

"Good," I mumbled, reluctantly taking my usual seat beside my dad, who was at the head of the table. The man only spared me a brief glance before returning his cold gaze to the newspapers in his hand, a cup of steaming black coffee on the other. Such a warm welcome.

All the while smiling at me, my mother ordered one of the maids that was passing by to bring us breakfast and took the seat on the other side of my father.

"But Charlie hasn't arrived yet," I pointed out. This family has the tradition to eat both breakfast and dinner together, unless there's a reasonable exception. In my case, I probably wouldn't really care about whether or not they started without me, but I knew my brother and I knew how he would feel about this.

"He knows at what time he's expected to be down for breakfast," my father's gruff voice spoke.

Even the maid that was serving the first few dishes —my parents have always liked to enjoy the luxuries we can afford in the most extravagant ways, such as having a huge amount of food displayed for each of their meals, truly an unneeded waste in my opinion— tensed up at his tone. From the corner of my eye, I also noticed my mother's smile faltering, though it returned to its original brightness when she realized she was being watched.

"I insist we wait for him, father," I dared say only to be ignored by my father already starting to fill his plate with food, my mother following his actions.

I sighed and closed my eyes for a moment, deciding that I, at least, would wait for Charlie to arrive. My father simply folded his newspaper, placing it next to him, and dug into the food without paying attention to anything other than his phone. My mother, on the other hand, had already taken a few bites from her toast when she set her confused gaze on me.