Chemical Poison . Howard Stark

Chapter 15

There was nothing more heart breaking than a lie. From a single omission, a series of splinters form from each deceitful word, smile and glance. Created from ignorance... or were lies made as a protective mechanism? Ever since Anneliese was young, she knew the importance of secrets.

To live is to have secrets, it's to lie. 

When she was only three, Anneliese pretended she hasn't broken her mother's favourite china doll. At four, she lied to her piano tutor that she had practiced non-stop for weeks. She hadn't even entered the piano room. She watched her mother lie to her father when she was five, telling him that she was just going to the grocery store - she visited her brother instead. It was at age six she started to understand that lying was a skill of importance, and one her father drilled this into her.

Then it was the first family gathering. The room was filled with golden pillars and marble counters. Maids walking across a ballroom of red and green with wine glasses filled to the brim. Anneliese learnt the importance of lies when she watched her parents dance on the floor, the sounds of piano and violin flooding her ears. She had told her cousins and her aunts and uncles that her mother stayed at home with her, teaching her piano and how to knit. The lies sliding off her tongue smoothly, and suddenly Anneliese knew she would be a liar.

To be a liar is to have something to hide.

Her parents were many things: a liar, a scientist and a master manipulator. But they were not like the rest of her mother's family, they did not murder, they did not harm or torture. Yet, Anneliese knew lying wasn't much better. At age eight she was informed of her mother's actual career. She wasn't a scientist like her father or Abraham, nor was she a politician like the most of her family, she was by far the worst. A spy of a sort.

It was at age nine when her mother taught her a few tricks in getting away with a lie. The chin must never falter, keep eye contact and always have a basis of truth in everything you say. Then when she turned ten, her father took her aside to remind her that lying isn't always a bad thing. For the Lorenz's, lying kept them safe. For the first time, Anneliese understood the importance of a good lie.

Many years passed and Anneliese never forgot what her parents taught her, and unfortunately she knew that lying wouldn't be taken kindly in her new world. She had grown up surrounded by monsters, only to realise how easy it was to become the monster herself. To completely lose herself in a lie, and to feel utterly broken, in the most ugly ways of all.

And she knew this lie would be the ugliest of all, as a lie of love was the worst kind of lie. Her father always told her that she shouldn't have to lie about the matters of the heart, yet her mother encouraged the lies. To a young Anneliese, she didn't understand how her parents ever loved one another, they were so different. To Anneliese now, she completely understood her parents, and why they loved each other so deeply.

Her father grew up with a loving family, and her mother had to fight against wolves. It was a tragic story of a sort, but Anneliese knew that history had a funny way of repeating itself.

And meeting Howard's sincere eyes almost felt like a punishment for her actions, almost. She had noticed he had changed his clothing since she had last seen him. As she gazed over him in the lobby of Stark Industrials, she ignored the stares of bystanders as she tastefully took in his appearance. Even if she had to lie, she couldn't deny Howard's beauty.

There was something uncharacteristic to him. A street rat but his jawline screamed aristocratic, and his hair was always gelled with his eye brows arched. His lips were twisted into a smile, or a smirk, or a sneer... some days it was harder to tell. But in this very moment, Anneliese knew it was a smile, sincere as well. His greasy clothing was replaced by a navy suit, a blue button up shirt underneath and blue cufflinks.