Trying To Endure

Chapter Nineteen

SONG: Julia Michaels - Heaven

🌺

Derek Matthews

A tap on my shoulder mildly startles me. "Can you stop coming into my room whenever you like?"

"I knocked five times. Your music is too loud. Christ, don't your ears hurt?"

On cue, my headphones hums sensuality. Either classical, frequencies or songs, I can't focus and study properly without my music.

I tug them down. "What do you want?"

As much as I appreciate Tanner, sometimes he's fucking annoying. I know he feels the same way. I understand boundaries, though not adequately before Tanner was adopted. I had the freedom of walking into any room however I wished, not having a care in the world. I wasn't used to having brother. Scratch that, I wasn't used to my best friend being a brother and living under the same roof as me 24/7.

The second I accidentally walked in on him naked as shit, and I screamed so loudly, I keep snapping at him to knock, and ensure I knock, too.

"Talk to Ma."

I drop my pen on a set of Maths homework. "She's not talking to me, so why should I?"

"You're being stubborn."

"She doesn't get it."

"Then talk to her to make her understand."

I sigh, rubbing my forehead. I really don't like confronting Aunt Marlene. Most of the time we do, we end up shouting at each other in German or Russian. The infamous love languages. "On a scale of one to ten, how fucked do you think I am?"

"Of what you did, or yourself entirely?"

"Tanner."

He inclines back on a neatly and beautifully-cramped bookshelf. "I believe you have the right to do whatever you want, as long as it's not harmful."

"What I did wasn't harmful."

"How many perspectives did you consider?"

"What are the Families going to do?" I say, instantly understanding. "They won't do nothing."

"You don't know that."

"They made an agreement to not harm any of us." The Sympathy Pact 1685, generated at the Second Summit of the Allfather Decemviri, highlighted the protection of our children. It sort of formed a union, or rather amplified the bond, between the Ten Families.

"Pacts doesn't represent a collective, just like how an Allfather doesn't represent the true sum of a Family, or how a government doesn't truly represent a country."

Good point.

"Agreement or no, it doesn't mean they will comply, Derek. Are we going to forget what they did to your Mum? It tarnished everything. I even doubt Usman Prosper trusts us."

The Prospers; the ninth wealthiest kinsfolk in the world.

"I don't need her permission to do anything," I say. "I'm not a child anymore. Neither are you."

"I haven't noticed."

I shot him a look.

"Just settle things. I don't like it when you two argue."

Tanner is the mediator within our family. I suppose that is an essential attribute if you aspire to be a leader.

I take off my headphones, reluctantly complying. "Fine."