I WOULDN'T EXACTLY identify as a 'privileged snob', but would it be a crime on my end to admit my father was being unreasonable?
My room was terribly impersonal for a space I'd inhabited for the past two years. I paced the carpeted flooring, willing my father to barge in telling me it was... all a joke. But then there was the screech of tires against cobblestone. I rushed to my window, parted the drapes in time to see father departing in a black SUV.
I pressed a palm against the window. Glass fogged up before long, rendering my view of father a blur. For the better or worse.
Tears streamed down my face against the self preserving section of my brain. I hated it. Hated feeling this helpless.
I could technically return to Richmond Park - quick way to distract myself from these emotions. For such a spacious bedroom, I felt strangely... confined. Stuck. Suffocated.
Something told me the next encounter with my father wouldn't be for months. It was the longest conversation we'd had in almost a year. Family time's scarce these days, slowly (but surely) becoming an obligation rather than the natural byproduct of love. It was Thanksgiving, then Christmas, New Year's Eve, our birthdays (thank god for digital reminders). And repeat.
It was past eight in the morning. I could be in Calculus right now. I wondered if Jaxon was curious of my whereabouts. If he was, he wasn't the probing kind.
At which point, my eyes fell upon the only photograph I kept in my room. Ten year old photograph depicting a fishing trip, toothy grinned self standing between both parents. Mother wore a grimace in the picture, she never was a fan of the outdoors. But my dad, oh boy, he looked so young and so carefree.
I flipped the frame downwards. Too deceivingly happy for too broken a family. We were so broken no one would even address my problems.
I stepped into my wardrobe, relieved to know that Grandma hadn't thrown much of my clothes out. I stripped out of my nun dress, swapping the puritanical outfit for something more myself. In less than a minute, I exited the wardrobe in a black tank top, jeans, and knee high boots.
As an afterthought, a leather jacket. It wasn't warm here like it was at the West Coast.
I got one of the chauffeurs to drive me to Central High. Grounded or not, I was still my father's daughter. And technically, my parents mentioned nothing about getting myself chauffeur driven around.
So I arrived at the bricked building of Central High in a black Lexus. They would be having first period now. Nostalgia filled my senses as I walked past the sign board, the car park, heck, the students cutting class in plain sight.
Recognition filled the eyes of the smokers. These were my friends.
Alex was the first to hop off the trunk of his car.
"Holy mother fucking," he paused, to get a better look at me. "Christ."
I laughed easily as the boy engulfed me in a hug. Brief as it came, he parted before offering me his cig. I shook my head, fixing my gaze on the three other males present. Josh, Cole and Bret - exactly like I remembered them.
As I drew closer, I started to sense the... the tense air. Cole shot me a tight lipped smile.
"I like the hair."
I'd been away from these people for three months, but right now, right here, I was before them. That was all that mattered. I didn't realize how home sick I felt until right now. But there wasn't time for pleasantries, not right now.
"Where's Marc?"
"Class," one of them said, with an unreadable expression attached.
I crossed my arms. "Never mind him then. Which one of you went and got me sued for libel?"
"What?" One of them uttered. Another one went, "not sure what's libel, but Cory was the one who spread the picture."
I don't know why I heard blood rushing in my ears.
Marc already told me this. And I hadn't reacted too badly to the news. Perhaps being in school, in actual vicinity of Cory changed things. Being a certain distance from a snowballing problem does give you an illusion of safety. I pursed my lips as my thoughts wandered.
"So... May I know why I'm the one being charged with libel and not Cory?"
Brett and Alex looked at each other. A static filled silence passed before one of them deigned to respond.
"To be fair, we haven't gone to court yet." Brett said.
"'Cause my parents can't know, fuck," Cole went. "Fuck!" He yelled to the sky. A beat of silence passed between the four of us.
Then Cole calmed down, and he sighed. "We can't even fucking afford our three meals, I fucking hate this country."
I flashed him a sympathetic smile while Alex muttered under his breath for him to shut the fuck up.
"But how exactly did my father get the notion that we were going to get sued...?" I eyed the faces of the three males expectantly.
"Um... gonna go on a limb here and say Patrick knew you were behind it all, since y'all got bad history and shit. He also probably knows you come from money," Brett shrugged.
"So, like," I said to myself. "In civil law, the claimant sends a letter to the defendant informing them that legal action is being undertaken, which means my dad probably knew from a letter that cunt sent."
Three blank faces stared back at me.
"There's always like, settlement plans," I said slowly to my audience. "Court cases are always a last resort thing, 'cause they're super expensive. There's like, alternate dispute resolution methods, and negotiation is one of them."
"I don't know what the hell you're saying but go on."
I huffed. "My dad's full of shit, that's what. He's just gonna pay Patrick off to keep it in the down low. There's no way he's bringing this to court - things would get so messy."
"What?" Cole muttered. "I'm hungry."
"But what the fuck has he gotta be mad about with that eleven-digit income?" I asked exasperatedly.
Alex shrugged and killed his cig, Cole rubbed his stomach, and Brett squinted his eyes.
I never thought the day would come where my extracurricular reading would pay off. I'd undergone a phase wherein I so desperately tried to understand Dad's line of work; I was so disgustingly desperate to impress him over the rare meals we shared. I'd spend nights poring over Wikipedia pages and... and simply, hoping my father would see some semblance of intellect in his only child.
But, as you guessed, father stopped giving a shit. If he noticed, he never commented. He just always harps on about his job, how much he loves his family, then he'd affectionately call me 'kiddo' and pretend to be interested in my studies.
So fucking impersonal.
The school bell made me jump.
At Richmond Park Academy, they didn't do 'cheap electronic school bell'. They did 'gigantic brass bell in the clock tower'. I watched as my friends packed up, presumably to head for class.
"Where's Marc?" I asked again, knowing he didn't have class. "He's not responding to any of my texts."
I was met with silence. Tense, choking and... unnatural. I shifted my gaze to meet all three pairs of eyes. None would hold my gaze.
Fine. I see how it is.
✖️✖️✖️
The default Apple ringtone anchored me back to reality from a recurring nightmare. Trauma disfigures your brain like that. I reached beneath soft pillows, grasping for my phone as images of Patrick flickered in my mind's eye. Wasn't toxic as before, just something I gotta live with, per the price of keeping rape a secret.
I laughed, bitterly. It was a terrible sound to hear in such an empty room with no light.
I soon located my phone, forced myself to sit up, before answering the call.
"Hey."
"Were you asleep?" Elias's deep voice was strangely soothing. I clung onto it like a rope dragging me out of murky waters. I inhaled, and I exhaled.
"Yeah."
"Sorry."
I "Mmm hmm-ed" him. Forcing my eyes to stare straight ahead, to make out the shapes of furniture in my dark room. It was only 7PM, but winter was nigh.
Elias made some kind of noise. "I'm really sorry for waking you up."
"Was there something you wanted?"
"Not really. I mean - yeah, yes. Uh... How are you?"
I smiled in the dark, despite every fucking thing that was happening to me. "I'm okay, just tired. What about you?"
"I don't know," Elias said. "Things are going bad, Andrea."
My first reaction was to feel this... stab of bitterness. Elias DuPont was blessed with something not many are blessed with. He had a family who cared. He had looks that could moisten the undergarments of females in an instantaneous manner. He had a smile that softened my fucking heart. Yet, things are going bad for him?
"Oh," I said instead, blinking away the bad thoughts. "I'm sorry to hear. Did something happen?"
"This and that. Nothing you should, like, worry about. I called to ask if you were okay."
"I am. Why?"
"You just look bad these days, man."
I fucking lost it for the millionth time this week. My eyes spurted fresh tears. The silhouettes of my bedroom furniture became indecipherable, morphing into shadow monsters who blurred out of focus as tears pooled in my eyes.
"I look bad how?"
"No," Elias said, I could hear the strain in his voice. "Like, not that kind of bad. I can tell you're going through some kind of hardship. You can talk to me, Andrea."
Like a lighthouse illuminating dark skies and darker waters. I held onto that thought, somehow smiled through tears, before grabbing tissues from my nightstand to dry said tears.
"I did some bad things, okay?" It came out as a whisper.
Any louder, I knew my voice would quiver with the shame of everything I'd done.
"We all fuck up here and there."
What did I do to deserve someone like Elias?
I told him everything. I poured him the tale of my childhood, Patrick's incorrigible ways, the events preceding my time at Richmond Park Academy, right up to the minuscule detail of how I duped the factional system by cheating on their faction indicator, and of course my parents' reaction to finding out about everything.
I wasn't sure why he listened to everything, he didn't have to, but he did. And Christ it warmed my heart, in ways I didn't think was possible.
"Wow."
For a very long and extended period of time, there was silence on both our ends. Not an uncomfortable one. I leveraged on the sound of his breathing, tried my best to sync it to the way my heart beat.
"Andrea, your parents are shitty people."
"They're not," I bit out. "It's me. I'm attention seeking as fuck, I just, god," I said exasperatedly. " I just wanted their attention on me, okay? I secretly want my dad to quit his job so things can go back to the way they were before. It's consuming him so bad. He's so stressed... he's visibly ageing before my eyes, Elias."
I wanted to crack my knuckles so bad. Mother absolutely despised this habit, but old habits never really die, do they? I clenched my hands to dispel the strange urge.
"Things are the way they are for a reason," he said softly. "We may not understand God's plan now, but someday we will. He is the author of our lives... everything happens for a purpose."
"Don't feed me this crap."
"Sorry."
I sighed. "No, I'm sorry."
"I feel like I'm bad at this emotional stuff," Elias sighed. "I will probably never understand what you're going through. But you're smart, seriously, your mind is amazing. Not like anything I've seen before."
No, my mind's a void. I bit my tongue.
"I can help you with your money issues."
"No, Elias - "
"Seriously," he cut me off, with this persistence in his voice. "It's no biggie. I have too much allowance anyway."
"I can't swindle more money out of you than I already have," I laughed at the end to create this illusion of casualness. My throat felt raw.
"What are you talking about? C'mon, it's really no big deal. My family's filthy rich, man. It's all old money that we can't finish spending."
I conceded, only because there was movement outside my window. A shadowed figure.
"Elias, I gotta go."
"You'll take the money?"
"Yeah, okay."
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disclaimer, i don't know how much US law differs from UK law but... if there are discrepancies, let me know bc i'm lazy to research lol haha
not 2 sound needy but pls vote and share your thoughts