Harper Brown✔ [ Sequel to Being McKenzie Prince]

Dear Diary

One of those questions that people have asked throughout the ages is whether your genetic make-up, your DNA, plays a part in who you will become when you grow up. Nature versus nurture. What I mean through this statement is that you will inevitably become like your parents. They are like their parents and their parents', parents. A vicious cycle that is unavoidable. If that is true then I am screwed. Not only do I have messed up genes, but I did not exactly get a lot of good nurturing either. If I lived according to the examples in my life, then I would be bitter and vile.

My father is exactly like his father, but I do not want to be anything like my father.

I remember this one time when I was twelve my father forced all of us to go to my grandparents' house. My grandfather had an important accouchement that he wanted to make and the whole Brown family had to be present. From the youngest to the oldest. Every single one.

My father already knew what my grandfather wanted to say, but it was of more importance that he said the words in front of everyone else as a sort of power play.

The news was that my father was going to take over the whole of the Brown Estate and all of the companies that were attached to it.

A lot of people were present and I felt extremely uncomfortable in my suit and tie. I was not allowed to go play with some of the other kids as that was seen as nothing, but waste of time. My father and grandfather spoke commerce the whole time. He told my father how the business must be run and he continued to talk about how my dad's brother, uncle Rhyder, was such a big disappointment. He proceeded to tell my father that if he in any way came to the conclusion that my father was embarrassing the Brown family name that he would take everything back and give it to his oldest sister, Aunt Malory.

If there was so much as a small blemish put on our great family name then my father would be disowned.

I guess in a way this explains why my father was always so hard on me. If I humiliated my father, my father would in turn humiliate my grandfather and humiliation or disappointment is not something my grandfather could handle. His level of perfectionism was even harder to achieve than that of my own father.

I wonder if my grandfather ever physically abused my father. My father never really spoke about his past. Rhyder told me one time that there was this girl that my father was madly in love with before my mother came along. The problem was that she was poor and my grandfather did not approve of the relationship.

Rhyder told me how my grandfather chose what school they had to go to, he chose their friends and he even attempted to choose who they were allowed to date.

He manipulated and threatened my father in such a way that my father left the girl behind and he was sent to boarding school for a year somewhere in London. He also threatened said girl to not have any contact with his son or else there would be dire consequences for her and her whole family.

From the day that my father took over the family business my father has not once had a real conversation with my grandfather, unless it was something urgent and it was always about business. They don't have a relationship outside of work.

I always got this feeling that my father hated my grandfather. If he was anything like my father I could understand why. If he himself knows what it feels like to have someone dominate your life, why does he still do it to me?

My grandfather has never spoken to me. If I was in the room with him and my father they would speak as if though I was not even there. I had to stand like a statue for hours.

It is kind of obvious that my grandfather was raised in the era where they always said;

"Children should be seen and not heard."

They are very conservative and traditional and that is why they decided to disown Rhyder because he did not fit in with their specific moral values.

They also never showed any form of affection towards their children; exactly like my father.

What if I become exactly like them?