His Sour Lemon #2.1

Part 28: Neglectful Lemon

CHAPTER 28: Neglectful Lemon

December 18th, 2032.
Outskirts of New York City, America.
Fitzgerald Institute for Troubled Youth.

Neglecting someone is colder than ignoring them. When the guards locked me up in cells for punishment, I didn't feel neglect. When my captors at the orphanage held me, chained me and whipped me, that was also punishment. Neglect holds a feeling between both parties, a personal vendetta, and pain. Lots, and lots of pain. I felt it with my Father. I felt it with Christian when Samson set up a game of understanding, of remembering that we are not a team.

'You mess up, you take the fall alone. Don't drag others with you. Don't turn others into that title of liability or don't be surprised when their backs turn at your agony, when their ears ignore your deafening screams, when the smell of you bleeding out doesn't make them bat a single eyelash. When aid at a place like this is a reward, not a right.'

That is what it means to feel the wrath neglect can only describe.

*******

June 9th, 2042.
1:09 pm, London, United Kingdom.
Advanced Business Engagements Academy (Private Business
Institution), Sylvan Lakeshore.

"Got it." The last word sounded more like a confirmation code than anything else. His time here, I studied her brother and found him to be one asshole of the century. Secretive and snooping like some goblin walking around the school with an aura so arrogant it reeked of non-existent power and risk he couldn't afford. When Lorraine had enough and wanted to confront him, he glares up at her. I wondered, if only for a second that it could have been Lemon on the phone. If I wasn't so suspicious before, I certainly was now.

He stands slowly, obviously not liking the look on Lorraine's face but also the fact we were behind her, as if backing her-which was not the case, "Enough. Like you'd care where she is, she's been dealing with that bullshit for the past three months, you don't think coming back here would be that fucking easy, Lorraine?" She flinched at his icy words and dark shadows that lingered like some never-ending human eclipse. I study him, he was betrayed by her actions.

Join the fucking club.

I scrutinise him and it's clear he doesn't enjoy it, "Why are you here?" I question, again.

He looks ready to wave me off and walk over me, too bad the minion's shoes, height, weight, stamina and whole personality couldn't hurt me if he tried, "I've already told you." He mutters, glaring at me, before looking past me elsewhere, I watched, looking over. What exactly did Lemon's brother have against Claude Borne. Before a woman no one really gave two shits for steps in as if she was respectable enough not to be known as quite the harlot of our generation.

She sees Marvin and I don't exactly want to know about whatever she saw in him, but it has her walking over, "You must be Marvin Myers, I'm Principal Jewel?" We step aside when she moves to shake his hand.

"Indeed." He looks at her hand in boredom, not reaching for it.

How much did Lemon tell him? Clearly he's here under her orders and her blatantly ignoring my calls already has me stilled and sick to my stomach, wary, guilty. I hid far too much from the girl I'm falling in love with, but some things cannot be unknown and I want to know more about her before I shed all my skeletons.

She blinks, and blushes at him, "You're a lot bigger than I thought you'd be."

Oh...subtilty isn't her forte...nor is respect, intelligence...dignity-she's lost it all.