The Secrets Within Pages

Family of Ruin

Looking up from my notebooks, I see the laughing children chase each other, making memories they'll look back on fondly. I stare at them, sitting down on the classroom steps, wishing to play with them, to be one of them.

But I wasn't.

Father told me I was extraordinary. But only when I succeeded, and I would never succeed if I wasted my time with the others. They run and dance and laugh, I could do all that after. While they're slacking off, I'll study and beat them and then I'll be happy.

I'll be happy when I win.

When I'm first.

Father will be proud.

Shooting my arm up in class when a question was asked, I'd hear the snickering of other children as they mocked me. Simultaneously, I'd hear father's voice as he pushed me onwards, his commanding tone battling with the children, a war waged inside my head. One that seemed to never quiet.

I was pathetic if I fell for their taunts. I had a life to get to.

A sick, queasy feeling minced my stomach as I received my report card. A sigh of relief escaped me when I saw 90% in every subject. Ecstatic, I run up to my father after school to show him my grades.

"Father! Father, look. I'm first in my class." I exclaim, jumping up and down.

Round spectacles on, he studies the card. "90% is a good grade, Eleanor." he whispers. I smile, heart fluttering in glee.

With a raised brow, he tears the card in front of me. My smile drowns in the look of disappoint he shoots at me. Gooseflesh gushes all over my body, my head falls as I stare at the ground..

"...but its not a great one. Anyone can get a 90%. Are you anyone, Eleanor?" He questions, looking down at me.

"No, father." I croaked, hating the weakness in my voice, the tears that threaten to pour out.

"Look at me when I'm speaking to you."

Biting my tongue, I pick at my fingers, forcing my anchoring neck up.

"You need to do more, do better."

I look at my father, how you can both love and resent one person at once I will never know. I look at him and think,

Haven't I given enough?

"You will amount to nothing if you are on the same level as others."

Bit by bit, like a leech, his words began dulling my rose-coloured glasses, cracking them.

I was never a child.

I couldn't afford mistakes.

Losing Dalal, yet another suspect we thought was the culprit. One that I was so sure of, one that I pushed forth.

I was wrong again.

I felt my father's disappointment echoing in the halls of my mind, like an earthquake, cracking the pillars of my sanity.

I don't know how or why I was at the graveyard, visiting Osbourne. I didn't know where else to go to. Whenever I had questions or needed help with something that I wasn't accomplishing to the potential I knew I had, I'd go to him.

I fall to the ground, not minding the soil dirtying my clothes.

After all, this is where we all go someday.

"What am I doing wrong, sir?" I ask, helplessly. My eyes begin to burn, I don't know why. Tears stream down my face as I fist the soil underneath. Immediately, I rub my face, hating that I'm crying, frustrated at my impotence.

Father would scoff at me.

"I let you down, Professor."

I tried so hard but I failed.

"What is it you used to say?" I ask, as though he will answer. "Stay silent, wield a sword instead." I laugh, humourlessly.

Ironic, isn't it?

"Always thought that I'd go first." A melancholic voice recounts, walking toward me, leaves crunching beneath her feet.

Vivienne.

"Gael was always very hot-headed, always meddling with things that ought not to be meddled with... But that was why I loved him." She admits, sitting next to me, as she places a pale red carnation atop a pile of them.

I smile, wistfully.

"What brings you here, Eleanor?" She asks softly.

"Confusion, anger..." I taper off, staring at the gravestone.

"The dead give us clarity." She said, looking ahead. "I heard what happened. I would say I'm sorry for not attending, but I'm not. Especially after..."

I nod my head, solemnly. "I'm sorry for your loss. Both of them."

She breathes in deeply. "Sometimes I feel that I cursed both."

I didn't say anything, just listened. I doubt she wanted advice and I was the last person who should give her any.

"I fell in love with Gael and we married. I was happy with him, he treated me right." A small smile.

"But, there was always something missing, something I ignored and blamed on myself, on my own incessent dissatisfaction. But Vincent, he was different. He understood me in a way no one else did. But I loved my husband and I paid it no mind, paid him no mind. Even if my heart ached." Brows pulled together, corners of her mouth drag down by the weight of her speech.

He loved her too soon and she loved him too late.

What a tragic fate.

"Waylen was always caught in the crossfire. He'd often cover for Vincent and I, not for anything but just... to talk. He and Gael were a force to be reckoned with when they collaborated. Gael the voice, Waylen the brain. It wasn't a secret that Waylen would best us all, but we didn't mind. He and Gael were the overachievers, Vincent and I were just happy to be there. We were a family."

I wonder what happened. To all of them. To Waylen.

"Everything was perfect. Almost. I was happy with Gael, Vincent and I were just friends, we were graduating and Waylen met someone. Cassandra. We were all laughing when we found out. You see, Waylen never seemed the type to get married. You should've seen our faces when they announced that they were having a baby. It was beautiful." Her face was alight.

"Until Waylen's accident. Until Gael found out about Vincent's feelings toward his wife. After that we all drifted apart." Her expression darkened, "We were all devastated. Waylen's life was his work, without his legs how was he to accomplish everything he dreamed of. To be a father. Something in his eyes died that day. Cassandra left with the baby, left him. For a long time, we tried to be there for him but a person can only be pushed away so far before they realise someone doesn't want them. Or their help. So we did, we lost contact."

I didn't know what to say. What should one do in this situation? Why would Cassandra leave? Was that the right choice? Can you help someone who doesn't want it?

"Time is cruel and fate is unpredictable." I say, repeating words of the past. She looked at me and I clarified, "Something Vincent told me."