Beyond Bloodline - Unbreakable Bonds [ON HOLD: UNDER EDITING]

36 | HARD FEELINGS

||NIGEL||

"How was your outing?" I stopped making my cereal to stare blankly at the kind expression Saxon was wearing. I was still harbouring a lot of the residual feelings that had infiltrated my heart during my outing with Hayley yesterday. On what basis could he have all of our parents undulated affection? I hated him. His existence was a bane to me, the vital proof that I could never get a fraction of what he easily got from our parents.

But, it just so happened that I was conflicted too. No matter how much I hated him for being the recipient of all of our parents' warmth, he was still my brother. The brother that could still stubbornly care for me despite the number of arguments and misunderstandings that festered between us. He was my only family left. How could I completely hate him? No matter how viciously I reacted, I wasn't that much of an ingrate and basically knew to acknowledge that he was the only one that bothered with me. Despite how awfully I treated him.

I didn't want to hate him if I had a choice. But I wasn't sure I had too many chances left. I didn't have any hope remaining for my parents to turn over a new leaf. Just the idea of it was ludicrous I felt silly for having hope in them in the very first place. And somehow, I could only let fault Saxon and dump all the blame on his head. Who asked him to totally eclipse me in the first place?

I snapped out of my thoughts to see Saxon had lowered his head to eat his own food, trying to seem unbothered by my lack of response to his curious musings. Sighing, I decided not to hate in the meantime. Until something ticked me off or he did something to aggravate me, then I guess I could keep the dislike I felt at him and my circumstances at bay.

"It was fun." Something began scratching at my heart when he raised his head to give me a smile, eyes curious. All arguments stemmed from something. Maybe I could have avoided this one if I had stopped talking. "I went on a date."

Saxon blinked once, then twice, food already halted halfway to his mouth. "A date?" He asked.

"Yeah."

Perplexity and then, "You have someone you like?"

I felt my countenance darken but not to the point of abhorrence and complete anger just yet. Did the notion seem so farfetched? "Of course," I smiled.

"Who?" He wondered, eyes fixated on me.

My already dark countenance blackened to the point of no return. Curiosity didn't just kill the cat. It killed good feelings and any sense of decorum and preservation I had left. After all, his acquisition of the girls I liked had all began with curiosity as well.

"What's it to you?" I sneered.

"Nevermind," He backtracked, unwilling to have a duel with me. But I had emotions I wanted to let out. Pent-up frustration from being tormented with images and flashbacks of my friends being burned to death. Most of all, the fact of his blatant girlfriend thievery was something I had always wanted to lash out at him for but never once had the chance to.

"You want to know?" I snorted mercilessly. "Why? Just so you can steal something away from me again?"

"Again?" He frowned. "When have I ever taken anything away from you?"

When hasn't he ever?

"Oh? Never?" I retorted viciously, eyes veiled with contempt. "You asking about the girls I fancied was for what? Wasn't it to steal them for yourself?"

"I never chased after any girl you liked," Saxon retorted, looking offended. Though I couldn't be sure if it was my lack of trust in him or my taste in girls that made him feel insulted.