Deceptions & Secrets

Chapter 3: Blending Families

Chapter 3: Blending Families

Two weeks after the wedding (End of February)

Tobias POV

Breathe in and out. 

Breathe in and out.

I can do this.  I've been surviving this for years.  I am fine.  Everything is fine.

No, everything is not fine. 

Damn Marcus!  I have been trapped in this cramped closet for hours now. 

I am in my own personal hell. It is tight in here, and dark, and there is an odd smell of worn clothes and shoes.  The only reassurance I have is that at some point today the girls will be home and I know I will be released before then.  Today will not be like the times that Marcus made me sleep in the closet overnight. 

For about five minutes I prayed and hoped that the addition of Natalie and Beatrice to our family would change my father.  I wanted to believe that having a beautiful wife, and even a second slave-- I mean child-- would be enough to satisfy Marcus in life.  And that I would finally be left alone.

No such luck.  The only good that has come is that now Marcus needs to be very cautious about the beatings and closet punishments.  He made it very clear to me that under no circumstances would his wife or that girl find out about how he is choosing to raise his son. 

Ah yes, when Natalie and Beatrice are not around, he refers to her as "that girl," usually with a tone of disdain.  I get the impression that Marcus can't wait for both of us to be out of his house, so he can have Natalie all to himself.  He seems to adore her; I once heard him proudly call her the perfect Abnegation wife. 

I resituate myself in the cramped closet.  My method of survival has always been playing a little game with myself.  I move to different positions while trapped in here, and I see how long I can last in each one before needing to make a change.  The game has gotten to be more challenging as the years have gone by and I have grown significantly taller.

My go to stances are standing straight, leaning against the back wall, and then of course the joy of sitting on the cramped floor, where we store shoes.  The times that Marcus has left me to sleep in this closet, I finally caved and moved the items from the floor into my lap so that I could sit on a flat floor and rest my eyes.  I got a terrible beating the first time I did that, Marcus opened the door before I had woken up and was furious that I had made a mess of his closet. 

I have to get away from him.  And soon.

As I stand and lean against the back wall now, I allow my mind to wander to the last two weeks since the wedding.  I have a mother and a sister now.  Granted, Beatrice and I started off...in a very unusual way.  But I feel like we have both moved past that indiscretion as we are now embracing the life that has been handed to us.  We are being raised as brother and sister, me having lost my mother, she having lost her father.  We have a lot in common as well.

I was very nervous when the honeymoon was over and Beatrice and I carried all of the boxes into the Prior home.  As we entered my new home, I half expected to see a broken woman in Natalie.  I remember vividly how cruel Marcus was to my own mother. 

Thankfully, there was no sign that anything sinister had happened between them.  I was relieved, I would gladly take any beating or punishment from my father if it would spare these two women that are now a part of my life. 

Natalie is very kind and consistent.  There are no surprises with her.  I have been carefully observing the interactions of mother and daughter, it is very calm and happy.  I feel no underlying ugliness lurking in the shadows.  Even when Beatrice does something wrong, or she loses herself and makes a snappy comment...Natalie is firm and corrects her, but there is no danger.  There is no fear in Beatrice's eyes.