Worlds Apart

15. The Break

A/N:

Here we go! This chapter was fun to write.

Enjoy 😆

- Annelie Leddy

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Dinner went by quickly. The conversation about the visiting relatives was left on the back burner. My brain was riddled with unanswered questions.

Who were these relatives?
How were they related to Mads?
Did they really do all of those crazy things?
Were they that insane?
Why would Mads threaten them like that?
Why was he so worried about me meeting them?

I wanted to wait until we got home, to ask Mads these questions but instead my brain burst once we got on the road. With his hands on the steering wheel, focusing on the road. My hand stretched out towards his neck, casually running my fingers through his hair. For some reason this action seemed to calm him down.

"Go ahead, ask away," he says with a sigh.

"Who are they?" I ask without hesitation.

He sighs again and leans his head back into my hand. My nails scratching his head, which he seemed to enjoy.

"My cousins. My father's younger brother is Aalto. Karina, Else, Axel and Johanne are Aalto's kids. They are much younger than us. The oldest is Johanne, he is thirty-seven. Axel is thirty-five. Karina and Else are thirty-four. Karina and Else are just ten months apart," Mads explains.

"Did they really do all of those things?" I ask hesitantly. Mads sighs, his grip on the steering wheel growing tighter.

"With other things, yes. Aalto did horrible things to my brothers and I when we were younger. He terrorized us as kids and my father despized him for it."

"What did he do to you?"

"Once, he took me on the boat, rode all the way in the middle of the lake until we couldn't see the shorline. He tossed me overboard and drove off, telling me to swim home. I did."

"What did your father do?"

"He searched for me with the boat. I made it to shore late at night, nearly freezing to death because it was in the end of fall."

"Thats terrible...please tell me that was the worst thing he did."

"After a few drinks with my father he came at me with a baseball bat. Broke my leg," Mads says nonechalantly.

"Is that the worst thing he did?" I ask hesitantly.

"The worst thing Aalto ever did to any of us was threaten Vicinity...that  værdiløs svin, stykke lort...he got mad at Vicinity because she spilt scotch on his suit...he threatened her in such a way that my father pulled out his gun and told him to never show his face again," Mads explains.

"It traumatized Vicinity. She was in tears for hours and could barely sleep at night. She was fifteen at the time and she had begged our father to sleep in his bed even a month afterwards. He could never say no to her. Afterwards...Aalto only sent his kids during the summer when they were around...six or seven maybe. They spent every summer up until Johanne was seventeen. That last summer showed that they had inherited father's insanity."

"What did he say to Vicinity?"

"Something I'd never repeat and something I wouldn't want you to hear," he explains as he slows down the car.

Turning into our driveway, the long gravel path until he was able to park outside of the house. The headlights of his truck shined on the front door for a moment as we passed by. The silohouette of a person could be seen, sitting on our front steps.