Acumen: Riddling Life

Theodor [pt1](19)

WARNING: TRIGGERING CONTENT TOWARDS THE END 

It was a choice made at the moment, when his sister, Avery, sent a video of their younger sister Eleanor to him.

He knew he had to spend that weekend with his family. For Eleanor's sake.

So there he was, driving in the speed limit, all the windows of his car rolled down. The music blaring from the speakers as Theodor tapped his fingers on the stirring wheel matching with the tune, and even sometimes humming with the songs.

Four hours before he reaches home.

He checked his watch as he noticed the dark clouds starting to gather signaling a downpour, it showed 3:01 pm. His sisters must be back home from school.

Eventually, he unwrapped his sandwich and started eating it, a bite into it and his phone starts to ring.

With annoyance he leaned forward, one hand on the steering wheel and the other holding his sandwich, he glanced at the screen of his phone to see the caller ID.

Eleanor.

He declines the call so his music would continue playing. After all, he is going to see her in three maximum of four hours. Whatever she wants to say can wait.

He finished his sandwich, as he raced through the somewhat empty highway connecting Massachusetts to New York. Only rain making him slow down his car.

His mind has started wandering back to the videotape Avery had sent him five days ago. Although it had surprised him why on earth would she record something like that instead of supporting Eleanor, but he hardly ever understood any of Avery's choices.

In the video, Eleanor was standing in the corner of their joint library containing mostly Eleanor and Theodor's books, since their parents had a different study room and Avery wasn't the reading type. As their mother was going on and on about how big of a mistake it was for her to join the Astronomy competition or whatever it was called. He couldn't recall the exact name, not that he cared what it was called.

In the middle of the video however, their mother serves the final blow. It has been two weeks since they've found out that she's been rejected. He knew she wasn't handling the situation that well, but hasn't talked to her either. He didn't know what to say.

As for the final blow, their mother had decided to give away Eleanor's beloved telescope.

Even thinking about the tape broke his heart, he had never seen his sister like that.

She held back her tears and begged, but their mother kept on saying that she knew better, and giving it away was the best move, that it'll make her move on and focus on her school.

He was expecting to see Eleanor weep but she didn't. She stood there in silence as the man came and took away her telescope.

The look in her grey eyes had been haunting him since the second he loaded and watched the video.

It scared him, to say the least.

Theodor could swear that he saw the shine in her stormy grey eyes disappear, and slowly her eyes dulled. Each time he watched the video it became clearer to him.

In the end, Eleanor stood there, blankly staring into the distance, her hollow eyes fixed on the door frame. It was like a huge part of her soul was chucked out in a matter of minutes.

Her dull grey eyes had landed on Avery's phone and that's when the video ended.

He couldn't sleep that night, and the following day he found himself in the physics department asking for advice from his friends in there to get her something that would cheer her up.