His Nepenthe | complete

40. Truth

T R U T H I N T H E L I E S

*

Clarisse had a strange complex in terms of her importance.

In her dressing room, she made me wait to show the outfit she would be wearing in the first episode of the latest season of her show.

Blatantly, I looked her up and down judgmentally, the way she did everyone else, "You look like a whore."

She didn't, not really. She had dragged me out to her dressing room on a Saturday just for the sake of keeping up her motherly appearance to the cast. Clarisse could use a few hits to her ego every now and then. The worst she would do is drink herself out of her head.

The fake blonde scoffed, fixing her fairly revealing blouse and pulling down her pencil skirt, "You'd be saying differently if the same thing was on your little girlfriend," She finished her statement with a smirk to the mirror, gauging my reaction.

I didn't acknowledge the look in any way, continuing to pick at my fingers while I waited for her to be done with the façade, "Don't you dare talk about her."

"Why?" She turned to me properly, folding her arms over her chest with a raised eyebrow, "Not your girlfriend?"

I merely raised an eyebrow back, folding my arms the way she did, "Because she doesn't deserve someone like you talking about her."

"Someone like me, huh?" the blue eyed beast chuckled to herself, turning back to the mirror to fix her hair, "Like we aren't the same, you bastard."

The statement struck me harder than her hands ever had. I rose to stand in defence, without much reason. I had done anything I could to not be like her. I had loved someone, I still loved someone. I wasn't a pit void of emotion the way she was, "We are nothing alike, Clarisse."

"Arent we?" she rolled her eyes, tapping my cheek mockingly with her neatly manicured witch nails, "You're cold, you're mean, you're an asshole. So am I, babes. You're just like your mother."

I grit my teeth, spitting out painful words to strike her down, "I didn't kill my own son."

"Oh for fuck's sake, Christian, it's been, what, over six years? I didn't kill him. He died." she shook her head free of the thought, a scowl pressing into her face, "You're so fucking dramatic."

"No, you killed him, Clarisse. You just would never admit it because you're weak."

The fake blonde folded her arms over her chest, a poisonous glare laced in her irises, "Tell me, dear son, how I killed Lucas?"

"I never got to say goodbye to my baby brother. I know something was wrong, but you wouldn't tell me. You told him not to tell me. Then you took him away and never returned with him. A few years passed, and you decided to play a little game of pretend. Saying he never existed. To thousands of people sitting behind a tv screen, you say you're a mother of two. You're not, Clarisse. You're a mother of three. Even if one is dead, you're still his mother," I ran a hand through my hair with a deep sigh, "Fuck, I don't even know when, or why, he left us."

"You wouldn't have wanted to say goodbye," she stated blatantly.

The images of all the times he had died in dreams where I could never save him flashed like a horrific movie through my head.

"I assure you, I would have fucking loved to."

"You know what, Christian? Here it is. Lucas was sick, and there's nothing we could do to help him. His whole body was failing him. I didn't want to fail him too, so I tried everything. Hospitals, miracle medicines, trips over seas to new hospitals in hopes that I could save him. He was my little boy -"

"But still, you decided to kill his memory."

"W-what?"

I was biting down on my cheek so hard to stop myself from screaming at her that the taste of blood began to flood my senses with each word that left my lips, "You fucking murdered him."

"I told you-"

"Maybe murder is a little harsh. You ripped his soul from his being. You deleted him from existence without a fucking care in the world."

"Christian, you have no idea..." She trailed off, as if expecting me to have already interrupted.

"No. I don't. I don't fucking understand!" I grabbed the first thing that was by my hands with pure rage coursing through my veins. That item turned out to be an empty photo frame, and smashed into a billion sharp pieces as I threw it across the room, "I don't fucking understand how little you could care for someone's life, let alone your own son's! You're a selfish fucking bitch who should have never been a mother! How dare you pretend that this hurts you the most!? His memory was meant to be respected and cherished, but you couldn't fucking manage that because all your fucking ass cares about is your image, so you deleted his any way you could! Shame you can't delete him from my fucking nightmares, huh!?"

I dropped my clenched fists to my side, feeling blood being drawn from my palms. My knuckles were chalk white, my hands shaking in pure, unadulterated anger.

"You had a son, who loved you and everything around him. Do you know what the chances of that is? He was happy, and you know what? A long time ago so was I. But you killed that, too."

"SHUT UP!" She screamed, the pitch piercing my eardrums. Her blood was rushing so fast to her face it became bright red, tipping at her ears, "SHUT THE FUCK UP! YOU HAVE NO IDEA ABOUT ANYTHING!"

The times I had watched him die were far too vivid in my memory. They were as clear as the moment I was in.

Burning. Bleeding. Suffocating.

Begging me to just let him die easily.

All at the hands of a mother who only cared about herself.

"WELL, WHO'S FUCKING FAULT WAS THAT? YOU LYING, SNEAKING WHORE -"

There was a sting in my cheek before I had even seen her raise her opened palm. I stared her down, her glare fading as the redness in my cheek bloomed in the shape of her hand.

Tears fell from her eyes haplessly, pointlessly staining her face, "I was dying as I saw my son losing his life. I never wanted you to see something like that!"

I nodded as I took in her selfish statement, casting my gaze to the floor, "So now I see worse every time I close my eyes."

"Christian-"

I clenched my jaw, grazing my teeth together as I choked out words that hurt me to say just as much as they hurt her to hear, "I can't breathe without feeling guilty that he isn't. So I won't."

For the first time ever, my mothers cry was reflected in her wavering voice. It was as if, for once, she was beginning to feel an emotion that wasn't entirely selfish, "What?"

I shrugged a shoulder with a melancholy smile, "I hope it gets easier for you the second time round."

Her lips were parted in an inaudible gasp as I pushed past her body to leave her dressing room, not without gritting the words I wanted to say through my teeth.

"Bury me better."

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I will be updating one chapter daily for 5 days to celebrate the ending of His Nepenthe x