Finding Myself

Chapter 21

Elliott Haze:

I had been talking to the same man for the past ten minutes and I was beginning to get bored. This was a party not a business deal. My ears tuned him out as my eyes started wander around the room.

We had been here for about an hour and I already wanted to go home. Just as I was about to turn around and walk away I spotted a familiar figure in a stunning dress. Despite my initial shock I wasn't really surprised.

Matteo was bound to tell her eventually and this was a good event to ease her in. Now I just had to wait until the others noticed as well.

Carter actually noticed her first. His eyes went wide and his jaw dropped. He had never met her in person but he had seen pictures. Both Alex and Jake didn't realize it until a minute later when they noticed Carter was no longer paying attention to them. Once they did though none of our eyes dared to drift away.

I could tell Carter wanted to go over to her but he didn't know how. While the three of us had gone to her office Carter had other business to take care of and if our dad ever found out he ditched it to see her, he would get his ass handed to him.

Our father was not the nicest man at times. He was stubborn and that was the main reason we never did get to see her again. We had tried to meet her but he always found out and the consequences kept getting worse the more we tried. This may have discouraged us but I had never stopped watching her.

Grabbing Matteo that day was the closest I had come to fully knowing her, but I had always watched her from a distance. I obviously gave her personal space and privacy but every once in a while I may have taken a different route to work or home that passed by her office.

Some stops were just a couple seconds as I passed by and other times I stood there for half an hour lost in my thoughts. I never told my siblings about these times I couldn't risk it, however I also couldn't imagine not knowing her at all.

While both my parents loved Alesa probably more than they loved us, my mother wanted to keep her home and my dad didn't. Like most of their arguments my father won. So she stayed with her other parents and grew up without us. The only reason we met her earlier this year was because my father finally caved.

My mother and father never were the same after the incident. Their marriage was born from convenience not love, my dad needed children as heirs and she could have them. This meant that there was no solid foundation to fall back on, and like so many unstable buildings they eventually crumbled.

Well they made one heir, me, and I guess things initially started working out because they just kept going. However once my dad made that decision to leave Alesa so many more were automatically made for him.

My dad had to start working earlier and staying later, we barely saw him until we were older. My mom on the other hand stopped talking to him and the four of us were left to cope alone in different ways. We were young and despite not knowing her we all missed her.

Carter started getting into a lot of fights as a kid to piss of my dad, Alex got drunk almost every night making my dad go bail him out a few times.

Jake and I turned to work, which made my dad see us more and we never failed to subtly remind him of what he did. Sometimes an old picture of her ended up on his desk and other times her name got dropped into a conversation.

We were definitely a little petty.

It was our way of getting back at him. We never talked about it and we didn't let it interfere with business but we all held a small amount of residual resentment toward him. I could tell that resentment had suddenly doubled within the past few moments as despite his best efforts we all now knew she was still involved in this life.