Incendiary

4. Two shitty people

Theo

Work.

Work is my hell.

It also happens to be the only thing my life revolves around.

I always knew I would end up in the devil's palace one way or another; I just didn't expect to live the entirety of my life in it.

Taking over the family business soon meant I had to devote all of my time to a job I didn't want. A job that took away all of the freedom I had left in life.

Every, damn, second of my life had been devoted to becoming the perfect leader; devoted to taking my father's place.

Ever since I was a child- while other children learned to ride bikes, make mud-pies, and play with toys- I was constantly being moved around the country, having to watch my father work.

Now, the only difference was: I no longer just watched him.

It had never been my choice, and no one had ever cared enough to ask if it was what I wanted.

It wasn't.

It was just something that had to happen. I didn't get any say in it.

I had a younger sister, Ivy. I did everything in my power to make sure nothing happened to her.

That our father wouldn't ever lay a finger on her. She would get the freedom I never had the chance to taste. She got to be and got to have everything I couldn't.

I took all of the business responsibilities so that our father wouldn't ask Ivy to do anything.

I had to take the role of Ivy's guardian. It was another stress added to me as a child since Ivy was born when I was 5.

I had taken care of her since then. It was stress, but I had never deemed it a burden.

I was expected to be my father, but I will throw myself off of a building the moment someone finds a similarity between the two of us.

I had grown up watching the way my father treated other people. The way he treated me. My mother. Ivy. The people who worked for him.

It was revolting.

I had to make sure he was present when my father and mother got into arguments so that when my father got physical, he would hurt me instead of my mother.

On those days, I had to lock Ivy in my bathroom. Keeping her away from the devil we called father.

I was never brave enough to hit back, but I was brave enough to take it. Now, if that motherfucker even looks at me wrong, I don't care. I am at a point in life where if he hits me, I can hit back and inflict more pain than he can.

That was the biggest reason why I hated going to a boarding school. I had to be away from my mother, which meant I wasn't able to protect her.

Luckily, Ivy went to school with me, so I didn't have to worry about her.

My parents are the reason I didn't believe in love for a long time. I still kind of don't. I never had a true example of what "love" was.

I was sure I had felt it, to some extent. I just didn't know how it was supposed to look.

I was sure my mother never loved my father. If she did, she fell out of it quickly.

She was with him for the money. And even though- I knew she loved me and Ivy- she didn't love us enough. I didn't mind- or I tried to not mind.

I knew Ivy did.

She always wanted our family to be conventional, and for a long time, I spent my days wondering how to show her that our family was anything and everything but conventional.