𝐏𝐑𝐈𝐙𝐄𝐃

04. the beauty of language

a/n; do not view any of the writing here too seriously—at times I am purely blabbering away, and again this is a work of fiction. it's not meant to be taken seriously. topics like drugs and suicide come up a lot, with ED too, so read with caution. comments greatly motivate me, so please comment! if this chapter gets above 100 comments I'll update immediately (vei time to work)

*not edited

another warning; suicide ideation, Anatoly is a manipulative black flag

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YOU WERE, BY ALL MEANS, CRUEL. You, as your mother and father constantly said, were heartless. It wasn't said in a vicious tone meant to sting (these words didn't faze you—perhaps it only proved to you that what they said held an element of truth) it was often said with exasperation, almost agony. ("Oh, how did we get stuck with him? It makes me wonder who he takes after.") This usually invited more fights. More screaming. More screaming. They didn't divorce, which you suspected was only because they wanted to keep up appearances. Of the wealthy, fabulous L/n family with prestigious jobs and wonderful lives.

Motherhood changed your mother. She had been ambitious, once, or so she claimed—was as skinny as Kate Moss, as lovely as Shalom, had great marriage prospects. ("I only settled for your father because of his name, she said.) Your father had the privilege of being born into an immensely rich family, one with generational wealth and a honourable last name. There you had it. A pretty, beautiful, broken family.

It was interesting, if you thought about it—when you realised that it all depended on how your innate qualities responded to the environment around you. Perhaps if you were kind, your family would be miraculously fixed, somehow, by a strange combination of being the brilliant, golden child. But as luck had it, you were quiet as a baby, and you almost seemed so distant. Inhuman. You hardly ever cried and your eyes seemed startlingly sharp, almost vicious. Other women would stare at you when you were in the pram (that your nanny held) and comment, ("that's a beautiful baby. Does he smile?) to which you would blink lazily and roll over. No one had ever said you were a lovely child. People said you were "so well-behaved" which was code words for he doesn't act like a child, not at all.

For as long as you could recall, your temperament had come with your birth. There was no trauma, no big incident that had changed the course of your life and had rendered you in such a state. Perhaps frigidness could be inherited; for your father was icy. Your birth had been the result of child rearing. For the sake of having a heir. You learned things in a mechanical motion, your English teachers hardly praised your essays, though they would have secretly stared at your incredible grammar and vocabulary. An essay titled My Mom had been given to you when you were about six, and in a neat scrawl you had written, my mother smokes. She cries. My mother doesn't like me. My mother does not praise my exemplary results.

The word "exemplary" that a  six year old produced—it was astounding. Yet the context in which it was used in—it was so dismal, so upsetting, that the teachers could not help feel sorry for you. Some of them had a strange Savior complex that naturally came along with the profession of being a teacher, and took it upon themselves to somewhat become your parent figure. They cajoled you with treats, but in your mind, you were being fattened up like pig, ready to be slaughtered. And it didn't take long for them to give up on you; you didn't answer their questions, and when you did, you spoke curtly and shortly.

("What did you eat today?"

"I didn't eat."

"Aw, why not?"