The Lovely Death of Nicole V.

DEX

"You can't raise farm animals, dad", to Dex dinner was just pure fun "You don't know the first thing about kettle or chickens or pigs. You would probably feed one to the other."

Nicole smiled, just to the corner of the lip. School was tough again, but her baby brother had that effect on her. 

"You keep talking to me like that, I'm gonna feed you to the kettle" William said, laughing out loud.

Little Dex V. is one of those people you'd have to know to truly understand what he is about. At the age of seven, he had already seen, known and tasted plenty of the bad side of life. Yet, he was a full breath of delicious wonder. 

When they lived in the Capital, Dex was remarkable, but never due to his efforts. He was just as lazy as he was outstanding. Dex was amazing because everybody wanted him to be. The smartest children in the class would teach him all the lessons he needed to know, so he was always top of the class. The shy little boys would trust him and ask him for his company. And everyone, everywhere, just loved the sight of him smiling, so most of people didn't mind losing some games to him. Some even did it on purpose.

Nicole understood it clearly. Dex was a piece of love and cotton candy walking around the world, just pretending to be human.

Changing cities had a particularly magnetic effect over him. The boys on his class now listen to Dex's stories of the Capital as if they are the precious secret of a magical tale. The girls of his year all cling around Dex during lunch, just to hear his jokes. They aren't even funny jokes, but he tells them in his own way, and that's good enough to laugh.

Nicole watched all of that with a careful and affectionate eye. Her brother was one of the best things about being her. Throughout the worst of days, listening to his wandering imagination and his overly designed dreams was all that kept her whole.

"Well, Ines won't come home anymore.", William kept on saying "Nicole will soon be taking off to college too. I figured I need to find something to do. I want to end my life in some nowhere land."

"I'm still here, you mummy. And I don't wanna live in some nowhere land.", her brother replied.

"You'd probably get along with the kettle better than me.", their father decided to be funny.

"That's no reason for moving again."

"We're not moving yet. I'm just thinking about this. I could use some calmness from now on."

Because after all Nicole has done, we need the peace. He didn't say it. But she heard it in her mind.

"You're so quiet now, love" her father said as he reached out a hand to touch her elbow "Do you think this is foolish of me too?"

Guilt was a corrosive mess, and it was the only certainty in her life. For three years now, she felt guilty everyday. He could use some calmness and farm animals in his life, because he is exhausted of dealing with the human animals and the endless road of my mistakes. Sorry, Dex.

She could feel her temple trembling and her lip twiching and her eyes fading. Take control, Nicole. You will not cry. She accepted to move because she knew it would be better for her father, because it would help him put what happened in the past. If she started crying over dinner, he and Dex would go back to sadness in less than a blink. They don't have to see you like that again. No, not tonight.

"I think Dex is a master of wisdom" she pulled the ends of her mouth up, a smile no one could question "You should listen to him without a thought."

She was a statue of happiness, and nobody would doubt it.

"You can't truly believe this works." said the deep sultry voice of Death. He came unannounced and uninvited, as he always did, and he was invisible to everybody but Nicole "Look at your father's eyes. He wants to believe in you, but he doesn't. Don't you see?"