Lost Without You

9

Lukas couldn't keep his eyes off of his mother during dinner the next day.

He couldn't understand how she could sit in her chair, like she always did, and act like she had done nothing wrong. She smiled in the same way she had for the past nineteen years. She touched his father the same way.

He was disgusted by the fact that the Major was sitting right next to his mother. Granted, Lukas's father he insisted he sit close to the end of the table but still, it disgusted Lukas.

He hated his mother for it. Lukas hated his father for not being able to keep his mother in his bed. He hated his family.

From where he sat, he could see the Major's hand slip under the table and onto his mother's leg, squeezing gently.

He felt Ana do the same to him as the bile began to rise in his throat. She leaned into him, her lips brushing past his ear, "You need to relax, motek. You look like you are about to rip of someone's head."

Lukas gave her a sweet smile, simply for the look of affect.

"I'll behave." He promised, winking.

Ana continues to lean in to him, whispering, "I know she may be my mother, but it still sickens me. I have never seen my father show emotion towards any woman in my life. It's... he's so different from the man I grew up with."

Lukas nodded. He wished, though, that she had changed the subject instead of continuing on. He also wished that she had taken her hand off his leg as he was her potential brother.

Half brother, but still.

"How are the pancakes? I haven't had pancakes in a long time and I really want some— but only if they are good." She asked, after Lukas had been quiet for some time.

"They are best without the syrup." He muttered before standing up and throwing his napkin on the table.

He couldn't stand to sit at the table anymore. All the emotions he was feeling were beginning to take a hold of him.

He went upstairs, knowing far to well that someone would eventually come after him.

Unfortunately, they had sent his mother— the one person he didn't want to face.

When he was little and upset, she would come to his room and sit on his bed. She would gently run her fingers through his hair until he calmed down.

She was doing exactly that, minus the hair thing.

"What is wrong, liebling? You are in such a bad mood and it worries me." She smoothed back his hair.

"I know, mother. I see the way he looks at you and the way you look at him. You never looked at father like that, and I just don't understand why." He snapped, pulling away from her touch.

His mother's face fell fifty feet, staring with wide eyes, "How..."

"Jenya was in the library when he... She and David put the pieces together. Mother, how could you?" He asked, glaring at her.

All the love he had for his mother had gone out the door the moment he found out.

"How could I?"

"Two children with another man? What happened to any love you had for Father? Nearly twenty years you've been together and you cannot even stay loyal for that long?" Lukas's anger was growing more and more as his mother continued to play the victim.

"Twenty years your father has beaten me. The only time he doesn't is when I am pregnant. Why do you think I had so many children?" His mother asked, her voice shaking.