Agneau à l'abattoir ~Lamb to the slaughter

The way it used to be

I stared at this... this monster; trying to take in why or how he could possibly do such a thing. But my brain refused to accept what stood before me, it tried to rationalize, make excuses, ignore the facts- but in my heart I knew it was true. I cried in rage at my own ignorance. How could I have missed the signs? But worse still was the pain of remembering that it hadn't always been like this.
                               ~~~~

My name is Adrien Agreste, and despite what most people seem to think, I am not the happiest or luckiest boy in Paris. But I wouldn't blame you for thinking that too, I mean who wouldn't want to be me? I have everything any teen could want- a room filled with every entertainment form I could want, the best fencing instructor in all of Paris and hundreds of fans and girls all over France have fallen for my looks- but despite this I am far from feeling happy.

My mother is dead and since her unexpected death my father has drifted further into himself. He has not left our home, not even for the viewings of his new designs; there are days where he doesn't even leave his office. Worse than this though is the knowledge that I can do nothing to draw the old him out. He responds to my jokes with icy silence, never praises my Mandarin or fencing achievements and never even comes to the many photoshoots he sends me to. Do I really resemble my mother so much that he can't bear to see me?

Sometimes I wish that I had had a different life. The one mother told me of about father's childhood, living in an apartment above a cheesemonger's store. According to mother they even spent the first two years of their marriage in that apartment. She spent her days going to audition after audition, sometimes succeeding in obtaining a part in a commercial or theater piece, while father spent time submitting his designs to various clothing industries.

About a year before I was born Father's designs took off and after the young mayor's wife wore a dress made by Gabriel Agreste- well everyone wanted one. Of course my father bought a huge home and intended to make up for the life my mother had married into. Then they settled back to eagerly await my arrival into a world filled with everything I could ever ask for. I was never going to want for anything, I would have a life like my rich cousin Felix, never having to admit that my father was born with no future.

Now that father was famous, mother had no trouble in finding a place in films. Although my parents were always busy and often traveling, I had plenty of  toys to keep me busy and there was always the mayor's daughter, Chloë.
We were a happy family when we were all together; jokes and laughter exchanged at dinner, bedtime stories with mother and my funny drawing attempts hung in father's office. I sometimes wonder if I only imagined father as being funny and full of laughter, if perhaps he has always been so distant and I never noticed because my mother compensated for it. It doesn't matter now though; my mother is dead and since coming back from their vacation in Tibet where she became very ill, my father has never been the man he once was.