Know Me

Chapter Two

My feelings of light happiness lasted until the moment I turned my key in the front door of my home to be greeted by the stony face of my father.

"Hi Dad," I quietly said, hunching my shoulders in toward my chest slightly.

"How was the tutoring session?" he asked immediately, evidently ignoring my greeting.
I sucked in a quick breath. I had been rehearsing what I was going to tell my father when he asked, acutely aware of how vital it was that the fact that my new professor had two hybrids remain unknown to him. Even further, that I had walked and talked with a hybrid, laughed with him, agreed to become his friend and couldn't wait to see him again tomorrow. That last thought surprised me a little along with the little jolt of excitement it brought.

I cleared my throat. "Professor Kim is an excellent tutor and I know his lessons will greatly benefit me and boost my grade score." I spoke in as sure and confident a voice as I could muster, forcing myself to meet my father in the eye. I had carefully chosen my words, knowing that they would be exactly what he would be wanting to hear and hopefully deliver enough information without prompting him to ask too many follow up questions.
His mouth quirked in a little smile, making me blow out a tiny sigh of relief that my answer had seemingly been effective enough. I made to head up the stairs in the direction of my bedroom, but he held out a hand to halt me.

"And you left straight afterwards, yes?"

"Yes," I nodded once, nerves bubbling in the pit of my stomach. "Professor Kim invited me to stay for tea but I said I had to leave." I felt like adding this piece of information would go in my favour. But I was wrong.

"What?!" Dad's head whipped around to face me so fast. My mouth went dry with fear. "You should have accepted. Any time that you spend around that professor can only benefit you. Use any opportunity you're presented with to build up a relationship with him, sweet talk him, get on his good side. You're young and pretty, use what you've got for goodness sake!" He yelled, turning to stalk away from me.

I stood frozen at the bottom of the stairs, sickened and disgusted by the implications of what my father had just suggested.

"Next time he asks you to stay, stay. Am I making myself clear, Y/N?" he questioned, he threat evident in his low voice.

I nodded hard and fast. "Yes, Father."

"Good. Now go and study."

I nodded once more and bolted up the stairs into my room, heading straight for my bed, grabbing my pillow and using it to muffle the scream of frustration and upset that I could contain no longer.

Once it was out I felt marginally better. I flipped around to lay on my back staring up at the ceiling. There were dozens of tiny glow in the dark stars stuck to it, a remnant of my childhood days long past. My lips formed a tiny smile as I remembered the day they had been stuck on. My father and mother had painstakingly stuck each star as my older sister and I had handed them from the box one by one.
That was the last clear memory I had of us as a family. That was before my mother and older sister had been tragically killed in an accident when I was ten, leaving me crippled with grief and anxiety and my father bitter and changed.
My father was a wholly different man after that. Where he had once been kind and attentive, he was cold and without affection. He threw himself into his business, burying his grief in numbers and ignoring me entirely. That was until he realised I was falling behind in school.

That was when the control started.

Since then he has micromanaged my education to an extreme degree, determined to see me excel no matter what.

I sighed, getting up from the bed and heading into my bathroom, turning on the shower. Once under the stream of hot water, I told myself to focus on nothing but the feeling of the water pounding down onto my head and shoulders. After a few minutes of this, I reached for my green apple scented shampoo and relaxed into my shower routine.
Once finished, I dried off and dressed comfortably in sweatpants and a baggy T-shirt, sitting down cross legged at my desk and pulling out my homework with a sigh.