novelraw Chapter 127: Alcohol
Chapter 127: Alcohol
"How often do you plan on going viral?" my mother asked as she watched the video on her phone.
One of the employees from the store had grabbed the security footage of my encounter with those three dark magic users and had released it onto the internet. The video had gone megaviral in less than a day.
"At this rate, you're going to be the most famous teenager in the world. If you're already not," she said as she lowered the phone from her face. The bottom half of her face was still covered but I could see her eyes as they glared at me.
"Mommy, I want to be famous too!" Rubi said as she was chasing Violet around the living room.
Taking my shoes off, I placed them on the rack near the door and shrugged. "I was just there to buy my glasses. I didn't ask to be attacked or for somebody to upload the footage."
"I'm not blaming you," she replied. "I'm just stating a simple fact."
But doesn't asking me how often I "plan" to go viral imply that it's on purpose?
"Although it comes with the territory of being in this family, I wish you weren't so famous so soon and so young. Fame can be dangerous," she sighed. "Even if I try and have our people delete everything about you on the internet, that would only delay the inevitability of its return."
Rubi squealed as Violet darted between the couch and the coffee table.
She leaped into the air and was caught by Eloise, who gave it a few pats before handing it back to her sister.
"Mommy, Violet is a meanie! She likes Elie more than she likes me!"
Violet chirped and slipped out of her hand, zipping around the room before perching on a spot that was out of Rubi's reach.
Violet, don't tease her too much. She might cry.
Violet wasn't actually intimidated or scared of Rubi. She was just messing with my little sister and a part of me wondered if it was because of what it had seen from me. I may've messed with and teased Rubi once… or twice… or maybe it was ten times, in front of Violet.
With a sigh, she placed her phone down on the counter and walked over to the couch, took a seat, and began to watch a show on the television with Eloise by her side, laying her head on our mother's arm.
That's it? Is she not going to continue to lecture me? Scold me for not taking Jerman with me?
Giving me a sideways look, she asked, "Are you confused why I'm not bursting your eardrums?"
I hesitated for a moment but nodded.
"I'm not going to get on your ass just because you were defending yourself. Only when you're the one who is making the decision to jump into danger will I twist your ears."
After telling me that, she turned her attention back to her show.
"Plus, you handled it well. Took care of the danger as soon as possible without getting civilians involved. Your only mistake was treating the man so casually when he was knocked down. You had the luxury of looking at the others while he got up. What if he had some dangerous last-resort tool and used it to harm you?"
"..."
"But… that's just me nitpicking. Good job there, Son."
"Phew," I said, pretending to wipe sweat from my forehead. "I thought I was going to get an hour-long lecture."
"Oh, don't worry," she said calmly. "That part will come later once you make another stupid choice."
"You say that like it's a guarantee I'll be doing that."
"You're your father's son. Isn't that a guarantee?"
I could tell that, although she didn't like it, she was starting to adapt to my name being attached to dangerous articles she would be reading about on the internet.
That realization was probably a very hard pill for her to swallow but since I wouldn't be changing my mind, she had no choice but to force herself to swallow the pill even if it was the most bitter thing she's ever consumed.
Still, I knew her too well. Even though she had a calm and controlled expression at the moment, there had to be some kind of fury that she was hiding exceptionally well from me.
And this fury wasn't aimed at me. It was at them. The people who had attacked me, as well as the organization that they belonged to.
Whatever it was that was going on in her mind, it wasn't good news for the dark magic users.
❖ ❖ ❖
[Grace Hartley]
As I climbed the last set of stairs, the hallway light that the landlord refuses to fix flickered. It had that familiar buzzing sound above my head that was always the first thing to greet me whenever I was home.
Digging for the keys in my pocket, I paused once I got in front of the door that was at the very end of the hallway.
To call my home humble would be an understatement. I lived in a one-bedroom apartment where the walls were so thin that if you pushed your finger hard enough, it would come out of the other side.
We had a single mattress that sat on the floor rather than on a wooden bedframe.
There was a couch in the living room that served as a second bed for when my mother's back acted up and she needed to lie in a strange position to get the proper rest she needed for work the next morning.
Our kitchen was so small that if you tried to open up the fridge and the cabinet at the same time, it would be a recipe for disaster.
Even though I attended the most prestigious academy in the world, no one knew that I lived like this.
After all, even though I wasn't one of the scholarship students who was attending the academy through a program that rewards talented people, one of my father's few gifts for me when I was expelled from the family was that I would still be able to attend the academy that my mother always wanted me to attend.
But other than that, he didn't provide us with any allowance.
It was all my mother who kept me housed and fed.
And this new home of mine couldn't be any more different from the place that I had grown up in.
Back then, our home had three floors. Endless corridors that I could run for hours in. Rooms that I wasn't even allowed to enter unless invited.
There were more maids than my child brain could remember the names of.
Never once in my old home did I have to worry about whether we would have hot water running in the showers or if there would be meat on the table at dinner.
But standing here now with my key halfway inside the lock, I didn't miss it.
Not even a little bit, regardless of how much stuff I had and had access to back then.
The people there were snotty, and a part of me never felt like I belonged. It's the modern day and nobility, although it gives you many privileges, it wasn't like in the old days where you ruled over people and were better than them.
And yet, every single one of them had that mindset that they were better as if the blood in their veins didn't run red just like everyone else.
As long as I had my mother by my side, I didn't care if we lived in a shoebox or had to resort to living in the sewers.
Click.
I turned the key and pushed the door open.
Crash!
Against the wall that was to the right of my head, glass shattered and fragments exploded, scattering across the floor like sharp drops of rain.
I didn't scream at the sudden glass, nor did I even flinch. I had already felt the presence of my mother before I had even entered the apartment.
A few years back, I might've freaked out at this, but I'd learned about the patterns by now.
Another bottle came flying the second the first one hit the ground. Stepping to the side, I caught it midair, fingers crapping around the neck before it could break and sprinkle the floor with more glass shards.
"Grace!" Mother called my name with a cracked voice. "Grace, I'm sorry… I'm sorry that I ruined everything."
A third bottle followed.
I caught that one too.
She was apologizing to me and yet, her actions didn't match her words.
The living room was a mess. There were empty bottles on the table and the entire place reeked of alcohol. The scent had probably already lingered and reeked into the homes of our neighbors.
One of our chairs wasn't at the table but was instead flipped onto its side and was in the middle of the room, indicating that someone had thrown it.
The curtains were already drawn, even though there was still an hour or two of sunlight outside.
My mother stood near the kitchen counter with shaking shoulders. Her hair was a mess and I could see tears pouring down her face.
She's having one of those fits again.
They would appear whenever she had too much alcohol.
"I should've better," she sobbed. "If I were prettier… a little quieter… If I didn't argue so much with his decisions, he wouldn't have abandoned us. Your father wouldn't have thrown us away like we were nothing."
Even as she spoke on different choices she could've made in the past, not once did she blame me.
She blamed herself for allowing her and her daughter to be abandoned, for not being enough to be fought for.
And that somehow hurt more than if she were to put the blame entirely on me, because the truth was that it started with me.
We were expelled because of mistakes that I made as a child.
But even if she didn't blame me, I could tell that she resented me a little, as evidenced by the bottles she threw at me.
This resentment was caused by the time that I had told the truth to her.
"If he loved you, he would've stood up for us!"
"If he loved you, he wouldn't have let them treat us like dirt."
"No Mother! He didn't choose his family, not because he's trying to shield us from the family, but because he's a coward! He chose himself!"
My father is a coward.
He chose to protect his own hide and his reputation and didn't say anything when the decision to exile his wife and daughter was made.
Although I don't regret telling her the truth, I knew that it cut her deeply because I was telling her a truth that she subconsciously knew.
Staggering forward, another apology spilled from her lips, and her knees buckled.
Placing the bottles on the ground, I crossed the room in two steps and wrapped my arms around her before she could fall and hit the ground.
"It's okay, Mother," I whispered, pressing her face against my shoulder. She was cold, frail, and my senses were overwhelmed with the thickness of the alcohol smell. "You're okay. You're okay. I've got you."
The shaking slowed down and a little bit of warmth returned.
As her breathing began to slow down, the entire weight of her body went slack against me as sleep had taken over her.
Lifting her carefully, ignoring the aches in my arms from pushing myself to its limit in preparation for the competition, I carried her into the bedroom.
The mattress creaked as I laid her down softly.
Taking my time to pull the blanket over her, I tucked it around her shoulders the same way that she used to do for me when I was little.
Brushing her hair out of her face, I watched her sleep and said quietly, "Good night, Mother. Have a sweet dream."
Leaning down, I gave her forehead a kiss.
"I'll make your wishes come true very soon."
The picture of Bell Agnus flashed in my mind.