Chapter 2
1393 Words
We were stopped at a red light.
My brother finally broke the silence.
"Sonia, what's going on with you? You've had this heavy look on your face ever since we left the restaurant."
I forced a wobbly smile and dodged the question.
"Bro, I want to come home."
My brother hit the brakes with a sharp screech, so hard the whole car jolted. The seatbelt dug hard into my shoulder, and his face lit up like a Christmas tree.
"You finally want to come home? For real? That's amazing! I'll text Mom and Dad right now. And I'll tell the housekeeper to redo your room properly, get it all nice and cozy for you.
"Just let me know if you want anything specific in there, yeah? I'll pass it straight to her."
He kept chattering nonstop as he pulled back onto the road.
"Oh, right! When do you want to move back?"
"Today. Is that too soon? I don't want to be a hassle for you guys."
I looked over at him, twisting my fingers nervously in my lap.
He reached over and ruffled my hair, that soft, indulgent grin on his face.
"Silly girl, what are you even talking about? Family coming home is never a hassle. Never. Just relax, okay? We've got you. Wait, should we let that jerk Andre know?"
I shook my head gently. "No, it's fine. It's no big deal, no need to bother Andre. I don't want Cindy to get the wrong idea."
My brother nodded in agreement, then rambled on about all the soft furnishings he could pick out for my room, sounding like he'd been waiting for this day forever.
I turned my face to the window, swiping the tears off my cheeks before he could see them.
The trees blurred past outside, and a distant memory bubbled up. I'd ridden to the Carlson family's house in weather just like this, some years ago.
When I was three, a scruffy old beggar turned up at our front door. After Mom fed him a warm meal, he looked at her with this weird, knowing expression and said,
"If you want your daughter to live to adulthood, you have to send her far away from you, far from all her immediate family. If you don't, she'll die before she turns ten."
My parents didn't buy it at first, but right after my third birthday, I started getting sick all the time.
The worst time, the hospital even handed them a critical condition notice, telling them to prepare for the worst.
That's when my brother had a brainstorm and reminded our parents of what the old beggar had said. They thought about it for ages, and finally decided it was better to be safe than sorry.
So they sent me to live with their close friend in the next city.
The Carlson's family, Andre's family.
And that's where I lived for the next fifteen years.
When the car pulled up in front of the Carlson family's hillside villa, the tear tracks on my face had long dried, and my brother hadn't noticed a thing.
I hopped out of the car, forcing a casual, carefree tone.
"Wait for me a second, bro. I just need to grab my stuff, I'll be super quick."
The villa's front garden was a total mess.
Workers were buzzing around, hammering and hauling, hurrying to get their jobs done.
When the Carlson family's butler saw me show up out of the blue, his face twisted into an awkward grimace.
"Miss Sonia. What are you doing back so early?"
I was confused at first, until I spotted all my luggage dumped in a messy heap by the storage room door.
The butler rushed to explain, "Andre said to move you to the east wing room. That room isn't ready yet, so we left your things there for the time being. You go rest first. I'll have the staff speed up the cleaning right away."
I thought I'd numbed my heart enough not to feel anything anymore, but a sharp, stabbing pain sliced right through my chest all the same.
I gave a bitter, weak smile. "It's fine."
'What was the point of taking it out on these workers anyway?'
I shook off the sting, bent down, and started picking up my things one after the other.
I tucked all my important documents into my suitcase.
The clatter and shouting from the garden below drifted in every now and then. Eventually, I couldn't hold the question any longer.
"Why are you renovating all of a sudden?"
The butler answered respectfully, "Andre said the family's got a happy event coming up soon. His future wife loves lilies of the valley.
"So we need to move all the unimportant stuff out as soon as possible to make space for the flowers, you know?
"We ordered the lilies of the valley from abroad bright and early yesterday. They're arriving this afternoon. Super delicate and expensive stuff."
My mind went completely blank. I froze where I was, reeling.
'I only loved tulips.'
I'd brought it up to Andre so many times, how badly I wanted a whole patch of tulips planted in the garden.
Every single time, Andre either frowned and said it was too much hassle, or brushed me off and told me to talk to the butler about it if I cared that much.
Living under someone else's roof, I could never bring myself to ask for something so frivolous, something that had nothing to do with basic food, clothes, or shelter.
But lilies of the valley? They were a hundred times more high-maintenance than tulips.
So it wasn't that it was too much trouble. It just depended on whether he cared enough to bother.
When I finished packing everything else, only a pile of things tied to Andre was left.
There was the pile of 9,999 origami cranes he'd gifted me once.
Our first photo together, we'd made sure not to stand too close or act affectionate, terrified Andre's parents would catch on to what was between us.
The coral specimen he'd picked up on his first deep sea dive when he turned eighteen. He'd told me back then that he wanted us to have so many more firsts together, that he only wanted to experience all the wonders of the world with me by his side.
Unbidden, the memory of last night in the bedroom flashed through my head. Him murmuring sweet nothings and coaxing me into "one more time".
It turned my stomach, more sickening than any cheesy soap opera I'd ever forced myself to watch.
I'd been curled up in his arms then, asking when he'd tell both our families about us.
He'd said soon.
And that "soon" ended up being this very day, when I found myself sitting across from his real girlfriend at that restaurant dinner.
Plop. Plop.
More hot tears spilled down my cheeks before I could stop them.
The butler hovering nearby leaned in carefully, voice soft with concern. "Miss Sonia, are you alright? The east room has the same layout as this one, and gets just as much sunlight too. It's just been empty for a while, so it's a little dusty, that's all.
"If there's anything you don't like about it, just say the word. If Andre comes back and finds we didn't do a good job, he'll chew us out for sure."
I shook my head. "No need. I'm going back to my family's home for a few days."
The butler let out a quiet sigh of relief.
I hefted my suitcase up, then jerked my chin toward the pile of things by the door.
"All of these, throw them out for me, will you?"
The butler's eyes went wide, clearly confused by the request.
But he nodded and agreed anyway.
Fifteen years of living with the Carlson family, and I finally said goodbye to all of it today.
My brother had been slouched in the driver's seat scrolling through his phone, but the second he spotted me walking out of the Carlson house, he jumped right out to take my suitcase from me.
"You are sure you don't wanna stay a few more days?" he asked.
I glanced over my shoulder at the Carlson mansion a few meters away, huffed a bitter laugh, and answered, "Nah."
- Writer
