Chapter 2
983 Words
As soon as the enormous mahogany door closes behind him, he wants to turn back and leave.
But he wants to see Harvey. And Harvey would only see him at home. Harvey said he has never come home since the day that he left to live on his own. But what is home? This house was and never will be a home to him. Because a home is supposed to consist of loving parents and undead brothers. Of childhood spent on camping trips, not therapy sessions.
On the insistence of his mother, his growing-up years were spent on trips to the therapist that diagnosed he had PTSD, or post-traumatic stress syndrome, caused by an event from his childhood. Of course, he wanted to forget that. How he had wanted to die, if only to forget all about that. He’s just glad he’s past that phase of his life when all he could think of was the idea of dying.
In order to understand his state of mind, the therapist made him sit on his couch and draw pictures, which he hated. He only knew how to draw stick figures and basketballs, so he just drew stick figures and basketballs all the time.
He also made him look at photos of ink blots that suspiciously looked like… well, blots of ink. And because the therapist would not take cricket sounds for an answer, he just recited the pictures in the alphabet flash cards to please him. Apple, banana, carrot, duck, and so on. He wonders if the therapist ever noticed that.
And that was how he was diagnosed that he had anger issues. Breaking f***ing news.
The cocktail of medicines he was made to drink? Utterly useless. It did nothing to make him forget. Or less angry at least. It did nothing to lessen the nightmares, cold sweats and flashbacks. The flashbacks would terrorize him until it was time for bed again, only to be waken up by nightmares in the middle of the night again, breaking out in cold sweats again. In an endless loop.
A home with a state-of-the-art security system, high-tech electronics, luxurious furniture and European draperies - only the best that money can buy - is just a house, a collection of things.
A home is supposed to evoke nostalgia, feel-good memories.
It is not supposed to fuel his hair-trigger temper.
“You’re still alive?” His father, the charismatic and influential Herman Morello, says in his usual stoic manner. How Herman Morello manages to switch back and forth between his two extremely contrasting personalities is beyond him. He finds it exhausting. Cartoonish at times.
But he prefers to see him this way if there’s no other option. Because it is the true version of him. Ruthless and incapable of any human emotion. Harvey left him no choice. He made him come here.
On the other hand, his mob of oblivious fans and followers only see the best of him, which is, of course, just pure acting. After all, he is the master of deception.
“Funny, I didn’t get hit by a lightning on my way here. Hmm, getting hit by a truck seems more plausible, though,” he says, rubbing his chin, his tone mocking. “And it baffles me to no end that you haven’t sent one of your hitmen after me already if you can’t wait to see me dead.”
“I am not the murderer in this house,” Herman says defiantly.
“Only because you don’t have the guts to pull the trigger yourself,” he spits back.
He didn’t flinch when his father’s palm connected across his cheek.
“Trae!” Harvey calls out from across the expansive room.
His face used to bleed whenever he hurt him. But not today. Old age has caught up with him.
“You hit like a girl,” he says with a ghost of a grin.
“And you’re pathetic.”
If there’s anything good to be said about their relationship as father and son, it is that they don’t have to disguise their hatred for each other. As the platitude says, just be yourself.
Unlike his mom, well, he can’t say anything much about his mom except that he hopes someday she’d grow a spine.
But he came here not for either of them. He came to see Harvey. He’s the only one he cares about in this house.
“Don’t blame me. I didn’t want to spoil your Sunday, but you made me come here.” Trae walks toward his big brother. He says big brother only because he’s older. In terms of physique, he is the bigger brother—taller, more muscular.
Harvey is the spitting image of his mother. Meanwhile, he is his father’s dead-ringer. Every time he looks in the mirror, he is looking at a younger version of the man he hates the most in his life. Suffice it to say, he hates himself.
“You want to go somewhere else?” Harvey asks, his voice apologetic.
Trae feels the heat spread from his neck up to his face. If only Harvey was someone else, he’ll punch him straight into the afterlife. To say he is pissed is putting it lightly.
“You made me come here, which you knew is the last thing I had in mind, and then you have the guts to ask me if I wanted to go somewhere else? What the hell is wrong with you, you agoraphobic freak?” Trae did not try to mask his frustration.
He gives him a sheepish grin. “Come here, little brother.” He slings his arm around Trae’s neck and crumples his hair.
No matter how old or tall they get, it’s always like this between the two of them. It is the closest to physical affection he can get from any of his family.
- Writer
