Theo

Work.

Work is my hell.

It also happens to be the only thing my life revolves around.

I always knew I would end up in the devil's palace one way or another; I just didn't expect to live the entirety of my life in it.

Taking over the family business soon meant I had to devote all of my time to a job I didn't want. A job that took away all of the freedom I had left in life.

Every, damn, second of my life had been devoted to becoming the perfect leader; devoted to taking my father's place.

Ever since I was a child- while other children learned to ride bikes, make mud-pies, and play with toys- I was constantly being moved around the country, having to watch my father work.

Now, the only difference was: I no longer just watched him.

It had never been my choice, and no one had ever cared enough to ask if it was what I wanted.

It wasn't.

It was just something that had to happen. I didn't get any say in it.

I had a younger sister, Ivy. I did everything in my power to make sure nothing happened to her.

That our father wouldn't ever lay a finger on her. She would get the freedom I never had the chance to taste. She got to be and got to have everything I couldn't.

I took all of the business responsibilities so that our father wouldn't ask Ivy to do anything.

I had to take the role of Ivy's guardian. It was another stress added to me as a child since Ivy was born when I was 5.

I had taken care of her since then. It was stress, but I had never deemed it a burden.

I was expected to be my father, but I will throw myself off of a building the moment someone finds a similarity between the two of us.

I had grown up watching the way my father treated other people. The way he treated me. My mother. Ivy. The people who worked for him.

It was revolting.

I had to make sure he was present when my father and mother got into arguments so that when my father got physical, he would hurt me instead of my mother.

On those days, I had to lock Ivy in my bathroom. Keeping her away from the devil we called father.

I was never brave enough to hit back, but I was brave enough to take it. Now, if that motherfucker even looks at me wrong, I don't care. I am at a point in life where if he hits me, I can hit back and inflict more pain than he can.

That was the biggest reason why I hated going to a boarding school. I had to be away from my mother, which meant I wasn't able to protect her.

Luckily, Ivy went to school with me, so I didn't have to worry about her.

My parents are the reason I didn't believe in love for a long time. I still kind of don't. I never had a true example of what "love" was.

I was sure I had felt it, to some extent. I just didn't know how it was supposed to look.

I was sure my mother never loved my father. If she did, she fell out of it quickly.

She was with him for the money. And even though- I knew she loved me and Ivy- she didn't love us enough. I didn't mind- or I tried to not mind.

I knew Ivy did.

She always wanted our family to be conventional, and for a long time, I spent my days wondering how to show her that our family was anything and everything but conventional.

I never had my dad around to teach me how to ride a bike. My father was always too drunk, too busy, or just not there.

He was never there for Ivy, either. I taught her how to ride a bike, how to use tools.

I never had much of a mother either. She spent her days going to country clubs, book clubs, or tea lunches.

I taught Ivy how to cook, how to clean, and I let her practice doing hair, make-up, and nails, on me.

We never had family dinners.

I don't understand why Ivy is still so obsessed with having our parents be present when I had been the one to raise her.

Whenever I think about my childhood, I assume my dad had some love for my mother, but it was not romantic.

My father was more in love with the idea of having a pretty woman on his arm who was submissive and didn't ever argue with him. That was not love.

My father loved Ivy, now.

She was an independent artist who sold her work for millions. My father called her a true Black family child.

He praised her. Came to her shows. Bought artwork from her and hung it proudly on his walls. There were even a few on the walls of our offices.

She had managed to form a somewhat cohesive relationship with all of us.

I would see my parents twice a month when I went to family dinner at Ivy's place.

We sat down around her dark wood table, mother sharing gossip, father talking about business, and Ivy talking about her projects.

I didn't talk much during those dinners. I felt out of place amongst my own family.

I only went because I could finally give something to my sister. Why did she still care so much for them?

I always left those dinners feeling alone.

It was a feeling I had grown very used to. I made the choice to distance myself from the family so I couldn't complain that loneliness had been my only company for a long time. It was a toxic relationship that I chose to stay in.

Loneliness came in all sorts of forms, each one soothing you while taking so much away from you. It soothes your soul but takes from your heart. I can't explain why I found it so hard to allow myself to not tense, still, around my family. I guess when you get so used to wanting to be away from something, it makes it difficult to even pretend like you want to be there.

I've never struggled to have people around me. I've always had friends, but only a few genuinely meant something to me. The rest were just there because of the hollow relationships we'd made because of our families. My only issue in any relationship has always been opening up. I guess I just always pushed them away before we got to that point or I avoided talking about those things.

It was something that turned into a reflex, in a way; pushing people away so I wouldn't get hurt.

And as bad as it sounds, those are the people I remembered most. The people I pushed away. If I cared enough to push them away, then that meant they were somewhat important to me.

There's a certain point in every relationship that naturally casts a spell on you. The moment when that person is no longer a stranger you once struggled to make small talk with. The person you'd turn to for any big favor. There are only a few people you ever truly reach that point with. 

The friendships that had reached this point, I can now admit, had once overwhelmed me. I can look back and admit that I was a fucking asshole for pushing them away. I was young, dealing with shit that I didn't know how to put into words. We all run from sentences that make reality touch us and I can't blame myself.

The one that's stuck with me is a girl from high school.

She was, to me, pretty damn important. What's worse is that I don't know if I pushed her away or if she chose to leave, but she left. I hardly think about it now, but when I do, I think about what I would do differently. 

She was the kind of person you could spend one night with and never forget it. She just had that weird fucking magic touch type of presence. The kind of person who's like ink that seems to never wash off. 

I know because I had spent so many nights with her that she was, now, forever ingrained in my mind. She had stained me and no matter how much I wish for it, it never fucking goes away.

Her name was Stella and it never sat right on her. People wear their names like clothes. I've met so many people, good or bad, where I learn their names and I immediately think, "that makes so much sense," but her name never fit her. She didn't really like it either. 

Sometimes, I would say it over and over, in every goddamn sentence, not only to annoy her but because I loved the sound and the feel of it leaving my mouth. Really, I think I just liked that it belonged to her.

We were both so different from each other. From the way that we stood, my posture tall and hers with her shoulders always hunched a little bit, to the way that we spoke. And yet, sometimes I'd look at her and find so many similarities that it startled me. 

Sometimes, I swear she was probably crazy. Not literally but because the stuff she'd drag me into was stuff I would have never done on my own. 

She probably saw me as just another guy from our boarding school. I don't know why she talked to me the way she did, but I was always glad about it. 

We were both right and wrong in every way.

She once made me sneak out at 3 in the morning because she swore there was a guy who sold vintage records; there was no guy and she didn't even have a record player. She was kind, even to people who were blatantly rude to her. And she was so closed off about what mattered and so open about what didn't.

She was so distant and difficult to read.

She was a product of the shitty life she had been given. If you paid close enough attention, you could just tell by her mannerisms. She flinched when you raised your hand close to her, she got quiet if you raised your voice slightly, and she would never directly look at you and say something was wrong.

I don't think I ever knew how to talk to her. I'd watch her interact with our other friends and then I'd watch her be this completely different person when it was just us. I think I liked that she trusted me so much. She'd argue with me over chocolate and vanilla, remember things like what kind of candy I hated, and she'd be the first person to look at me and tell me I was being an asshole.

We weren't perfect, but we weren't perfect together. I had close guy friends but I'd always preferred my relationship with her because with her I didn't have to be some rich douchebag's son.

She was a year younger than me, but she was in the same grade as me. So, clearly, she was smart as fuck. 

No one knew who she was when she first got there. We had never heard of her or her family, and at the school, we went to, that was what was most important: how many people knew your name. For some reason, it was so hard to believe that she was at the school just to fucking to be at school. It's hard to acknowledge privilege until you watch it in action. For us, the best boarding school in Connecticut was just something we had to do but for her, it was something she got to do.

She treated it that way too. She was younger than all of us but she was better at school than most of us. 

No one really cared for her. A few people would talk about her but other than that, she was left alone. Sometimes, I thought that maybe if she had made more of an effort to talk to people, she would've fit in better but she didn't try. Later, it became name-calling behind her back, thinking she wouldn't hear, but she did and you could tell by the way she constantly looked like she wanted to disappear. 

I had her in a few classes and we'd occasionally cross paths but since my friends happened to be part of the people who talked about her, I never talked to her. I know it was wrong, I had enough authority to be a better person but I was an idiot and I didn't do anything.

Then, one day, we got paired together for a project.

I jokingly whispered that I wanted to switch in front of the whole class. All of the kids in the class laughed, and she just rolled her eyes, not making eye contact with me.

It was an asshole thing to do and in reality, I was curious. 

She hardly spoke unless she was answering questions in class or talking to the few people who she seemed to be close to. She constantly had bags and dark circles under her eyes. Her hair was always in a low bun that was always falling out. And she had a slight drawl to the way she spoke.

I suggested meeting me at the library for the project, and she murmured a response.

I didn't know what I expected from her. I expected her to be shy and quiet. The type of person who wouldn't let me do any work for the project because they thought I would mess it up. 

I knew she wasn't stupid. You didn't just get into a prestigious school without having the brains needed.

When we met up, she had already made a plan. I just nodded along when she spoke, barely paying attention to her. Then, she looked me square in the eyes and said, "Don't think you can get an easy grade on this, pretty boy. " Her tone was annoyed and sarcastic like she couldn't wait until she could leave my presence.

I raised an eyebrow at her, a slight grin on my lips, and said, "You think I'm pretty?"

She scoffed and said, "I definitely don't."

"No?" I had asked with false hurt.

"What? Do you want me to lie to you?" she asked, continuing the charade.

"I know plenty of people who would disagree with you," I had told her.

"Would they disagree because they truly believed it, or would they disagree because you paid them to disagree?" She retorted.

She was nothing like I had expected. She was funny, she called me out on my shit, and she'd tell me if something I was doing looked terrible. I'd noticed early on that I was the type of person that made people be careful with how they talked to me but she had no regard for that. 

I was the only person who knew how blunt she was. How unbothered she seemed on the outside, but deep down, she cared about what everyone said. It made me feel like I was part of something hidden.

She was like a breath of fresh air. I had never met someone like her, and I wasn't sure I ever would. I just liked talking to her.

So, I paid attention to every detail about her. Her subtle accent, her freckles, how her eyes looked so dark when they were inside, but as soon as any light directly hit them, they resembled gold.

Sometimes, in class, when she spoke, I would stare at the way her mouth moved.

Maybe for more reasons than I would like to admit.

I made her annoyed with how much I followed her around. 

I could have listened to her speak for hours and never gotten tired. I liked the way she saw everything, and the way she stated things. 

Originally, I just spoke to her when I saw her but soon I started including her in conversations I was having even when she didn't have anything to say, then more people started talking to her and inviting her to things. It made it easier for me to spend time with her. 

She became my closest friend. I don't know when the shift happened but over time, we just naturally grew closer until it just felt normal to meet her after every class and always have her in my dorm making it messy, and by then, my friends had turned into her friends. 

In a way, she was, I guess, my first real best friend. The first person I'd talk to about things that had weighed me down for years. I didn't tell her everything but I told her as much as I was capable of. She never once looked at me with pity, she made me feel normal and in some way, that healed me.  She had met my family, my mom, and my sister loved her; she never went home for breaks, always saying her family didn't celebrate so, I started convincing her to go home with me. It took a while to convince my mom that we were just friends, but soon she became an extension of my family. 

We stayed friends for all four years of high school. 

She started going by her middle name- Nova and it fit her better. She dated a few guys, made her own friends, and we grew into our own people but somehow, we still fit the same way. 

And in our senior year, she got into Harvard.

She came to my dorm room crying that night. I thought she was crying because she didn't get in and I was terrified because I had never consoled any crying person besides my sister, but she stood at my doorway, tears staining her cheeks while trying to get words out. I stood there awkwardly, and she handed me the envelope, I opened it and when I read the first word: CONGRATULATIONS!, I couldn't help my smile. 

She wrapped her arms around me and I went a little rigid before letting the rest of her weight fall on me by wrapping my arms around her. "I'm proud of you, Scott," I said. It was true. The truest thing I could've said at that moment.

I don't know why her hugging me felt so foreign. We had never been this close before. I had never held anyone this way, with their entire weight resting between my arms. My chest tensed until she pulled back and it tensed again when I saw her full smile.

We both recovered from the moment of shock, my arms unraveled from her and went to her shoulders, still keeping her close, laughed a little, and said, "I honestly didn't think they'd take you." 

She rolled her eyes, her smile still big, and pushed my shoulder slightly. We stood there a little longer, her telling me her own reaction to the letter. 

Then, right before she left, she hugged me again, but this time, rose to her toes and kissed me lightly on the cheek. "You're the only person who's said you were proud of me in a while," she said with a soft smile. I felt starstruck. 

I couldn't figure out why I felt so shaken. I had kissed other girls, but a small kiss on the cheek from her left me in some sort of trance. 

A week later, I got into oxford. I told her before I told anyone else, not expecting a reaction but, she jumped up and down, more excited than I was and she got me a small vanilla cake (knowing I prefer chocolate) and said, "I'm so proud of you, Theo," the same way I had. 

It was a rare sentence to me. 

I froze.

I looked her in the eyes hoping that she wasn't joking around. Just repeating words. 

She looked confused by my reaction, so I smiled and thanked her. 

When she handed me a piece of cake, I said, "It's not that big of a deal." because it wasn't. Practically everyone in my family had gone to oxford.

She smacked my arm and said, "Theo Greyson Black, shut up for once, and eat the damn cake."

I did.

It was a bad cake because it wasn't chocolate, but I didn't tell her because she looked so happy for me. I think that was one of those moments when realized how much someone else cared for me.

Someone genuinely cared for me, and It felt good. 

That feeling wasn't unfamiliar to me anymore. It hadn't been for as long as I'd known her. 

I wondered if that's why I liked her. Either way, I think the younger me who had sat through those stupid assemblies where they remind you that people care, I wouldn't question it. 

It was stupid.

I didn't care.

I wanted to kiss her that night. Not the same way she had kissed me. I wanted to kiss her lips until they were bruised. I wanted to kiss down her neck until I found where she was most sensitive, across her collarbone, and down her chest. I wanted to find all of her freckles. I wanted to hold her against the wall and make her squirm with my touch.

It wasn't the first time I had thought about doing those things to her.

But it would have made everything too complicated, so I didn't do any of them. I don't think she would've wanted me to. 

It was the last chance I ever got.

I didn't see her for a few days after that. I went home that weekend and had gotten into a big fight with my father. He was drunk and I was done with putting up with him so when he yelled at me, I yelled back and things got physical. I shouldn't have let it affect me the way it did but I did. I got drunk at parties, got into more fights than needed, and I avoided talking to people who mattered. 

The next time I went home, things got worse. My father couldn't take that