Chapter 25: Fire At Will

And so a few hours later, Will returned home in the early evening from his rather casual meeting with Sarah and a couple of his other friends. After they had all met up for their late lunch, they walked for quite some time, near the edge of the river, talking & getting to know Sarah better. He actually felt much more open around her in that kind of setting. A large, beautiful sun was just starting to settle on the horizon as Will came home.

He walked inside through the front door past the living room. As he came in, he found his mother in the dining room, sitting at the table drinking tea

"Do tell me of your latest meeting with Sarah." She requested. As he saw no harm in it, he paused and sat down.

"So," she asked, raising her tea to her lips, "how was your time together?" She drank, and Will had a split second to create a convincing reply.

"Lovely, thank you." He nodded, hoping she would ignore his anxious eyes. "We connected a bit, actually. Being away from home made me more at ease." But that wasn't enough. Now he had to lie. "We're very excited for next year."

"Really?" She tilted her head, intrigued.

"Oh, yes." He smoothly lied, wearing a large nervous smile. "I know I haven't shown it, but i'm quite enamored with her, given how attractive she is."

That sounded realistic, right? Convincing her was really important...

"Is that so?" She set down her tea.

She believed that, didn't she?

"Absolutely. Still waters running deep, if you will."

"So this is a good match, yes?"

Didn't she?...

"Indeed; a fine match, in fact." He smiled, his feigned heterosexuality practiced and rehearsed.

"A fine match." She echoed, then paused. "Hmm. I don't believe you."

"I'm--sorry?" Will's voice twitched slightly as his nerves took over. That did not sound good. Did she try and corner Augustus while he was out? Ask him inappropriate questions?

"I don't believe you." she repeated.

He laughed a little, anxiously.

"Why?"

She stared him dead in the face and held something up.

His journal.

Yes, the brown leather book with the little strapped lock he'd been keeping since Christmas, was now in her clutches. The one he'd started before Augustus was even living with him.

Which had just about every single detail of their relationship.

From when he started having strong feelings...his disinterest in Sarah...the drawing he made at the river! Their first kiss! Countless interludes and affections no one else had ever known about or noticed were now on display for both his parents to judge.

Making matters worse, he had spent both sides of three pages describing the night of his birthday, with a mere four paragraphs describing the party itself, and only a few lines about seeing Sarah. Everything else concerned details about their first time. Yes, he decided, that was the worst one of them all.

For the love of God, his mother didn't need to read about that! She wouldn't want to know about that, would she? If she didn't, why would she keep reading anyway?

He began to panic, thinking about what she must've read, which parts she hated the most. Which ones humiliated him the most now that they had seen it.

He had secretly been so proud of his relationship, because keeping it wasn't always easy, but it made them strong. He was proud to write about it as well; their time together was crystallized in perfect reflective detail. It easily conveyed how much they loved each other and the intensity of everything they had shared. And above all, their relationship was worth it.

This all felt cheapened to him now, due to her prying. And his father was in on it too; he was sure. He was horrified.

The tightness surging through his chest convinced him, just for a moment, that his heart stopped beating.

"That's...not yours." He finally choked out.

He leaned over and reached for it. So much comfort, so much privacy, so much honestly, ripped away from him due to her being so heavy-handed. He simply wanted her to go away. But he know his mother, and knew she wouldn't move until she had properly ranted at him.

She pulled it away.

"It is now." She coldly replied.

She leaned in far too closely. Her unpleasantly angular face held judging, dark eyes and a stern scowl, radiating her antagonistic temperament.

She leaped from her chair and seized his arm. Will felt her bony fingers press into him, like she had to control his very flesh. His heavy chair clattered to the floor and she didn't even care.

The tightness in his chest surged again when she mercilessly dragged him across the dining room. She was only a few inches taller than him, but somehow she was able to drag him around at her whim. He nearly had the wind knocked out of him when she furiously flung him away from her, shoving him into a chair in the living room. She was absolutely revolted.

"Francis!" She stiffly barked over her shoulder to join them. "He's back."

"Was quite the read. Could hardly put it down." His father gruffly muttered; sauntering into the room as if he were there to usher in the exact moment of impending disaster.

"You should have!" Will sharply insisted. "Seeing as it's not yours."

"I knew it." Margaret growled at Francis as he approached them. "I knew it, and I told you!"

Will's eyes went wide. "You...knew?"

"What can I say; call it women's intuition." She shot back, rolling her eyes.

She vented presently, pacing back and forth, full of indignation as she lectured her son.

"What in God's name is wrong with you?! It's absolute filth; entry after entry full of indulgences you call 'love'." She angrily spat.

She stood up straight, staring him down. "You young people have no sense of moral duty. Or a sense of pride in one's family name. And the poisonous thoughts your beloved Uncle has put in your head? My God, child, have you no shame of any kind?"

"This bizarre obsession with what you call 'love,' " she said haughtily, giving him no chance to speak, "is nothing more than repulsive nonsense. You obviously don't understand love."

Because your marriage is going smashingly. He thought.

"I--"

"I'm not done! How could you do this to us?!"

"What makes this about you?" He shot back, a less obscene version of his desired response.

She snorted in derision at his question: "You're doing this to our family."

"I haven't done a single thing to any of you." Will huffed defiantly, sitting back in his chair. Why did he have to keep defending himself? He hadn't done anything to them.

"You've apparently done plenty of things to him." His father rudely muttered, face reddened with disgust while his eyes burned.

Will looked away from them both, anger surging through him so hard his hands began to shake. He refused to let his father think he'd gotten to him at all. He would fight for that kind of power any way he could.

Margaret, true to form, continued to make everything about her:

"Acting like this in my own home?! How could you do this to me?!"

"But I did nothing to you!" He shot back with twice the confidence, banging a fist on the arm of his chair. 'This had no effect on you before; you didn't even care what I did 'til you decided to promptly stick your nose where it does not belong."

"We absolutely care what you do!" She raged. "That's my point! This is against our way of life and everything we stand for. It is the principle that concerns me." She replied with a stony glare.

"But how is what I do a consequence for your life?"

"Your obscenity is a clear debasement of our values. A lack of morals means a compromised reputation. That hinders what we need to survive. Apparently, you don't even care about what other people think!"

"And why should I care?" Will demanded. "It's exhausting! And what do I get out of it, exactly? I mean, obviously you care because if people like you, they buy your goods."

His parents were astounded. How could he be so rude--and naive?!

"So that's it, then? I'm hindering your acquisition of more money." Will snapped, fed up.

"Do you think everything we get is free?!" Margaret snapped, leaning into him, grabbing his collar.

"God, you're naive." She whined, shoving him away. "Nothing in this world that truly matters, is free. We all have to accept that and acquire our needs to even survive!"

"So you have obligations to us, including behaviour." She snapped, eyeing him with suspicious disgust.

"Your actions are outrageous! How could you do...that." She bitterly spat, not daring to refer specifically to sex, or even use a tame euphemism like 'sleep with him' "and--and write about it!"

"How could you read about it? If it were so horrible, you could just put it down. Or even." His voice rose, as he glared back at her. "Not look at it in the first place because it's not yours!"

"Complain all you want, but I've told you this so often: we need you! And we can't have you going about like this while you're taking over."

He sprang up from his seat. He'd had enough.

"I'm not 'going about like' anything. Nor am I 'taking' anything 'over'." He grunted, folding his arms against his chest.

"Had you not been rude enough to rifle through something which you do not own, you'd be none the wiser and you'd leave me be. 'Sides, you've done fine without me so far." He pointed out.

"Perhaps you are unable to realise this either, but things aren't going very well for us. Rich people want everything you can give them, but people don't want to travel here in the middle of a PLAGUE!" She cried, slamming his poor journal on a nearby table, in revulsion at every word in it and what it allegedly meant for her life.

"But you know that Lily could do---"

"Enough." She sharply cut him off.

"Oh, no, mother, let's focus on you. Why don't you tell father how you really feel about Lily's work?"

Margaret had to act very quickly. This was no time to make a grand statement about how she felt!

"Stop trying to get out of this! And you know you have your place!"

"But how can you put the Fate of our lives on my shoulders? Am I to bear this entire burden alone? Why can't you do it?"

"We have been doing it." Francis complained, getting annoyed by witnessing this scene. "And we have to pass it on to you."

"But why me?!"

"So ungrateful," Margaret whined as she crossed her arms. "And to think of all we've done for you."

"Like what?!" He glared at them in angered disbelief. "Destroy any privacy I have? Make me miserable? Marry me off as a business deal?"

"You are the one who has behaved badly." His father declared. "We are doing as we should. If you choose to live your life in this way, there will be dire consequences." He warned, his heavy eyes as steady and judging as ever. Despite that he was sitting, he was still somehow looming over him.

Will's resentment burst through the room: "Your love for me is positively overwhelming."

Margaret slapped him and his face stung.

He looked at her, and saw nothing. She didn't love him.

"YOU DON'T CARE ABOUT ME, SO WHY SHOULD I CARE ABOUT YOU!!"

He grabbed the nearest fragile object, his mother's antique glass globe and hurled it at the living room wall as hard as he could, satisfied with seeing thousands of tiny shards break against the wall and blast away, completely destroyed.

He was shaking with anger, sick with content to watch her suffer. He reveled at all the broken glass now littering the floor, and the horrified face of his mother as she knelt down, mourning her loss. Tears streamed from her weakened eyes and he didn't feel one single drop of sympathy or guilt.

It had been a keepsake she'd had for decades.

The last thing her mother gave her before she died.

And he cared just as little about it, as she did him.

Tightness crossed his chest once more. He couldn't breathe. He couldn't think. Their fray had led him into a debilitating panic attack. He ran off.

But he didn't hear the footsteps behind him.

He didn't realise anyone was there.

Until two unsuspecting hands gripped his throat.