“We needed help!” His mother’s voice rose to match his, ragged and desperate. “We would have starved?—”
“I would rather have starved!” The truth ripped from his throat.
Tears burned down his cheeks. Twin streaks of weakness he could no longer keep bottled up inside. He hated that after everything, he could still break like this.
“You were supposed to protect me!” His voice shattered. “That’s… That’s what mothers do. That’s the one thing…”
He couldn’t finish.
Eight years of silence, of emptiness, of learning to survive through numbness. It was all coming to the surface, and he didn’t know what to do with so many sharp emotions.
Too much.
He collapsed to the floor, covering his face as he wailed with frustration. Sob after bleating sob. Despite his deeper voice, he was still just a boy. A boy who would never understand how a mother could allow this to happen.
Cold hands grabbed at his arms, forcing him to look at her. “Sweet baby.” Her withered arms pulled him against her hollow frame as they sobbed in a tangle of limbs and grief.
“You let it happen. You said it would stop, but you lied. You’re a liar. Just like him.”
“No, baby. I didn’t mean it.” Apologies tumbled out of her in broken fragments. “I’m sorry, I’m so, so sorry, sweet baby. I wish I was stronger for you. I wish I was better.”
Despite his anger, he hugged her tightly—a little boy desperate for the shelter of a safe adult. Beyond forming words, he let her rock him as he moaned through the pain poisoning his mind.
“Shh—shh—shh…” She stroked his hair and held him tight, the way she used to when he was small enough to fit in her lap. “Mummy’s here.”
“I can’t… I can’t do it anymore,” he sobbed. “I can’t. I can’t. I can’t… I can’t.”
“Shh, baby, don’t think of it anymore. You’re home now.”
He didn’t know how long he stayed like that, crying in his mother’s arms. When he woke up the next morning, he had no recollection of getting off the floor or moving to his room.
They never talked about that moment again.
No resolutions were made, and no promises were left unbroken.
Eventually, he returned to the estate.
None of it mattered. Not his pain. Not his words. And not his tears.
He was powerless.
Just a boy, moving from one prison to another.
Half his life was trapped by poverty. Dripping pipes and distant screams. The scrabble of rats in the walls and the scent of hunger hanging low in the air like a fog that never faded.
The other half of his life hung in a gilded cage, dripping with luxury and privilege, where his screams were the only ones crying out in the night.
After taking his bag to his room, he twisted the gold knob and stood at the threshold. A dizzying chill crawled over his skin as he tried to make sense of what he saw—or didn’t see.
His bookshelves were empty, gaping like a mocking grin of missing teeth.
The table where they’d spent countless hours studying was bare, wiped clean, as if years of lessons had never happened.
Fear sparked inside of him, igniting a brushfire of rage that compelled him down the hall until he was standing in the chancellor’s office.
“Where are Mr. Carrow’s books?”
“Carrow,” the chancellor spat as he finished signing his name to the paperwork on his desk. “That pretentious little worm. I should have fired him years ago.”
