After relaying
the news and meeting details to Velaria, Arianna left the store and climbed
into her sporty BMW Z4 and headed home. The car was a gift from her father
right after she had gotten her licence. A sharp spike of pain stabbed at her
heart when the thought reminded her that the Lamborghini Gabriel had gotten as
his present was still in the garage, gathering dust that marked the years since
its owner’s passing.
Even though two years had passed, she still felt as if it
was just yesterday that she was standing next to her beloved twin’s coffin, her
slim fingers clutching the steering
wheel so hard that her knuckles turned
white and threatened to damage the leather. The look on his face had been serene;
his lips had been curved in a small smile, even in death he laughed at the
world. Smiling in the face of death. She shook her head to clear it as tears
trickled down unbidden to wet her cheeks. The pain was still as great as the
day he had left, and the wound was still raw despite the years that had passed.
She doubted if she could ever forget the day they put Gabriel into the damp
ground of their family’s necropolis. The sky was blanketed with dark clouds
that were just waiting to burst and shower them with rain. Both her elder
brothers and her sister were there, their heads bowed and faces streaked with
tears, her parents stayed until the Reagent finished the eulogy before they
left to attend their busy schedule, their faces utterly devoid of emotion.What kind of parents just leaves their own
child’s funeral before he’s even in the ground? Can’t you clear your schedule
for just a few hours or did Gabriel mean so little to you? A hard knot of
anger balled up inside her chest and choked the remaining tears that flowed
from her eyes.
Growing up, Gabriel and Arianna didn’t have the luxury of spending quality time with their parents like other children, more often than not, spending time with their parents meant seeing their parents at work and sitting quietly so that they could finish some order or answer a phone call, or so they were told by their secretaries whenever they had to cancel on them; which was almost every day. After some time they didn’t even need to call. They just gave up trying. But that didn’t matter to Gabriel or Arianna as long as Kyrian, Hunter, and Leah were at the dinner table. For as long as she could remember it was these three faces that greeted the both of them in place of their parents, always with that familiar warmth and comforting presence that they’d had since the twins were young.
Together the five of them would exchange stories of their day and joke with each other, the elder ones trying to make up for the absence of their parents and pretending that everything was normal. In truth, they were the only ones whom the twins really considered family. Their parents were mere figureheads, non-existent unless it came to functions which required them to attend as a family. Only then did they emerge from the dim shadows of the twins memories, and for those few hours of the function or event, they were flesh and blood parents that made up their supposedly happy family. After those few hours, they simply faded into the background of the twins’ lives as if they had never existed again.
Although Gabriel’s bright smile was absent from the table now, the tradition had never changed in the slightest. Every day they would sit down for meals together, be it breakfast, tea, or supper, but of course that was entirely depending on everyone’s schedule. As soon as Gabriel’s mahogany coffin touched the ground and the first few clods of earth were thrown on top of the coffin, the clouds burst with a violent thunderclap and everyone ran towards their tinted limousines to escape the rain, leaving Arianna looking up at the sky as the rain seeped through her clothes and grief soaked her bones.
Growing up, Gabriel and Arianna didn’t have the luxury of spending quality time with their parents like other children, more often than not, spending time with their parents meant seeing their parents at work and sitting quietly so that they could finish some order or answer a phone call, or so they were told by their secretaries whenever they had to cancel on them; which was almost every day. After some time they didn’t even need to call. They just gave up trying. But that didn’t matter to Gabriel or Arianna as long as Kyrian, Hunter, and Leah were at the dinner table. For as long as she could remember it was these three faces that greeted the both of them in place of their parents, always with that familiar warmth and comforting presence that they’d had since the twins were young.
Together the five of them would exchange stories of their day and joke with each other, the elder ones trying to make up for the absence of their parents and pretending that everything was normal. In truth, they were the only ones whom the twins really considered family. Their parents were mere figureheads, non-existent unless it came to functions which required them to attend as a family. Only then did they emerge from the dim shadows of the twins memories, and for those few hours of the function or event, they were flesh and blood parents that made up their supposedly happy family. After those few hours, they simply faded into the background of the twins’ lives as if they had never existed again.
Although Gabriel’s bright smile was absent from the table now, the tradition had never changed in the slightest. Every day they would sit down for meals together, be it breakfast, tea, or supper, but of course that was entirely depending on everyone’s schedule. As soon as Gabriel’s mahogany coffin touched the ground and the first few clods of earth were thrown on top of the coffin, the clouds burst with a violent thunderclap and everyone ran towards their tinted limousines to escape the rain, leaving Arianna looking up at the sky as the rain seeped through her clothes and grief soaked her bones.
by S.Dawn & R.Shiori
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