The Cherished

I’m definitely not old enough to be your dad.

I’m afraid I’m not much of a drinker but I’ll stay. I’m a pretty good listener.

You’d be a hot DILF if I had a daddy kink.

The people out there don’t know how to let loose, it’s a shame.

I wouldn’t want it any other way.

Leave it to the one other sensible woman in this bar to know how to make someone forget their problems.

Because I actually took the time to get to know you, Celine. A selfish and spoiled person wouldn’t have taken that promise in the first place– you wouldn’t have given me one of your precious momentos so that I can get by being what I am. You can’t back out now… I’m counting on you to be there until I can be. You think that family is easy? Rainbows and sunshine? No– family is messy, hectic and chaotic, but family is all we have right now. Every one of us is hurting in a different way, coping some way– it doesn’t mean we don’t want you.

You’re not letting Leon’s words hurt you, Ce. You’re letting them fortify the things you think about yourself. You choose to believe them, but there are people who believe differently.

Celine touched the place of her wrist where her charm bracelet used to rest, feeling a profound emptiness she has not experienced in a very long while.  Like a length of rope wrapping around her frame and squeezing the young woman until the oxygen vanished from her veins. “I was wrong to make that promise, Harry, and you were wrong to trust me with it.” Celine spat out weakly, head shaking from side to side, “You may have found a semblance of wanting me, but the others? The fact the twins writes me off or my own younger flesh and blood brother thinks the absolute worst of me isn’t what I call their desire to keep me around.” Leon’s deflection after suffering at a vampire’s hands was justifiable and maybe she was being a brat, but her brother had to know what would happen as a result of anything he’s said. “Consider them fortified because this is me, Harry. Is this the part where you tell me you think differently? That you see the beauty inside me and think I’m okay the way I am or some other bullshit you’ll tell yourself makes you a good person?”

You don’t have to tell me twice. Cheers.

Finally someone in this town who knows how to have a goddamn good time. We’re drinking the entire bar, babe.

At the rate you’re going, you’re just going to end up vomiting instead.

Then you can clean it up and carry me home, Dad.

Celine, you know that’s not what I think of you. Mom told me a bit about Leon– he’s not in a good headspace and will say anything to deflect that hurt he’s feeling and experiencing onto anyone else.

You can’t let what he says get to you.

Why wouldn’t it be? Leon was right, I’m a spoiled and selfish bitch who has been nothing but vile to you and somehow got stuck with a promise that I can’t keep. If they don’t want me, I don’t want them. Not our brothers, not our sister, not our mothers....well, not yours, at least.

We weren’t stupid, we didn’t grow up here and had no notion of vampires and everything else actually exisiting.

Right – I’ll ask Leon and Harry and make them relive their trauma. Or you, who can barely have a conversation without extremely amounts of sarcasm and general lack of seriousness.

Stupid, naïve, they both mean the same thing and nothing changes our situation.

What happened?

Leon called me a self-centered princess who can’t care about anyone but herself. If that’s what you all think of me, then why even try?

“Wow, who would have expected the self-centered princess of the family to actually have a caring bone. Making promises with someone that you didn’t give a shit about before I was kidnapped and then all of a sudden you’re doing everything he wants of you, when I ask for something that could save us all. You couldn’t even care for us when Lukas died and you expect to be what we need now?” Leon seethed through his teeth, his vision growing red as the girl asked what was wrong with him. Like she had forgotten what had happened to him, but that was Celine. Never seeing what was beyond her own narcissistic bubble– not seeing that this wasn’t resentment, this was pure fear of what he knows can happen. “The fuck is wrong with me, I wonder, but then again I guess you’re only going to see what you want to see. Doesn’t matter how I defend myself, even if I tell you what happened to me to get you to understand. I’m somehow the one at fault,” Leon said his furrowed brows, “classic Celine. Before you delude yourself into thinking that you can save anyone, protect anyone, have a good hard look at yourself because you can’t even help yourself. I’m not the one pushing people away, you are.”

This wasn’t her brother. No, her brother died the day he was rescued from that vampire’s clutches and replaced by someone she didn’t recognize. Maybe it was trauma, maybe it was this growing hatred for the supernatural forcing him to say these terrible words with cruelty, but she knew Leon’s sweet disposition and overall nerd aspects diminished entirely. A ringing in her ears left Celine seeing red for the first time in a long while, from everything to her wrath and to his statements. Self-centered princess. Classic Celine, shoving her family to the side for sake of vanity and self-preservation. The airhead who cared for no one but herself. “And you wonder why I never bothered giving a shit about a family who can’t even take me seriously. Who call me selfish or write me off with an eyeroll before ‘classic Celine’  barely leaves their lips. If there was anyone in this shit show we call our siblings who would have stopped for a moment and made an effort to understand, Leon, I thought it would’ve been you, but no, you’re just like the rest of them. Dismissive. Perhaps, that person was actually Lukas and now,” Celine spread her arms in a defeated shrug, “You have made it plain as day turns into night that I have no one just like you do. Oh, and would you look at that, same old Celine making this about herself like the egotistical brat you know her to be.” The next statement came flying out of her mouth before she could consider using the filter, “Maybe you should’ve stayed with Eloise, Leon. Then I would be rid of you for good.”

“He’s one of them!” Leon all but shouted at his older sister. Leon was the quiet one, the studious hard-worker. He was outgoing but not on the level of his sister– and he never shouted at his family. He knew he was no longer the person he was; couldn’t fit in the cookie-cutter mold of ‘perfect Leon’ anymore. Not with what he knew, what was done to him. “He is the safest one out of all of us and you’re worried about him? Wanting to stay in a town where some things hunt humans for sport? What the fuck is wrong with you? With all of you? Lukas is dead. How many more of us need to end up like him?” It felt like he couldn’t breathe– felt like he was screaming underwater while he was running out of breath, “you’re not going to hold your promise very well if you don’t understand the magnitude of the problem and get killed.”

Celine slowly opened her mouth, feeling the outrage trickle from the top of her head to the very soles of her feet, taken for a shock her brother of all people would speak to her in this way. She couldn’t place herself in Leon’s shoes, how months trapped with a vampire can affect your mind in an excruciating fashion, but the fit of fury was unlike anything she’s faced and Celine dated many men who verbally attacked her. “You really think he’s safe with a target on his back, being what he is now? Yes, I’m worried about him, I’m worried for every single person that is left in our family and that includes you, because that is the promise Harry forced me to make. What the fuck is wrong with us, Leon. what the fuck is wrong with you?” The blonde toed a dangerous line of self-destruction, ruining everything in her wake and shutting down completely. She should have held more sympathy, more patience, but she couldn’t feel neither of those emotions in her aggression. “You keep pushing others away and you’ll be the one getting killed. I can’t hold myself to a promise when you’re too consumed by this resentment to get out of your own way, Leon.”

You know that’s exactly what I’m suggesting. It’s either we leave now and survive, or this town will slowly pick us off one by one. Don’t act like this is selfish when staying in this town is selfish when it comes to surviving.

Thanks but your promises don’t mean anything in a town that can break a human like a toothpick. Don’t make a promise on your life that you can’t keep.

I know you suffered through an ordeal and I’m not spitting in the face of your trauma, little brother, but you’re talking about abandoning our step-brother to save ourselves. You realize I wasn’t Harry’s best advocate and I’m the one willing to stay for his sake. 

You know neither of them will leave without Harry, though it’s a terrible idea to stay in this town a day more.

It shouldn’t have happened, even if it was under the guise of saving your life. No one should have that power over another and ultimately strip away their free will. It’s a disgusting violation.

You think I’m suggesting leaving Harry in the dirt? I am selfish, but I’m not that selfish. This town’s holding us hostage.

It’s always predetermined with humans as long as there are supernatural beings around.

No control over your body while your mind is still thinking escape. I hope it never happens to you again. I hope you never have to go through what I did.

We should seriously talk to our moms and scoot scoot the fuck out. Move oceans away.

I’d like to know that, but does it really matter? If it wasn’t me, then it would be someone. Some poor unsuspecting sap of a human who can’t fight back against any sort of compulsion. You felt it first hand.

I guess the reasons aren’t really important now. I’d normally agree that you were a poor unsuspecting sap who couldn’t fight back, but that’s predetermined.

I’m not trying to fool anyone, it’s not as though the whole town doesn’t already know.

Because we live in a town full of supernatural beings. Don’t you think it’s useful to know these sort of things?

Every town has their group of deniers to the truth. Remember how stupid we were?