1-25: Lust a Prima Vista

In one fell swoop it became clear to me
That I despise you entirely
But the good news is I'm gonna keep you around
And so your lust is just convenient now

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One Month Later
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"Where are you going?"

Eden looked over at her younger brother, straightening her semblance of a shirt.

"Out. Where do you think that I'm going?"

He looked at her outfit, his face wrinkling in disgust.

"You look like a slut. And you've been out every night for the past week. How are you not dead from alcohol poisoning?"

Eden shrugged a shoulder, taking one last look in the hallway mirror.

"Because I'm not drinking."

He raised an eyebrow at her, going back to playing the Xbox. Eden hadn't been drinking. Much. She'd been doing other things she shouldn't be doing. Like boys, and drugs. She felt like she had regressed. Back to who she had drifted away from so much in the past year. But it was the only thing that kept her mind off of the pain.

 

Lyric's death had left a void in the middle of her chest. It had never quite closed. Her brain went back and forth like a ping pong ball, between changing and letting everything go in a spiraling hole of self destruction.

Scoring in one way or another settled that infinite game. If only for the time being.

When she pulled her car up to the house she had been at so often lately, she thought for a second she recognized one of the guys standing outside, but they vanished before she could get a good look. She climbed out of the car and turned to shut the door.

"Eden? what are you doing here?"

Eden froze at the voice, suspended in the movement, the car door still half open.

Anger quickly overtook the surprise, and she whipped around to face him, her eyes cold.

"I'm not talking to you, Nile.

Crawl back into your deep, dark hole you've been in the last few months, and forget you even saw me."

He looked different. Older? He took a moment to say anything at all to her, his eyes bouncing along her face, her body, the car next to her. When he spoke, his voice was heavy. Full of intent.

"I'm sorry."

Eden shook her head, dropping her eyes to the ground. She felt the tears sting, and it disgusted her. Every single time the emotions swelled enough to make her chest twitch, she just wanted to slam her face into a brick wall.

No matter what she did, they just wouldn't go away.

"Don't."

She made to move past him, but he held a hand out. She stopped right before she ran into it, glaring.

"What the hell could you possibly want, Xavier? Seriously? You haven't spoken to me in months. Do you think I'm going to stand here and have a conversation with you? You wanted out, and that's what you got. 

So move your fucking hand and let me by."

He dropped his hand to his side, and Eden waited with baited breath for any type of response at all. But he didn't seem to have one.

"Thanks."

She mumbled it, taking a few steps away. She didn't hear the rustle of his footsteps, or the heaviness of them. He wasn't following her, but he also wasn't leaving that same spot. She stalled for a few seconds, glancing up at the door to the house. There were a few guys gathered around the outside, and they were staring at her. 

For the first time in weeks, it didn't get her heart going like it usually did. It just made her feel sleazy. Corrupt. She took a deep breath, turning slightly to look over her shoulder.

"I forgive you."

She turned her head back to look at the house and crossed her arms over her chest, collecting her feelings in a little glass piece of her heart.

 "I know no one can handle me. 

And I'm sorry that you tried."

She stopped speaking, the sound of her heels clicking on concrete as she rushed into the house, leaving her emotions behind in the freezing night air.

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"Atticus, put the fucking bottle down. What the hell is wrong with you? Lyric just died and you're sitting here getting piss ass drunk and playing fucking video games. Like this is going to solve all of your problems." Kiara stepped in his line of vision and switched the console off, making him groan loudly.

She had been trying to get Atticus to listen to her for days. 

But all he seemed to want to do was drink himself into a coma and pity himself. 

And Kiara was so far past over it.

"Can you fucking stop? I'm not doing anything wrong."

Kiara looked at him, exasperated. 

"You're fucking drowning your sorrows in a bottle of vodka instead of dealing."

Atticus tipped the bottle back with a snort. He tried to see around Kiara's tall form, but she stepped to the side as he leaned. He tried one more time, finally tossing the controller on the floor and leaning back. He took another drink and when he spoke, his words were so slurred they were hard for her to discern.

"Kiara, you're don't understand what the fuck I'm feeling. I don't want to be around you. And I do not want to be with anyone. I want to drink until my fucking liver rots. Okay?" 

Kiara sighed, taking the bottle from his hands and sitting it on the glass coffee table, where it clinked softly. She grabbed his hand and tugged him to his feet.

"Okay first of all, I don't want to be with you. You're a fucking drunken mess. Maybe if you cleaned the fuck up, I would. But right now... No fucking way. You're all acting like children. You, your twin sister, your dumbass little brother."

 She dropped her hand from his and sighed loudly, biting down on the inside of her cheek.

"Second of all, Atticus, I don't expect you to be okay. It's only been a month. But you need to grow the fuck up and deal with this shit like a normal fucking person. Be an adult. Man the fuck up and deal with your problems.

There is a little baby boy in the room down the fucking hall that only I have been responsible for. He's not even my baby. But he might as well be." 

She put her hands on either side of his face, making his eyes connect with hers. The anger was apparent, but there was a collection of other things there too. Ones she couldn't quite put into words.

"Haven't we all suffered enough? Evein's gone. Mackenzie is gone. Your sister is gone. You can't be next."

She touched a kiss to the corner of his mouth and then she took a step back. 

"When you decide that I'm more important than booze, that Jett is, that you're being a fucking idiot... You know where to find me."

Atticus looked like he wanted to close the distance she had put there. Like the last thing that he wanted was for her to walk out of the room. His eyes fell from hers to the floor and in that moment... He felt like his father. 

Weak, dependent. On a girl. Kiara was his default setting. He hardly knew how to be anything without her. 

In those few seconds as he watched Kiara turn and walk away, he finally knew. He was a reflection of everything his father had been. The world he subsisted in lately was cracked. An upside down version of everything he had tried to be on his own. He'd fought the thought that one person could make him who he was.

Lyric was gone. Kiara was going to stay gone unless he pulled his head out of his ass.


But he couldn't seem to find a reason to do that. She had left anyway. She kept leaving.

He dropped to the chair and lifted the bottle to his lips. The poison burned all the way into his stomach and he heard the crack of the glass when he dropped the empty container onto the table.

Carter always chased Aria down. He always let her go, to come back to her again. His world was darkness and Aria was his light. It was sad, it was pathetic, and it was hopeless.


But it was looking like Atticus' reality too.

"Guess I'm just gonna have to drink this away too. Seems to be working so far."

He grabbed the controller off of the floor and put his feet up on the table. His head spun and his vision was blurry, but he could see enough.

In the end, he was Carter Simon's son.

Through and through. 

But he still didn't have the piece of Carter that made him who he had been in the end. 

What his mother had needed.

"I may be my father, but I'm my mother too."

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"Another family meeting? Didn't we do this like... way too close in time to be having another one now?"

Atticus' drunken voice poured into Eden's ears, bringing her back into the moment. She wasn't sure where exactly her brain had been, but it wasn't here. She looked up at her parents. Carter held Aria in a way that almost made her sick. 

He held her like she was the most important thing in the world. 

Like she hadn't caused him the irreversible damage that she had.

"Yes, well, Atticus. This is actually important."

There was one glaring obvious to the entire situation. One bright botch in the setting that seemed to burn Eden's chest. One absence... 

She brought her eyes to the spot next to her. The one where Lyric had always sat, ever since they were young kids and had attended the first 'Simon family meeting'. Her chest did a flip and she instantly tore her eyes away, settling them back on her father's face.

Something else seemed off though. Besides the fact that they should have never had another one of these things. Not without her baby sister. They weren't a whole family anymore. They could never repair that tear in their dynamic.

This whole thing was a joke.

Eden got to her feet, and Aria's eyes grew sad as they lifted to Eden's face.

"Please don't leave, Eden. I need you to hear this too."

Eden scoffed, crossing her arms over her chest. The look she placed on her mother could have frozen fire.

"What could possibly be so important that you both want to bring to light that one of us is missing in the most realistic way possible?"

Aria's mouth dropped open at her words, and Carter squeezed her shoulder lightly, shaking his head slowly.

"Sit down, Eden."

"No."

Carter let out a sigh, running the hand that wasn't on Aria through his hair.

"Fine.

The reason we asked all of you to be here is complicated. 

And I'm not sure how any of you are going to take it."

He looked from Eden to Cassius to Atticus, dropping his emerald green eyes to the table in front of him.

"You're all going to have a new baby in the family."

It took Eden a second to register what her father had just said. Her eyes narrowed and she turned around, looking at her brothers. Cassius looked strung out, disgusted. Atticus was pale, drunk. Always drunk.

Her family had fallen apart in the aftermath of her baby sister's death. In ways none of them could have anticipated or were prepared for.

And now they were bringing a new child into this mess?

Into the chaos that no one was bothering to fix.

Her chest caught and she turned back to her dad, trying to get words to come out. Trying to explain why this was a horrible idea. Why this shouldn't happen. Couldn't. Why it was the last thing their family needed.

She dug her nails into her skin hard enough to draw blood, but she still didn't wake up. It wasn't a dream.

She uncrossed her arms, took one final glace at her parents, and walked out of the room.

"Fucking perfect."

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