Part of the first chapter of this year's Nano Wrimo novel.
Chapter One: Acheros
Acheros Edgerton stood calmly staring out the window of his apartment, his gaze unsettled by the various figures drifting far below his perch. His blue eyes gazed from the behind the protection of his wire rimmed, golden glasses, betraying little of the emotion stirring far beneath the surface. Who was she? He ran a shaking hand through his closely cropped brown hair, smoothing out the creases as they rose beneath his fingertips. So much like She had been. Her face, her features. Even the way she walked. It was exactly as Ro recalled Her. But it couldn’t be. Could it? There was no way it could possibly be Her.
“Ro, are you even listening to me right now?”
Ro cocked his head, tearing his vision from the crowds streaming below his window. His blue eyes led his vision to that of Atticus, his elder brother. Atticus was far more solidly built than Ro, as he was called. At 6’2”, 215 pounds, he was the spitting image of their father. And Ro was envious of that. Perhaps if Ro had looked more like his father, his life could have been different. Better, easier. But he didn’t look like Arthur Edgerton. And his father refused to even mention the features of Karen, Acheros’s mother. It was “too much pain” he had always said. So, Ro didn't know who he resembled in their long family line.
“I’m sorry, say it again.” Ro’s voice was detached, wary. His brother had never spoken more than one kind word to him in a single meeting, and he was no doubt busy lambasting him for another of what was sure to be a heavy offense in his eyes. That was how it had always been. One mistake after another. He could never catch a break with either Atticus or Arthur.
Atticus rolled his big, brown eyes, throwing his arms towards the ceiling in exasperation. “Unbelievable. Brother, you have no idea how much grief you cause me on an average day. I am ashamed to call you part of this family. If it were my place, I’d have you removed, strip you of your name and everything you ever had from this family. But it isn’t my place, and Father thinks too much about the honor we have to put a blight on our record like that.”
Ro let out a long sigh, turning his back once more. He wiped away the condensation gathering on the window, again glancing over the crowd in an effort to locate the mystery woman. The weather outside was dreary, rain fell in droves and the trees were nearly bent sideways from the brisk wind. Dark, ominous clouds denied any remaining hope of a bright ray from the sun, and the air must have been middlingly cold, Ro knew. “Did you have any point other than your hatred for me? You know, I have news of my own I’d like to share, if you’re quite finished.”
Atticus snorted, folding his arms across his chest. “I am not finished, dear brother,” he sneered the words in the exact manner Acheros had always been accustomed to. “Of course I have a point in visiting you, God only knows I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t. Father has asked you to return to the estate back home. I have no idea what he wants from you, but he said it’s urgent, and expects you there within the next few days.”
Ro laughed, the sound foreign even to himself. Since She was gone, everything felt foreign. But his father? What could Arthur possibly expect from his outcast son? An update on his business? A look into how Ro’s finances could benefit the Edgerton name? His father didn’t love him. No one loved him. Not like She had, at least. She had been his world, his only care in all he did. “No doubt he wants to lambast me just as you have. Do you have any idea why I moved away from the two of you?”
Atticus shrugged his shoulders, his head turning to glance at the mess of boxes strewn about Acheros’s makeshift living area at the moment. His gaze was indifferent, as it always was when Acheros was the topic at hand. “No, I can’t think of a single thing.” Ro would have laughed at that, too, had it not been serious. Atticus had never been one to fully grasp reality. He didn’t have the intellect that Acheros possessed. Acheros drifted from the window, his feet carrying his weight on a whim of their own. He passed by a stack of boxes just to the left of the window, and plopped himself carefully down in a soft, cushioned chair he used for business. Letting out a long breath of air, he gazed over the top of his glasses. “You never did quite understand what you did to me. You are barely a brother to me. In fact, you aren’t. We may share the same blood, but in all other facets, you are nothing but an enemy. Long have I loathed you, and Father, for what you put me through as a child. Every little mistake, every small mix up. Even things that were never my fault, always found a way to circle back to me. And you gave me hell for every one of them. You’ve always hated me, and don’t try to deny it. Hated me for something over which I had no power, no ability to control. Mother died after I was born, and my place in the world was immediately determined by you and Father. I would never amount to more than dirt, according to the two of you.”
“Now wait a minute, Ro. That’s--”
Ro held up a single hand, stopping his brother midsentence. “I told you not to deny it. All of it’s true. And I am far from finished. Long have I held my tongue against the two of you. Long have I sat in dejected silence, contemplating just what I did to deserve my plight. Do you know what kind of turmoil I went through? For 22 years of my life, do you have any idea what kind of mental instability your hatred caused me? I can’t count how many times I stood with a rope fastened in a noose, held in this hand,” Acheros held up his right hand, the golden band on his ring finger glowing from the ceiling light. “But I didn’t. I couldn’t. And I discovered why I couldn’t during my 22nd year. When I met Cecilia, and I found out for the first time what love truly felt like. Not just what it was like to love someone, but what it felt like to have someone love you. I don’t expect you to understand, Atticus. Even if you were intelligent enough to grasp the concept, you’d never fully appreciate things from my view. When you spend a lifetime shadowed in hatred, a single person’s love is akin to the light from the sun. And for eight years, I loved her and she loved me. Eight long years, Atticus.”
“Acheros. Please, I never--”
“No. No, no, Atticus. I don’t want you to defend yourself. I don’t want to hear your explanation of why you treated me the way you did.” He paused, staring at the shocked and ruined visage of his brother. “And I am not finished.” His tone dipped into a well of anger that had seldom been tapped in thirty two years. “Cecilia Beck was everything to me. She was my joy. She was my heart and soul. I was set to marry her, that beautiful, perfect woman. But do you know what happened?” A terrible, strained silence grew for a few moments in the room, as Acheros calmly stared at the brother who had always thought nothing of him, who had treated him as no more than a boy pulled off the street. He shook his head, laughing in contempt. “She died, Atticus. She died in a car crash that I caused. And now, my heart and soul and life is gone. The only person who ever loved me as I am is dead and now I’m left with two men-- barely even family-- who treat me like nothing. Who is a disgrace to our family, to the Edgerton name? You are, Atticus. Arthur, our father, is. You made me the way I am, you set the path of my life the moment Mom died. And because of that, I never trusted myself. Never loved myself. And I lost the one person who ever did. So why in Hell would I ever return to the estate that forever fucked up my pretty life? No matter what Arthur expects to hear from me, or expects to tell me, I want nothing more to do with this family. You can tell our loving Father that I won’t be joining him.”
Atticus struggled to stand, his heavy build and strong shoulders trembled. He collapsed to his knees in the middle of the floor, his wretched eyes staring straight back at Acheros, as though he were pleading with him to say anything to appease his pain.
