izzy {capitol}

My father is a smart man. One of the smartest, I've been told. Would have never have managed to score a girl as beautiful as my mother without his money and his fame, though he would never admit it- would tell us that mother is the lucky one and that he had suitors lined out the door. That's bullshit. It's an unspoken truth that our legacy is built upon false hope and shattered dreams, but no one has the guts to say it. Not to the man who could break bones without even laying a hand upon skin, not to the man who drove his son mad with mere words and sharp glances.

Not to that monster who calls himself my father.

It's said that all businessmen are at least a little crazy. They lack some empathy, lack the crucial voice in the back of their head that screams don't fuck up a thousand lives for your own personal gain. Personally, I think a little is an understatement. I have watched black-clad men with sharp claws and forked tongues sneak in an out of a penthouse with gold-plated doors, scheming and smiling and ruining lives with a flick of their hand. I think they get off on the power.

I can't suffer. That has always been a rule of thumb in this house. I can't suffer because I am rich and there are people suffering on the streets and how dare you accuse me, Ezekiel when I put a roof over your head and clothes on your back. And then he raised his hand like he was going to hit me, fists clenched and turned bright white with rage. But he never did. My father was too smart for that.

Teachers often asked why I was so afraid, prone to flinching at raised hands and low murmurs. There was no reason, apart from my own weakness, I had no bruises or scrapes. Not a hand was laid upon my skin, nor my big brother or my sister. The only time he hit mother was after a bad fight, when the both of them were screaming and mother begged him not to do this in front of the kids and he laughed and he hit her and told her it was not her place to ask for anything because he was the man of the house and he could do what he liked.

I was supposed to be a protege, business extraordinaire. Not a small, sad thing manipulated by the slightest of smile and gentlest of hugs. That was father's most fatal mistake, starving his children of what they needed most. Of love and attention and treating them like gum stuck to the bottom of his boots.

Then again, I always seem to end up with people cold and careless. I've been hurt by them. Bruised on the wrists and the neck, on my waist by rough hands and sharp nails digging into my waist. I crave it, the attention of those who do not want to give it. I want to prove that I can be loved by them.

Maybe father is even smarter than he seemed.

My sister was easily his favorite. It surprised him as much as it surprised the rest of us, with his constant yowling at my mother to do what she was born to do and to serve him on bended knee. Evangeline had inherited mothers soft curves, the gentle wave of fair hair that fell to her back and the milkiness to her eyes. A near carbon copy if not for her cruel smile and strong shoulders, even more fatal a businessman than my father it turns out. Daddy's little girl, my twin sister was.

Father left the rest of us to rot.

In Evangeline's absence, father made me do her chores. The ones usually saved for mother and for the female avox pressed under his thumb. I learned to cook and to sew, to sweep the floors and patch holes in the pristine jeans Evangeline adored. It was to humiliate me, I know, because from day one we were taught that women's place was under the arm of a strong man and they were good for two things: sex and cleaning. Being feminine was shameful and I was always more delicate than my sister. It was my mother's influence, perhaps, watching her care so well for herself in order to look nice for father. To be a good little trophy for him. She did up her hair in extravagant ribbons and painted her lips bright red, she drew black lines on her eyes and wore fabrics that shimmered and hugged her hips.

One night she told me a secret, smile wide but eyes brimming with diamonds."I don't do this for your father, love, I do this for me. But don't tell him that." My mother was a strong woman I think, as weak as she seemed. But one thing I'm certain of is that she didn't love me. There was not enough room in a heart made completely of mirrors.

I started drawing the first day of school. Enthralled by the beautiful, thick chunks of wax that left uneven streaks upon parchment. I drew what I saw, sunsets and skylines, I drew lakes and trees and people. Everything I saw was copied onto paper over and over again until they finally began to look like what they were modeled after. Because in the end I was no businessman, I was never meant to be.

My brother left when he was sixteen. The shit I got from dad was tame compared to what he gave Derek. Said if he wasn't going to be a man he would act like a woman. Forced him into dresses and heels, had him walk down the street in front of a thousand people adorned in mother's pink cocktail dress.

Father never raised his fist against us, but he didn't need to to leave such horrific scars.

I followed my brother. I didn't care that my mother screamed and my father yelled, promising that he'd choke me in my sleep and ruin me if that didn't work. It didn't matter that I was twelve and that neither of us had a job or much education. I packed my sketch books and I followed Derek because he meant more to me than any of them. He was my big brother and he loved me.

Or at least I thought he did. He was hanging from the ceiling fan three days later, wind whistling through a throat thoroughly crushed by thick rope, but he was breathing. Alive. Barely alive. I set a chair under his feet and I called my father because I had no one else to turn to. I cried and I begged and I told him he needed to help because it'd be bad for business if his eldest son killed himself at only sixteen. He was at our small apartment five minutes later with men dressed in bright white and they took him away, in a van with tinted windows so no one would see the family shame.

He was in the hospital for three months and was transferred to an asylum the fourth. I still visit him sometimes.

Father, charitable as always, paid off the apartment his twelve year old son was living in alone. "Don't go an off yourself too." It's the only time I've ever seen him scared, read: mildly concerned, it was our family image at stake after all. He scored me an internship at a modelling agency (something as girly and pathetic as you, Ezekiel) designing and creating clothes (or at the time, helping the people who did.) And I was good at it. Really fucking good at it.

That disappointed father all the more.

I have him to thank for everything that I am. For where I live. For my career. I have him to thank for the avox that show up to my door every so often that I keep for weeks before I send them away. Having friends isn't really my thing. Even friends without tongues.

The only company I crave are of the men I know only use me.

It's easier that way.