CONFLICT

“You don’t realize that something’s wrong with your family?” Annie asked in her usual raspy voice.

I stayed quiet. I knew she was trying to get at something, but I just couldn’t see it. It felt as if there was a mystical force resisting me from understanding the problem.

“We love and look after each other. What more do you expect?”

Annie paused for a moment. “You haven’t seen your siblings in months, even when two of them are supposed to be in our goddamn school. You say you haven’t talked to your parents in god knows how long even when all of you stay at the same place. So, how exactly do you look after each other?”

“Look, my family is not perfect, alright. No family is. I know we don’t meet often but that’s because each is busy with their own.” I tried to convince.

Annie fell silent again. In any other situation, I would’ve found her dull gray eyes staring at me, almost as if they were trying to pierce through my soul, cute. Right now it feels annoying.

“Do you want to play some soccer with me?” I asked, trying to steer the conversation away.

“Don’t dodge the topic again, Steve. Your famil-”

“I don’t want to do anything about it, okay? We don’t meet often, we don’t talk often, and I am fine with it. Jesus, it’s my goddamn family and you don’t have to tell me what I should be doing.” I snapped. “I really don’t think it’s true, but what if I don’t have a loving family? I have friends who have my back like a family.”

“Friends are not family.” Annie commented nonchalantly.

“You wouldn’t know that.” I paused. My breath got weary. My gut urged to not utter a single thing more, but it was too late. “You don’t have any friends, Annie.”

I froze.

The surrounding wind suddenly grew strong, as if it was the inception of a hurricane. Annie’s hair flayed as they danced to the wind.

It was only after I had finished did I realize I was angry too. And I had committed a grave mistake while being so. I had said something unacceptable. Something I will despise myself for.

However, a rational part of me knew I was right. My girlfriend, Annie, wasn’t exactly normal. She was one of the shy people in the class who avoided socializing as much as they could. She also had trouble expressing herself, in both words and body language. But that was what most people saw her as. Her shallow façade. I saw the other side of her. THE REAL HER. And yet…

“I’m sorry, I wasn’t thinking-“ But before I could finish, she stormed off.

I stared at her silhouette as it slowly walked away from me across the barren football field and dissolved into the dusk. I felt defeated. Heartbroken. I lost control over my tongue only for a moment and now I ruined it all.

“Steve?” I heard a familiar voice say from behind. I turned around and mouthed a ‘hi’ to my teammate Aiden. “You alright man?”

No, I’m not. “Yeah… Yeah. I’m alright.”

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“I didn’t want to, but I ended up listening in on you guys.” He took a moment, then continued, “I just wanted to say… I’ve got your back if you need any help. I’m always here for you, alright brother?”

“Thanks, man.”

How could I take his help? I am supposed to be the one they lean on when needed. When did I become so… pathetic?

“How about I call up the others and we play a match?” Aiden asked.

“No man, I’m fine. I’ll go home now.”

I grabbed my football kit and walked towards the exit.

***

‘How could he say such a thing?’

I threw the front door open and stomped across the living room into my bedroom. Slamming the door behind me, I jumped onto the bed, not worried about my dirty shoes or the heavy bag.

I doubted anyone realized, other than my father and maybe Steve, that I was not feeling composed right now. I wasn’t showing it. Probably…

I took a quick look at myself in the mirror, checking on my expression. Apart from a few tensed eyebrow muscles that were barely visible to anyone at all, my face was as stoic as ever.

I fell back into my bed, deeming trivial things like my expression useless brain energy consumption, and switched to the problem at hand. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t have to subside my anger caused by Steve’s snide while trying to figure out why he was so oblivious to his problem. How could he not understand such a simple thing?

He knew next to nothing about his family. He doesn’t know how he is so rich when none of his family members work or where his elder brother has been for the past few months or why he hasn’t seen his younger siblings at school in the past 2 years.

I probably overstepped in poking around, but I really couldn’t bear a family drifting apart like that. I hate to accept it, but I am jealous of his family.

When your dad is your entire family, you do tend to miss the non-existent members.

And when I try to help him with something I don’t have he- That son of a bitch.

I exhaled a deep breath. I needed to find out more about his family. It was sketchy how much little information they had available. Their family name wasn’t registered in the district’s legal documents. There was absolutely no information about their family on the ‘find-out-ur-ancestors’ website although there was a whole ass ‘forest’ about people with the same family name. Hell, none of the family members have a social media account! (Atleast, I couldn’t find them.)

After a few more moments of thinking, I arrived at a decision.

I shall infiltrate their house to find out more. To hell with abiding by the law.

After changing from my uniform into an oversized black hoodie and black jeans and tying my hair back into a tight ponytail, I wore the black shades that I acquired while rummaging through my dad’s wardrobe. To add a touch of additional safety, I wore a black mask over my face, covering most of the easily identifiable features.

I also stuffed extra pillows I found under a rug and made sure it looked like a fast was fast asleep inside it. Just in case.

And then I waited until it was quite dark. At 15 minutes past 8, I left home.

After a 15 minute bus ride and another 10 minutes of reading every house’s name plate, I finally stumbled upon the one that said ‘The Miller’s family’.

You see, I knew Steve was rich. I had a general idea of how rich too. After all, not everyone could afford to throw a party at a five star hotel for the entire class when they win a soccer match.

There were even times when he didn’t realize not everyone could afford what he could. Once he asked me why I had never invited him to my birthday parties from before we started dating even when he did. It shocked him to realize I was neither had or interested in spending that kind of money.

But all those incidents made a LOT more sense now.

Damn. He is not just rich. Steve is ‘rich’ rich.

The house- *cough* pardon my poor ass; the mansion- *cough cough* excuse me once again; The humongous mansion stood at the center of a vast circle of clearing, about half a kilometer from the entry gate. Apart from the house itself, there stood multiple sheds and smaller houses. Even those houses weren’t anything like my humble dwelling, though standing beside the mansion made them look tiny. The other side of the land the Millers owned seemed to blur into the local forest, making their boundaries unclear.

A few more moments passed while I tried to comprehend how to go about it.

I never had a solid plan. All along I was just going to climb over the gate and somehow get into the house, involving some spy movie-level strategies if necessary, but now that I was at the actual house… that didn’t seem very plausible given how far the house was from the main entrance and how easy it is to be spotted.

But honestly, I didn’t have any other plans either. Although this was so not me, I stuck with the dumb plan.

I placed my hand over the big metal gate, took a deep breath, and began climbing the gate. Thanks to it not being one of those plain doors with no support, this one was one with metal bent into designs and stuff. You know, like one of those from the horror films gates. (Honestly, I think I’ll just start giving movie references from now on so that I don’t have to explain stuff in detail.)

When I was halfway through my ascent, I observed something strange. The surrounding air suddenly quivered, first slightly, gaining vigor with each passing second. It took me some more time before I realized it wasn’t the air that was vibrating… it was, for a lack of better terms, reality itself. It looked similar to the flickering air above a flame, but on a fundamental level, they both felt very different. I couldn’t say what it was right away, but I knew this was something beyond me.

Suddenly, an invisible force thrust me away from the gate at a blinding speed, making me crash into the opposite wall. Before my mind could register the pain from the fall, I blacked out.