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Varin found himself looking at a picture of him and his mother, his finger absentmindedly covering his own face as he looked at hers. The picture sent a shiver down his spine because the eyes of his mother felt like daggers made of ice. The unease seemed to seep into his bones and make them ache, from the moment he could remember her face, this is what he saw in his mother.
He didn’t remember much of his younger childhood, but starting at around eight or nine he started to notice how cold his mother was, and more so than that her smiles felt hollow.
It made him feel empty for some reason, having a cold parent and a missing one. Like there was a void in his heart that he couldn’t truly understand. He was lonely, but didn’t know the word for it. He didn’t know how to be upset. His mother had always told him that emotions made people imperfect.
So he’d learned to be empty too. But now he didn’t know how to stop.
He didn’t know how to be a person outside of the perfect portrait his mother had crafted: “Varin Belladonna, son of Merona and academic prodigy.”
He put the picture down after a second and fixed his glasses until they were centered, little habits that revealed the amount of pressure he had been put under to be perfect. That revealed he was kept like a pretty porcelain doll in a box that was never to be opened.
He then paused, looking at his hand with a confused expression as it trembled just barely. Shaking with hidden emotions that he didn’t fully comprehend.
After a second he sighed, picked up a pen, and leaned down to pull one of his floor tiles out, revealing a sketchbook tucked underneath. He hid it from his mother, right under her nose. For some reason the sound of her heels clicking on this tile played in his head and made a pang of anxiety shoot through him, making the shaking more visible with each passing second.
He fixed the tile back into place and opened his sketchbook, full of hidden artistic talent that he would never show in fear of it being destroyed and him being ridiculed. He turned to a blank page and began to absentmindedly sketch, which steadied his hand easily as it focused on the lines etched into the paper, each detail drawn with care.
He was drawing a dandelion, his favorite flower. His mother had always told him they weren’t flowers, and he knew that, he knew they were weeds. Though the beauty of them captivated him, as did the idea of making any wish he wanted. He remembered well the rumors that dandelions could make any wish he wanted come true.
As he sketched, he started to wander mentally. Eventually a question clicked in his mind that he wasn’t sure how to answer.
“What would my wish be?”
He mumbled the question out loud, his face focused. He kept drawing as the gears turned in his head. After a few moments, his pen stopped. Then he thought of an answer as he looked out the window that was across the plush chair he sat in, his eyes flickering with a hint of longing and life.
He wrote it at the bottom of his now finished drawing, in beautiful cursive that looked like it was straight from an old history book.
‘I wish I could smile the same way others do.’
It sounded odd, but to him it made sense. When he smiled, he didn’t really feel it. People used to tell him that his smiles never reached his eyes, but once his mother ridiculed him enough times he’d learned to mask it with fake warmth.
But sometimes he’d look at other people when they smile and feel this warm. It’d always made his chest tighten and his heart ache. It looked…
Happy. That was the word he wanted, happy. It was a simple word that might sound childish, but he wanted it. He wanted to be able to be like that. He wanted to be happy.
It made his eyes sting as the selfish wish truly surfaced in his mind, soon enough tears dropped onto his elegant dandelion. His eyes were bleary and tired, and he watched his few tears soak into the paper. He rarely cried, but something about this made it impossible for him not to. He couldn’t hide everything, after all.
He took his glasses off, setting them on a side table as he wiped his eyes with his free hand. He felt a dull headache coming on as he did that made him sigh deeply. The tears faded from his eyes as he put his glasses back on and moved the tile on the floor to the side before gently shutting his sketchbook, taking a final glance at the tear stained dandelion, before tucking it away beneath the tile and setting the tile back into perfect position.
He felt himself lean back in his chair and let out a sigh of relief he didn’t know he had been holding in. That subconscious fear of his mother walking in while he was drawing now faded as the secret side of him was hidden once more.
Hidden behind a mask of false perfection, when he was really a puppet binding by his mother’s controlling strings.
Minutes ticked by as he sat in thought, taking his glasses and gloves off and relaxing into the chair. His body felt heavy. Since his mother would be gone for a little longer his exhaustion fully set in, draining him of what little motivation he had. He checked his phone to reread the text his mother sent to be sure he was able to let his guard down.
His phone flicked on as he unlocked it, the light flashing his eyes and making him wince as he adjusted to its brightness in comparison to the soft orange light that coated his room.
The text popped up on his screen.
“I’ll be home at around 11PM. There were some changes with the house meetings today and I’m needed late this evening. Your curfew is at 9PM. Do your chores and anything else you need to do.”
He breathed a sigh of relief. It was only seven and everything had already been done, he put the phone away and realized he hadn’t eaten dinner, but he didn’t want to. He felt no need to, something that he often felt. In reality when he thought about it he didn’t eat much, but he saw it as normal for him.
He let his thoughts fade as he closed his eyes, folding his arms over his lap. Just for a moment, he could rest. He fell asleep to the sound of silence, slumping in his hair as he did. It was the most imperfect Varin had looked in ages.
The true drained and empty boy hidden deep within his heart.
Who was now asleep in a velvet chair, hidden from the world for a few fleeting moments.