wrightism:
all these years, julian had never once understood how laila could move on so casually from the terrible things that took place in the house they were both standing in front of. how she had managed to forget everything and to come back and have the metaphorical balls to renovate it and sell it. it hadn’t made sense to him that she could have acted so callously at the funeral, talked about their father like she knew what he wanted. there was something so frighteningly frigid about her, like she never wanted to bother to try to understand the traumas that he and his other siblings had come to associate with the place.
“what the fuck do you know about what dad wanted?” he hissed, taking a step back as if he had been physically slapped by her words. when was the last time she had even taken into account what the rest of the family wanted, let alone their own father? “i was happy, i was fine, until you decided to drag me and everyone else back into this mess. why do you even want to sell the place? you need money? a hobby? something to do after your wife left you? what is it?”
sneering, he held his hand up. “stop calling me that, i fucking hate when you do that. it sounds so condescending coming out of your mouth, like you just want to shove what i feel aside because you don’t want to deal with it.”
“ oh? i’m sorry. i forgot that you and dad were just so closed and that you constantly checked up on him and that you were the one who had to pick up his meds and deliver them to him every few weeks otherwise that will never be done. better yet, you definitely saw him every other weekend just to make sure that he was actually still breathing and the phone calls weren’t just prerecordings so you wouldn’t have to check up on him. yeah, my apologizes. if anyone who would know what dad would want, it’s clearly mr. golden boy who’s just filled with all kinds of responsibility that i just never understood. ”
the sarcasm and rant was all probably unwarranted, okay, it definitely was. but the angry that always seems to surround julian, even when they were younger, is very easy to fall into. easier to fight back with him than the rest. “ i think out of all of us, i would know what dad would have wanted, ” her words were slow, tired. tired of this fighting. tired of this house. always seems to be the center of their disputes and the center of their deaths. “ don’t you want to get rid of this house? what better way than restore it to what mom and dad thought it could become and leave their legacy as that. rid us of the house and move on with our lives, all of our lives. ”
her hands cross in front of her, a brow raised. as if she was waiting for him to be done without having to ask. “ would you prefer golden boy? i think i prefer golden boy. ” she was trying to lighten the mood just then, but surely that will fall flat too. “ that’s not -- none of that is true, julian. ”













