"I'm not going to cry in front of you." - charlotta
“Bonne nuit, papa!” sung the ever jaunty Emilie, placing a gentle kiss upon Victor’s cheek. He remained silent, though offered his daughter a gentle smile before she strolled from the room with a noticeable bounce in her step. Having had to keep up an appearance for his lively daughter, a heavy sigh of relief fell from his lips as he slumped back into his armchair. Placing his fingers against his forehead he massaged his temples; perhaps it was unwise of him to invite both his daughters to the estate?
Victor was walking a continual tightrope. On one hand he needed to be somewhat cautious around his eldest, Charlotta who had only known him for not but a few months. Their relationship was, to say the least… complicated. Yet, he also needed to appear as though nothing was out of the ordinary in front of his younger daughter who had known him only as the bright and jovial man he had striven to be after- well, after leaving Charlotta’s mother.
That was difficult when you wanted to be taken seriously; which was the case for Victor in his attempts to salvage his relationship with Charlotta. However, this was proving to be more difficult than he had anticipated- not that he blamed her, in fact, quite the opposite but he just felt hopeless. Nothing he said, nothing he did seemed to have had any affect. If anything, Charlotta seemed only to distance herself further from him.
Drawing his hand away from his face, Victor noticed something move from the corner of his eye. Sliding his glasses up the bridge of his nose, he caught a glimpse of jet black hair and dark eyes peering around the doorway. Their eyes met, and the figure was about to flee…
“Charlotta, wait-” Victor pleaded, extending his hand out toward her.
She hesitated, standing with her back pressed against the doorframe. An audible sigh escaped her and slowly, Charlotta turned to face her father. Her expression was as sharp as nails though Victor could see that her eyes were lined with the onset of tears.
“What?” she snapped, tilting her chin upward as she considered her father.
Lowering his hand, Victor shifted in his seat awkwardly. He hadn’t considered what he was going to say- and anything he usually said was often the cause of an argument. Pursing his lips, he averted his gaze to the coffee table in the centre of the room “can we talk?” he asked, taking a short-weary glance in Charlotta’s expression.
“About what?… About how you’re content about playing happy families with Emilie while I sit in my room, practically isolated”
Victor’s jaw tensed, and his shoulders rose and fell slowly “no- and I assure you, I am not content with any of this. I’ve tried everything I can- I’ve tried to include you, I have. But it seems as though you don’t want any part of this family and honestly, I’m close to just giving up because I just don’t know what to do” he retorted, meeting his daughter’s gaze with an intensity that even he was foreign to.
Victor’s sudden outburst was meet with an eerie silence, and the pair continued to stare at one-another, both visibly taken aback. As the silence drew on, Charlotta quickly turned her head away, and subtly wiped her eyes with the back of her palm.
“I’m not going to cry in front of you…” she muttered, her teeth clenched together tightly.
