solo: family matters
Cruz should have known from the address on the letter.
No, en should have known by the fact that it was Surface mail at all.
The address was from Spain, which made ens heart miss a beat and stumble in ens chest. But not the same address en grew up in -- They wouldnât have abandoned the family manor, would they? Paranoia swirled in ens mind, and Cruz couldnât bear to read it right away. It sat unopened on ens parlor table for a long time, torturing them with its innocuous presence until the burden of not knowing outweighed the terror ofâŚ
What? Discovery? Was en scared of them?
It was probably just an old debt finally catching up with them. Whatever. En could probably pay them off or scare them off. Best case scenario, maybe the Meridas really had died and en had inherited some scant remnant of their debatable fortune. This is what Cruz told enself as they grabbed the envelope off the table and tore it hastily open, like ripping off a bandage.
As soon as en read the first line en knew enâd made a mistake.
Alfonso. It was addressed to Alfonso.
Cruz hadnât heard that name in so long it hardly even registered at first. En had completely reinvented enself upon coming to the neath -- but perhaps it should have occurred to en to change the surname en went by as well. The realization settled in ens gut, a sick weight that almost made en want to puke. Ens hands shook.
It was a terse letter written in neat Spanish. They wanted en to come home.
They were getting on in years and were looking for their heir -- having found the true one dead, they sought out the backup. They were willing to overlook the fact that local authorities at the time had strongly suspected Cruz enself of the murder -- if only enâd come home.(Of course, not in the right words -- Alfonso was the name they knew en by, and Alfonso was the name they used -- every time reading it felt like a punch in the gut.)
Cruz was still scared of them.
En had never really stopped being scared, just forgotten to be, and en felt vaguely guilty about it. Like en was neglecting an obligation. For all the muscle and scars and bloodied knuckles and brawls, all it took was one sternly-worded letter to turn en back into a scared, bruised little boy.
So what was en to do about it? En couldnât leave. Cruz had died a number of times, and as en understood it, even once was enough to have Death take its due the moment sunlight touched you again. En thought of telling them that in a return letter, but ens insides seized with panic the moment the thought crossed enâs mind -- no, that was just an excuse. PapĂĄ hated those. Heâd be angry. Own up to your weakness like a man. Could en leave it? Forget the letter ever arrived? No, that was even worse. Procrastinating your problems was just another form of laziness. Couldnât just do nothing.
Cruz couldnât say how long en stood there, clutching the letter in ens hand, only that it took a concerned headbutt from Bellatriz to snap en out of it -- it almost knocked en right over, both from the tigressâ force and ens own distraction.
En ended up going to sleep. It was about all en could handle at the moment.
