Lucy stretched her lips painfully into a lopsided smile. It was the best she could manage. No matter how much she wanted to cry, she wouldn't—she couldn't. That was nothing new to her; as always, no pardons would be made on her behalf if she were to so easily succumb to her feelings. Such outrageous displays of emotion were unkempt, unruly. Surely her father would be displeased. 'No, not my father.' Lucy thought fiercely. She refused to consider that man anything more than a mere sperm donor. Not after what was done. Lucy felt tears brimming at her eyelids. Blinking them back, she raised her head to focus on staying calm. It was nearly over; she couldn't fall now! If not her father, then the embarrassment at her blatant impropriety would surely kill her.

Lucy stared on, unable to move from her place nearest one of her distant relatives. She was arrested by the palpable tension surrounding her. The air of the room was vile; oppressing. The weather, as if to laugh in the face of the occasion, was bright and sunny, yet the ambience remained morose. She caught a glimpse of the honey-blonde hair of her mother, bright even in the ironically depressing situation. She craned her neck for a glance at her beloved mother's familiar face, it was obscured by the multitude of people also attending. Her father's dithyrambic chatter (as that was how it was perceived, at least to Lucy) did not move her in the slightest; the empty words far from sincere. Having finished his speech, the portly man stepped down and reclaimed his place beside his brother.

Several faces turned to Lucy with tacit expectation. Lucy, however, faltered with irresolution. She had prepared many words for the occasion, yet she was suddenly unnerved. Why was she hesitating? This was no time for stalling. Lucy stepped forward to speak.

Sans her momentary hesitation, Lucy's speech took place unhindered. But even as she spoke the words, her mind hesitated. They felt toxic in her mouth. The crowd felt transparent, and ceased to exist around her as a multitude of raging questions took prominence in her young brain. It wasn't until much later in the day that she realized why. Because she knew something that these people didn't. And as she gazed upon many offering their condolences to that man, she shuddered with repugnance. And as they did the same unto her, so was her reaction the same. Because it all was a hoax, that which these people gobbled up greedily. All of them, enraptured and beguiled by that man. And as they lowered the casket into the ground; as the grating dissonance assaulted her ears; as all of the servants and cooks and staff (who loved the one whom they bid goodbye that day dearly) dropped flowers with gentle veneration, a scant representation of the extent of their love; Lucy's reaction remained the same yet still. And when she returned to her house, which had been rendered destitute of the childish laughter that permeated it only days before, only horribly ridden with an ominous and melancholic spirit, her reaction was still the same.

And when she retired to her room that night, all that had been bubbling within her (which had been pressed and congealed into stubborn hate as her heart toiled, unable to process such turmoil) finally erupted in a sudden, emotionally disturbed fit of giggles. And as her feelings churned, those same giggles soon turned to peals of laughter, and even more sudden, ferocious screams. Because she knew something they didn't—she and that man alone. And she hated him, but herself even more, because of the terrified silence which she upheld, keeping the secret, as if to defend him. But who could she tell, anyway? The maids? The servants? Surely no one would believe the pitiful pleas of a despairing child; a wretched dirge that served to mitigate the soul and nothing more.

So she laughed her lamentations, as she damned the world, and her life, and that man. Yes, it was all his folly that she could smile no longer with the genuine appreciation for life or youthful bliss that she had once possessed, or the ever-amicable spirit that she had inherited from her late mother. Because of her misanthropic father, who no sooner kept the life of his wife when money was to be made.

A/N: This was just a short one-shot I wrote for my ELA class, once again! I hope you enjoyed it! Sorry it took such a dark turn, I wasn't really expecting that...

Posted: January 3, 2016
Updated: January 3, 2016

~Reginna Grace