There are certain benefits I've found, over the years, associated with being wealthy. For instance, getting to see plays on Broadway, with the best seats in the house everytime.

One of those plays, in particular, I quite like, which is exactly why I'm sitting here now, working on learning the piano for one of the songs by ear. Or, at least, the original version of it, the version that wasn't used in the final play.

The lyrics aren't entirely applicable to my family, but there are parts of it I am drawn to.

The play itself I find fascinating as a whole; the story of a long forgotten founder of our country. Well, long forgotten until the play. Hamilton. I didn't think I'd like it. Then again, I haven't liked much these past few years. A consequence of how my family has become.

My fingers tap against the keys.

Just like when I was little, I play.

Just like when I was little, I'm lonely.

That, among other reasons, is why I spend so much time playing.

The keys understand me, form the sentences I will never dare speak aloud.

You have to tread carefully as a Schnee. It's why I'm father's favourite; I know how to play the game, and I play it flawlessly.

My fingers waver when I approach a certain part at the beginning. The lyrics ring out in my head. It's mother through and through.

Don't take another step in my direction, I can't be trusted around you. Don't think you can talk your way into my arms.

I can't even remember the last time I saw my parents do anything but fight. Certainly can't remember the last time either of them touched each other in a way that wasn't violent. The worst of it was a few weeks ago, right after Weiss left. Two months since then. Damn. I don't think anyone has talked to her since then other than father and Winnie, though possibly Winter. Not that Winter bothers with us much. I have barely seen, let alone spoken to her, since I was just shy of eight years old. Father says it's for the best, and he may very well be right. I don't know, but it certainly seems that way. Occam's razor; the simplest, probable solution is most likely the correct one. Winter rarely speaks to us. She must, then, want very little or nothing to do with us. Weiss seems to be going down that path as well, and I resent them both for it. Weiss less than Winter, of course, but it stings. I continue to play, losing the softness the song is supposed to have. I can't seem to bring it back. I sigh, continuing as I am regardless of the frustration.

When father and mother fought that most recent time, she tore out a bit of his hair and cut his cheek. How she did that, the cheek thing, anyways, I'm not quite sure, but I do know exactly how father bruised up her face, neck, and shoulders. He slaps her, pushes her around, beats her. Unlike her, he is completely sober in those moments. Maybe that's why he's so effective at it. Mother, after all, is so impaired most of the time that she can't walk straight, let alone think straight. Father seems to know everything, and it'd be insane to think he wouldn't have figured that out after being married to her for over twenty years. What I can't believe is that he's approaching sixty while mother's only in her forties. For my two friends, both of their parents are around the same age, and are in their late forties to early fifties. My family is an anomaly, as always, and that is not a -

I pause again, the lyrics of this part creeping into my mind to haunt me.

I'm erasing myself from the narrative. Let future historians wonder how Eliza - my brain pauses to adjust, changing the name - how Willow reacted when you broke her heart.

Weiss once told me how father confessed he's never loved mother. I hate it but I know it's true. I keep playing. The softness is coming back, and my fingers are slowing away from the tempo. I want to cry, and I think I'm starting to.

"I'm never coming back home," Winter had snapped when she left for the last time, just a few weeks before her wedding.

"I'm not going to Atlas Academy," Weiss had told father. She was right. She proved herself to him, and got what she wanted.

"I want mommy!" Winona had screamed when father told her she was going to the most recent SDC ball even though mother wouldn't be. "I'm not going without her!" She had stomped her feet into the ground, and, when father tried to grab her by the arm to force her to come and get ready, she kicked, screamed more, and bit him. He gave up, but he also forced her to be alone. I don't know if Klein helped her or not when me, Weiss, and father were at the ball at the SDC World Headquarters. I hope he did.

"Leave me alone!" Mother had yelled during the most recent argument. "You've already proven you don't love me! Why force me to act out a facade neither of us believe in?"

That wasn't the worst last time, though. The last time I spoke with Winter will always be that. Just before she left after her wedding, she sat me down and told me so many things I hadn't known about our family, about our parents.

That she was really General Ironwood's daughter, born out of an affair between him and mother while father had been away for ages on a business trip that year.

That father had raped mother multiple times to concieve Winona, all because having another child would make the family look good.

I'm crying for real now, and I continue to play, though it's no longer the song from the play. It's something melancholy, something coming from me. I don't reach up to wipe away the tears. I'm not sure why, because I usually would.

See, father always tells me that boys don't cry.

But he's wrong about that, at least in part.

Boys don't cry when they're normal.

I am anything but normal.

And I cry.

I cry because I can't stop.

I cry, and I don't like how things are, no matter what I say.

Being a Schnee sucks.

Realising that every so often when I try to avoid it, deny it, is even worse.