Chapter 240 Stupid Youth

• It was all because I didn’t want to hurt her or see her abused anymore. She was just another victim because she couldn’t let go of the man that she loves although he probably never loved her back in return. When I was younger, there were times when I wondered why my mother couldn’t see my father for who and what he was. The period where I was also blinded by my mother’s hopeful words that that man would one day accept us truly as a part of his family was very short-lived. Unlike me, my mother never lost faith in the man that she loves. Sooner or later, I came to realize that there was no way that she could go on living if she ever accepted the truth that she had been used by him all along.
• I remember watching over her as she cried and grew weaker and weaker in both spirit and body. I remember thinking that I wouldn’t be surprised if she were to snap one day and then pass away if reality really hit her. Perhaps it was from my fear of losing my mother that I somehow became an active conspirator in my father’s plan to keep on fooling her just to keep her dreams alive. At first, my mother was the one who talked me into strictly following my father’s orders. She would yell at me and hit me as she apologized profusely to my father if I did something to displease him.
• Youth surely comes with foolishness. For many years growing up, I was just as disillusioned as my mother and believed that if I worked harder and became better at everything, that we would be accepted into the main house of the Vulkan family. My mother believed that she could become Alfred’s wife and I would be acknowledged as his son. Hearing my mother compare me endlessly to my half younger brother somehow got to me, and I found myself doing everything to compete with him as if I would be better off if I became just like Anthony. Ironically, it was a casual conversation that I had with Anthony during a break in one of our lessons that made me realize just how wrong we both were.