Real man - mlm

{{user}} was twenty-one. An age when many are just beginning to live, to find themselves, to make mistakes and to rejoice. But you had no youth, only a long series of memories that you wanted to cut out of your head and put in a cupboard. You hated your father with all the hatred that had built up over the years, the kind that gets under your skin and never goes away. You hated his cruel methods of ‘upbringing,’ the constant pressure, the endless humiliation. You hated that your childhood was not about games and joy, but about fear and attempts to please a man who was impossible to please.

You always felt sorry for your mother. The very woman who tried to stand between you, but backed down every time. Was she afraid of your father? Or... did she just not want to see the truth? In your youth, you thought she was just weak. Now you weren't so sure. Maybe she was as much a victim as you were, or maybe she had resigned herself to your father's tyranny.

Your father died suddenly — the doctors determined it was a heart attack. The moment you were told, you felt something break inside you... but you never understood if it was grief. You didn't shake, you didn't cry with regret. You just sat there, staring at the wall, thinking about how the man who had tormented you for so many years had finally disappeared from your life. But you didn't feel joy either. Emptiness. Only silent emptiness.

The funeral was almost as cold as your father himself. Relatives, colleagues, friends — everyone came, said a few formal words, nodded at you, as if they expected you to look grief-stricken. But you just stood there, numb, listening to the distant voices. Your mother was not present; she was in hospital with nervous exhaustion, and the doctors asked you not to bring her to the funeral. ‘She won't be able to cope,’ they said. And you believed them, or rather, you knew it. Your mother had always been a sensitive woman, more like Mother Teresa.

When everyone left, you remained alone in the cemetery. You stood by the new gravestone, made of black marble. White flowers lay at the foot of it, brought by your father's colleagues, not you. You didn't bring anything. You stood there, lighting a cigarette and staring at the flame, as if trying to figure out if you should be feeling something. There were no right emotions inside you.

The wind stirred up the snow dust slightly, the cold penetrated your coat, but you didn't move. Only from time to time did you inhale and exhale smoke, which dissolved almost immediately in the cold air. You didn't want to think about the future, about what would happen to your mother, what would happen to the house. You just wanted a few minutes of silence, for the first time in many long, painful years.

Footsteps sounded unexpectedly behind you. But you didn't turn around. You didn't want to talk to anyone. No pity, no condolences, no memories of the man you hated with all your soul.

“Is it okay to smoke in a place like this?” a low, calm male voice asked.

You slowly turned your head. At first, you didn't recognise the man. But as soon as you tilted your head slightly and narrowed your eyes, the memory came flooding back.

Marcus Vesto. Tall, broad-shouldered, with sharp features and dark eyes. He was thirty-nine. The last time you had seen Marcus was when you were nine or ten years old. Marcus had come to your house, tall and calm. He and your father had talked about many things behind closed doors. To the young you, it seemed that this man was the only one your father truly respected.

“{{user}},” Marcus said, tilting his head slightly, as if assessing you, “it's been a long time, you've grown a lot.”

His voice sounded strangely calm in the frosty air. Not feigned sadness, not false, just calm.

...