For the Lore of god please stop me from writing. PART 2 - Contains triggering content and mature themes!!! -

It’s hard to talk about the relationship between my father and I. Mostly because I never felt like there was one to begin with. I have conflicting memories of him, sometimes he was there but most of the time he was a background figure who happened to inhabit the same home as us. I remember him pacing around the house and sitting at his big majestic leather chair at the study, always scheming. The garage was filled with his old guitars and drum sets which he liked to polish and play from time to time. The guy had a habit of surrounding himself with groups of other stallions who looked and acted eerily similar to him. Whenever they were around Mother and I would shower them with drinks and aperitifs. I never saw much of what they were doing because I wasn’t allowed to remain into the room for too long, I’d come and go to deliver whatever trinkets they needed and whenever someone glass became half empty it was either mine or my mother’s job to refill it. During these endless meetings my mom wouldn’t do much but to sit at the kitchen’s table and drink a cup of wine whilst watching TV. Sometimes when there wasn’t anything to watch she’d have the radio on. I often felt like she didn’t really care about the shows or the radio novels, she must’ve only wanted the noise to mute those stallions’ loud and obnoxious laughs. When my father left, the house became silent. It’s weird to think that our house was vacant even before we had moved out of it. The yelling and the laughter moved out at the same time my father did, but I bet that they did find success somewhere else because, unlike him, they never came back… --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The autumn leaves had fallen and were covering the street in shades of gold and red. Gray had his chin rested against the window sill, eyes focused on the large tree sitting right in front of their balcony. That tree was a curse, his mother had expressed several times. In the spring the pollen from its flowers would inevitably made its way into the house, making her sneeze uncontrollably for days on end. In summer there had been a bee hive hanging right from the branch which was closer to their apartment’s balcony, and once it fell down, the horde of angry bees had also found a way into their home. Now in autumn, the falling leaves would pile onto their balcony and although Gray found it funny, his mother was much less enthusiastic about having to remove them every single day. His ear shifted as he could hear the murmuring coming from said balcony. Its doors were open, allowing the arguments from their living room to escape into the world surrounding them. “So! … What happened at L.P?” Calliope cheerily pranced from the kitchen to the living/dining room and sat down elegantly before the man whom she hadn’t seen for two entire years. Despite sporting a bright smile the anger in her eyes was still palpable and her sweet tones were laced with a poisoning layer of distrust and disappointment. Ares had been idly watching TV but his muzzle scrunched in disgust denoting that he had indeed heard her. “Wouldn’t you like to know, Calliope?” Calliope’s false grin flipped into a scowl as it was intending to be from the very beginning. “What? Do I not deserve to know, as your wife?” She challenged but he was having none of it. He simply turned the volume up and snorted. Calliope began to tap her hoof onto the table impatiently, her eyes scanned that stallion as if she was wondering what to do with him. “What do you think happened?” Ares asks back sarcastically with a roll of his eyes, grouchy as ever. He reached down where his cans of beer rested beside the couch and grabbed a half empty one to finish it before he tossed it elsewhere. “Same thing that always happens with you.” Calliope arched her brows in bitter satisfaction. “The funny thing is that you couldn’t blame me for it anymore because I wasn’t around to ‘sabotage’ you with my presence, huh?” She rested her head onto her hoof and twirled the other one across the glass table. Ares’s scowl deepened and he clenched both his teeth and hooves. “You wanna take the highway sweetie? Why don’t we ever talk about what YOU were doing while I was gone?” “So, what was it? Who was it?” Ares turns around to glare at her. “Or should I ask how many?” “Whatever makes you feel better about yourself.” Calliope glares back with a sense of elegance. “I only did what I did for you and the colt!” “Funny you should say so, is that why you never returned any calls?” “What do you think I was doing? …Partying? I was working for fuck’s sake Calliope!” “Oh! Were you? …Because I mean, I had to work not 1, not 2, but 3 jobs to keep us going while you were god knows where, Ares.” Calliope spat. “…You always say the same thing over and over ‘I do this for you!’, ‘I do this for him!’ but funny enough we never ever seem to benefit from the things that you claim to do for us.” “You can believe whatever you want to believe. I sleep peacefully at night.” “So peacefully that you have to take pills.” “What’s your problem…?” Ares finally gets offended enough to get off the sofa and sits further away from here onto the love-seat. “I already told you. I fucked up. I already apologized to you. What else do you want!?” Calliope simply looked away. “I’m going out for a smoke.” She stood up, grabbed her purse and slammed the door behind herself while Gray pretends not to listen from their bedroom. He watches the leaves fall. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- With each falling leaf, something inside my mother was also withering. Despite agreeing to get back together with my father things were never the same between them. He couldn’t have foreseen the effect his actions had onto my mother… Because during the time that he was away she had found her wings. And with no one to clip them she had realized that she could fly. It is different to own a bird whose entire life has been spent on a cage, than owning one which has known the taste of freedom. My mother was like a captive dove now that my father had returned home and she must’ve found that she had lost the taste for the cage in which she had put herself into. Come winter, every last bit of hope of rebuilding her life with this stallion had been buried by the snow and she was ready to escape. During the year that my mother and father lived together her attitude had changed. No longer did she carry herself behind him like a lost puppy, now she walked forward and she didn’t wait for anyone. I swear she would’ve left me behind too if it weren’t because she used to drag me along by my scarf. The night that she left she knew that she’d have to drag me behind her like a shackle on her ankle. I knew that she didn’t bring me because she needed me in her life, as she had said many times prior, I only made it more difficult. But she simply couldn’t leave me behind: She didn’t spend 2 years cursing my father over abandoning us only to commit the same heinous act one year later. No. She had to prove to herself and to the world that she was better, so I had to come along without question. I do not remember the exact day or time, but it was an obscure night and I do recall that it was close to Christmas Eve because the streets were beautifully adorned and the air smelled of cinnamon. I had been tucked into bed many hours prior yet it wasn’t quite morning when out of sudden she burst through my door and dragged me out… --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- “Gray… Gray wake up…!” She hushed as I groaned and clung from my pillow, still not quite aware of what was to come… “C’mon get up, we don’t have much time!” “Where are we going?” Gray yawns but he’s yanked out of bed and quickly wrapped into a blanket by his desperate mother. Calliope uncovered his face and rubbed her hooves across it trying to get him awake enough to walk. “We have to leave. I want you to be quiet okay? Your father is sleeping…” Gray looks at her idly, still quite out of it. “Aren’t we going to wake him up?” “No, no… He’s too tired. It’s best if we don’t… now come…” Calliope unwrapped the blanket and threw it to the side. She dressed him up as fast and quietly as she could, she herself was ready, she was even wearing her winter coat despite the fact that she hadn’t gone out yet. Gray was too tired to question anything, he thought that perhaps it was a school day and he had forgotten about it. Not two minutes later Calliope was dragging him behind her by his scarf, suitcase packed and hanging from her mouth as she trotted out the house on her tip toes. Gray was more like a doll hanging and loosely keeping up with her with his little hooves which didn’t much as graze the ground. Right outside from their apartment waited a cab. Calliope tossed Gray onto the back seat and strapped him whilst the driver helped her luggage into the trunk. “Where to Ma’am?” called a deep voice from the outside, Gray couldn’t see the stallion well in the dark of the early morning but he could see the snow sparkling as it was illuminated by the street lights. Each snowflake was like glitter falling from the sky. “To the train station please…” Calliope replied polite as ever as she climbed onto the passenger’s seat and this stallion followed suit. The 20 minutes’ drive was particularly uneventful, nobody spoke a single word until they reached their destination and even then Calliope only referred to the man when it was time to pay him for his service. She escorted Gray into the train station, which was busy despite it being so early in the morning. This was the first time Gray could catch a glimpse of the time at the huge clock hanging on the wall behind the desks where ponies would purchase their tickets. It was 5:00 am… Calliope was fidgeting with her purse, trying to find the tickets she had bought beforehand. “Shit we’re running late! ...Hurry!” She tugged on Gray’s scarf again. Now she wasn’t hushing him anymore but she was dragging him along with a lot more force. They were some of the last passengers to reach the hangar but despite this everything else went smoothly. The conductor checked their tickets and allowed them into the wagon. Calliope breathed in relief at this point and for the first time in forever a gentle smile formed from her mouth. “Calliope..!” Called a certain voice from outside the window. Gray’s eyes widen instantly, recognizing it. He was too short so he had to stand on his hooves onto the seat to be able to peek out the window. There was the tall and dark figure of his father, rushing over through a sea of ponies. Calliope’s eyes were wide too, having witnessed the exact same thing as Gray. She instinctively shoved his head back down and turned her head away from the window. Gray winced and squeaked having accidentally hurt his snout against the window’s sill due to his mother’s harsh pushing. “Shhh! be quiet!” Calliope snapped and continued to ignore the man making a fuss right outside their window. “Calliope what are you doing!? Have you lost your mind!?” Ares desperately banged his hooves against the wagon right underneath their window. His ruckus had called the attention of a few guards and they were making their way towards him. The other passengers’ heads were slowly turning in their general direction, thousands of confused stares focused on the mother and her foal. But Calliope was unmoved. She had turned her dignified snout forward staring into nowhere, and pretended as if nothing else in the world existed. Gray was still rubbing his muzzle which was now bleeding a little, whining quietly as he held back the tears. Not because he was sad but because he felt terrified and confused, moreover he had never heard his father scream like that. He couldn’t say today that he ever loved him or that he felt guilty about leaving him behind. But at the time all he knew was that the man he had known as his father was now banging outside of their window and calling them, that he couldn’t even look at him and that his mother acted though as if he wasn’t even there… “Calliope don’t do this!!!” “You promised we’d try this again! C’mon just give me another chance!!!” “You’re all I have left!!! Please!!!” Ares continued to violently slam his hooves against the train until he was restrained by two guards who began to drag him away. “That’s my wife in there! She has my child!” Ares yelled and squirmed but his words went unheard. “Calliope!!!” The train’s wheels soon started turning and the hot air from the engine blew through the horn to indicate that they were ready to move. From there on the train wouldn’t stop going, in fact it was beginning to gain speed and Calliope never stopped looking forward. Gray continued to quietly weep by her side, now squeezing a napkin against his bruised nose. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I never knew how long we were into that train until I had to travel from Canterlot to Manehattan myself. I noticed that the trip was 8 hours long. It’s a long time to be sitting there without saying anything, isn’t it? But there was nothing left to say. After that little scene at the train station every other pony looked at us with morbid curiosity, as if we were circus freaks. My mother who was prideful simply would not address the elephant in the room, I can tell that she had muted the entire world out in order to be able to cope with it. As for myself, well… I eventually fell back asleep and would be awakened to eat, then I’d watch the landscape for a few hours until falling back asleep from the boredom. By the time I was awakened again the skies were dark and we were somewhere I had never been to before, the city of Manehattan... In the beginning I didn’t know what brought us there but as I grew older I heard from my aunt that my mother had gone into the city chasing after that one talent manager who had been interested in her one year prior. I didn’t know this at the time it happened, but it turns out that he had made her the offer to come with him to Manehattan where his contacts were and that he could get her to the right ponies, that he could turn her into Manehattan’s new Primadonna. All of this had happened the night before my father would appear in front of our apartment. My mother had rejected this opportunity when she decided to start anew with my father. I bet she regretted it every day from that day forward, but now that she had taken control of her life again, she was desperate to retrieve said life that she thought had been taken from her forever... --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (To be continued…)