Chapter 20: Falling Apart

Lex's POV

Even I was baffled at my outburst; I didn't have to yell like that, and I knew it. The room was dead silent for a few seconds, and just before I could try to apologise, Landon was already getting off the call.

"Hey, Landon..."

I tried to make him stop, but he was already gone.

"Fuck, I didn't mean to do that," I said to Nick, who was now staring at me in silence.

"I know, I don't think you have to worry though; Landon doesn't stay angry for so long."

I nodded my head slowly in agreement because that was a fact, but I still needed to apologise to him.

"I am still curious, Lex; what is it about this girl that makes you act so weak? Landon was right; you would act quickly if this was someone else, but right now you are hesitating your attack on her, and it's very confusing to see you act this way. Tell me what exactly changed?"

"Nothing changed, Nick, nothing. I just feel guilty sometimes whenever I think of it all, and I feel like she has a right to be angry to an extent. I mean, if she was related to me, I'd kill the guy who touched her."

My confession of guilt came as a shock to Nick as he sat there staring at me from the camera. For about 10 seconds he never said anything in reply, and that was very unlike him.

"Are you there?" I asked, thinking maybe he's been frozen by the connection, but he slowly nodded his head, signifying that he had been staring at me the whole time in silence.

"Something has obviously changed, Lex; you do not want to admit it yet. I think I should leave you alone" before I could counter that he had already ended the call.

"Fuck!!"

My frustration was loud as I kicked the leg of my study table hard in anger, but the pain in my foot made it even worse.

I spent over 30 minutes in the shower just letting the water run as I hoped it was going to clear my mind, but then I heard a loud knock on the door, and I knew exactly who it was.

I hesitated for some minutes before stepping out with a white towel wrapped around my waist.

"What is it, Dad?" I asked as I opened the door to see him standing right outside.

"What? You're not going to let me come in?" He asked me, and I shook my head in agreement.

"I'm a little too busy for you to interrupt me right now; you can say whatever you want to say, or we can have this meeting later," I said to him, staring directly at his face, and I saw that usual smirk that he gives whenever he is slightly irritated, especially with my presence.

"I saw you walk up here.

You weren't looking so good, so I decided to check up on you. I'd like to know if that is a bad thing for me to do."

I scoffed at first, then looked up at him again. "Actually, it is not something you usually do, so forgive me if I never expected anything like that from you. Well, as you can see, I am very much okay, and I do not need anyone interrupting me."

I was about to close the door when he pushed it from the outside, making me hold it halfway closed.

"You do realise that you cannot keep acting this way, Lex. You need to start improving your manners and begin to take your life seriously. You need to start thinking like a man, and to begin with, you can start talking about future things with Selena. I've never seen you make any attempts with her on our plans."

For the first five seconds I stared at the same spot after he had finished speaking without finding the right words with which to respond to him because that was typically him.

He had come to me pretending to be concerned about how I was feeling when all he was concerned about was how I was supposed to take over the Empire and become that dream leader that he wants me to be.

I had never heard anything different from him since I was a boy, and it was already exhausting.

"Dad, I'm 21, and I want to believe that I still have time to do all of these things. Can you let me focus on my own life right now?" I pleaded.

"I can't believe you still think this way. Do you know how much I achieved when I was 21? You think I would be here if I had let my life slip away like that?"

"Fuck this, Dad, my life is not slipping away. I am still in a high school for goodness sake!" I yelled angrily now.

"That is not an excuse, son. You need to start seeing things from my perspective, or else you are going to lose everything, and when I say everything, I mean everything. I am not going to sit here and watch my son waste away when there is so much he should be doing."

"Oh yeah, like you didn't sit back and watch me go through all of that trauma when Mum died? What were you doing then? You were too busy for your son, and now you want me to be all smart and ambitious?"

"You can hate on me all you want, Lex, but I did the right things, and I would never apologise for that."

He said this and walked away while 3 stared at him in complete shock.

"Also, we're going to have dinner with some foreign expatriates in here tomorrow. I invited Selena's parents. I would like you to invite her yourself."

"Fuck you, Dad."

I cursed at him, but he didn't mind; like always, he didn't care if I wanted it or not. He just walked away like nothing about me mattered.

I closed the door angrily, banging it as I fell to the floor, my gaze turned to the portrait of my late mum hanging on the wall.

"No, no, please."

I pressed my teeth tightly against each other. It was a crime for me to cry, but right now, I couldn't fight it.