17

                                    

                                          
Braxton disappeared off to somewhere. I didn't see him for the next hour or so. And I didn't go seek him either. He needed to let off some steam and being in his company right now felt scary. So having no other option, I stuck with Trinity – who insisted that I call her by her name. As soon as I had returned from the gardens, she had cornered me and whisked me away to "talk". But unsurprisingly, she was the one who was doing all the talking and I was only doing the listening.
"So how did you meet Braxton?" she asked after twenty minutes of drilling into my head about their infamous family. I was just about to give up when her question came. "He said you guys met a few months ago, so I assume it wasn't in school."
"Yeah, no," I shook my head, "Braxton was visiting his friend in Gretburg one weekend. That friend was mutual," a bitterness coursed through me when I called Roman a friend. He was much more than that. "We met through him."
"Ah, Braxton's friend – I can only assume the kind of person he was," she scowled. 
The kind of person Roman was? How will I describe in all the languages that I know what kind of a person Roman was? Genuine. Brave. Benevolent. Kind... Perfect. If he had trusted me, if he had been honest with me, I know what my life with him would've looked like. 
Biting my tongue, and not telling her the kind of person that Roman was, I turned the conversation back to Braxton, "Is Braxton your only kid?"
"Oh, yes," she beamed, enjoying the conversation shifted back to Braxton and herself, "My husband and I decided we'll only have one kid and put all our concentration and time and money on him. My husband died a couple of years ago and it's been just me and Braxton since then."
"Oh," I mumbled, even though I didn't know her husband, I knew that death wasn't an easy thing to get past, "I'm so sorry for your loss."
"Thanks," she smiled, a flicker of pain going through her eyes, before it was completely masked, "How is my boy in school? Is he behaving well? Does he play all the sports that the school has to offer? And in classes does he participate? He never tells me anything about school."
"He does fine, mam," I said, "Football team, swim team, and basketball too. He's very athletic." Or so he told me on our way here.
"Yes, he has always been," she said, a little proud, "I just don't want him to start losing grades because he concentrated too much on his games. I want him to be an all-rounder who excelled in everything he touched."
I smiled, trying to bring in a make-belief sense of grace around me when in reality I just wanted to mouth off to this overbearing mother who wanted her son to overachieve. She didn't realize that the kind of pressure that they as a family were putting on Braxton was eating him alive from the insides. It wasn't just the grades or the sports he played, they controlled every aspect of his life and it's a wonder that they didn't see it that way. I know firsthand, what that kind of pressure did to a person. Sophia was a perfect example.
His mom was going into details of all the achievements that she had forced Braxton to attain so far when the boy in question suddenly appears by my side. "Hey," he mumbled, his hand going around my waist, putting on a show in front of his mother, I assumed. "You okay?"
"I'm fine," I smiled, leaning up to place a gentle kiss on his cheek, "Your mom was just telling me about all the pageants you won when you were little. You didn't tell me about them."
Braxton rolled his eyes, "Mom forced me into them until I was six years old. After that, I threw a tantrum and refused to go."
Trinity scoffed, "I forced you?" she asked, "Then thanks to me you got found at such a young age – you wouldn't be a model now if I hadn't gotten your beautiful face the recognition it deserved."