Dad walked behind me, suspiciously, and grabbed my hand tightly. He twisted it in the other direction so that I dropped the cigarette. He stated, with clear disgust on his face, "I don't want to see you around that ever again."
"No promises." I muttered.
"You do as you're told."
He walked out of my room and slammed the door shut. “Natasha! Natasha!” He called his assistant. I hopped over to the door and stuck my ear against it, basically I was eavesdropping on the conversation outside.
“Yes, Mister Petit?”
“I will distract Lily for an hour or two and your job is to search her entire room, the closets, the drawers, the beds, everything for cigarettes and drugs. If you find anything then throw it away.”
“But sir, wouldn’t that be invading her personal space?”
“No, we need to take proper measures to keep her away from the stuff that is harmful for her.”
“Oh-okay, sir.” I could hear the pain in her voice.
I should start hiding the cigarettes…I rushed to my drawer that was filled with various different types of cigarettes. I needed to start hiding them all but I didn’t know where I could stash them…
“The trash can…” I whispered to myself.
I threw all the cigarettes in a trash bag and threw it in the trash can. I bent over and picked up the cigarette I was forced to drop when dad twisted my hand. Pulling out a lighter, I placed the cigarette between my lips and lit it. I sat on the little bed next to my window. I took in tiny amounts of the smoke and slowly smoked it all out. I continued in the same manner till the cigarette was almost done.
“Suck it, old man,” I laughed to myself, letting out the last puff from the cigarette.
Dad's hoarse voice yelled from farther than seven hallways, "Lillian! miel, êtes-vous prêt encore?"
[Lillian! Honey, are you ready yet?]
"Presque!"
[Almost]
I tapped the ashes off the cigarette. While stubbing it on the window frame, I looked out at the scenes in front of my eyes. Gorgeous sunrise, melodious chirping of birds, cold winter breeze and the comfort of my bed. The tall trees were dancing to the rhythm of the wind.
There were three knocks on my door, which distracted me from my messed up thoughts. I tried to look through my blurry eyes. I managed to spot Natasha standing there. "Mister Petit acquires your presence, Miss Smith-"
"Inform him that I will be there in a few moments."
"As you wish, Miss Smith." She shut the door behind her.
I hopped off the bed and started to skip into my closet. I looked to my right. It was filled with black dresses, neatly folded and piled on top of each other and few hanging low to the ground.
"Aha." I pulled out a mulberry coloured romper. It was a soft velvet material. I read the tag. “Opasx. Fashion line 17, model 67.”
Dad named his fashion line ‘Opasx’, which was a random word he ‘thought’ of while designing his first line.
My dad yelled from outside the closet, "If you are done talking to yourself, GET DRESSED."
"FINE."
I pulled off the nightgown from my shoulders and dropped it on the floor. I jumped into the romper. I pulled my hair into a ponytail and sprinkled some powder on my face. I had planned to waste his time as much as I could. I did not want Natasha to look through my room.
I pushed the closet door open and walked out of the walk-in closet. "I'm here." I stated that, obviously knowing that dad was pissed at me. I had an innocent smile on my face. I made eye contact with him, grinning eye-to-eye.
He patted my head and said, "Quick. Get to the third basement."
"Isn't that where you showcase your sports cars?"
"Precisely so."
My eyes lit up with sparks. There was a slime on my face. I cried out of joy, "Pour de vrai ?! Je peux vraiment les conduire ? JE NE PEUX PAS CROIRE MES OREILLES AH!"
[For real?! I can really drive them? I CANNOT BELIEVE MY EARS AH!]
"Peut-être..."
[Maybe...]
I jumped onto him and squeezed him tightly. "Tu es le meilleur, papa."
[You are the best, dad]
"Save the slack for later."
I had completely forgotten his main intention of getting me out of my room.
I ran into the basement and started to obsess over the hundreds of beautiful cars. I touched the bright blue Lamborghini Aventador. "You like that?" He questioned, still baring no emotions on his face.
"Had my eyes on it since forever." Even though it was launched last year. I read a million articles about it. I always wanted to drive around in that car.
He pulled me into a hug. He yelled into my ear, "Did you smoke even after I told you not to?"
"Maybe..."
"If I catch you smoking again, I will not regret sending you to rehab."
"Why do you care?"
"I had done pretty bad things in my youth, Lillian. I just don't want the same for you."
"Right..."
"Lillian, honey, I care about you and I need you to understand. Ruining your life with cigarettes, drugs or alcohol isn't good."
"You say as if you know everything."
He placed his hand on my back and said, "I do. Let's go to my office."
Dad never let us into his office. I was getting scared halfway to the old fashioned room, called his office. I was counting my steps on my way just to distract myself from my panic.
"2973..." I whispered under my breath.
"Pardon?" Dad asked.
"Oh, my bad."
"You don't need to panic," he smiled at me.
"Alright..."
I was so scared my mind was just screaming "Oh no, oh no, oh no, he is smiling, what the hell, what the hell." I knew one thing and that was that, Adam Juan Petit never smiled.
"In you go."
I sat on a chair in the corner of his office while he rummaged through the millions of designs he made. My leg was starting to bounce so I grabbed it and held it to the ground tightly.
I whispered to myself as that usually helped me calm down, "It will be alright, Lillian..."
I folded my legs into a crisscross and sat on the chair. I swung my body back and forth in partial panic. I got good at hiding my panic.
One of dad's parchments fell near the foot of the chair. I picked it up and looked at it.
"Design 456..." I read the number on the corner of the paper out loud. "Designed by Adam Petit."
"Give that to me!" Dad yelled while snatching the paper from me.
"It's beautiful. I don't care what else you might say."
"Oh-well…” He started to blush a little “I designed it for your mother to wear to prom..."
"Did she like it?"
"Absolutely."
"So tell me why you summoned me here in your office." I looked around for a while. The office was plain. It had a dark wallpaper and vintage furniture, just like most of the house. On one side there was an old drawer, filled with newspaper and magazine cuttings and dad's designs.
"Being a designer must be hard, eh?"
"Oh it is. Sometimes I just can't wrap my mind around what I want to design."
"I see." I had realised that I fell into his trap. He has successfully lured me out of my room without me even acknowledging that fact. I started to panic, knowing that if he figured that I have been smoking for a while, things wont end well for me. My breath was getting heavy. I managed to suppress the attack, but I knew I had to let it go soon.
He sat at his desk and pulled out an envelope.
“Viens ici,” Dad said, pointing to the seat in front of me.
[Come here.]
“Bien…” I pulled the chair. Looking at my feet, avoiding my dad’s eyes, I started to slowly lower into my chair. I was ashamed of my actions, I was ashamed since the very day I started, but the emotion always got suppressed. There were a million different thoughts running into my mind at once. It was too much for me.
“Sit quickly, damn it.”
“Sitting, sitting...sit…” My breath was getting heavy. With a painful ringing in my ears and terribly muffled sounds, my heavy head started to descend towards the desk quicker. It hit the corner of the table with a loud bang and everything turned black.