Stomach filled with sand, empty off the fermented liquor and a sardine can.
Eyes drunkenly passed recognition with the smell carrying throughout the hallway, sadness pooling in his eyes, but he sucks up the tears.
"The wine wasn't strong enough, so I opted for something stronger", he muttered, stumbling over his words.
His body swayed back and forth, his wife watching as he laughed to himself as if a joke had been told so funny that it would knock his entire being down.
"Something funny?" she questioned, and he ignored her as if she were a nothing but a wall, watching as he wrecked his body.
His arms flapping like a bird catching wind, as he narrowly avoided crashing into his wife, his beard messy with dried drool twisted into it with sour teeth.
"Your breath stinks, and you look like shit." She backed away, holding her nose, "Don't come near our daughter like this; she already has enough to deal with being our literal future. She doesn't need to deal with a sad excuse for a father."
The man laughed, "You sound just like my father, ha, have you been collaborating again?"
"No."
"You don't have to lie, I see how you look at me, you are so disgusted", he bit the inside of his lip, swallowing dryly.
"Why would I lie? I'm not going to come down to your level just because you want me to. First, you call my wine subpar, then you excuse me of conspiring with your father? Are you fucking serious? After everything-" She caught her tongue, shaking her head, "I'm not doing this with you, not now, especially when she could be listening again."
"Who fucking cares, like she'll remember anyway, I know I won't."
She slapped him and again, and again until his deep cedar face turned red, and he didn't even say anything. He just sat laughing, holding his face dearly, his head spinning, as he knocked hard on his forehead.
"My head hurts, damn it hurts bad", he tripped over his own foot onto the floor, holding his stomach tightly, "Damn."
His wife wiped her hand on her dress, sucking in a breath, "Stop being dramatic, you're lucky I dismissed the maids and butlers, you're so embarrassing."
The man didn't respond; instead, he just continued to hunch into a ball, hoping it would ease some of the pain, but it didn't. It made it worse, but at this point, what could he do? He couldn't move, and with so many drinks in less than twenty-four hours, it's really starting to catch up to him.
But at the same time, it was the only thing that still really loved him after all his mistakes. So many memories are thrown down the drain after hurting someone so much, you would think they become numb to it, but in truth, it's like a buried thorn.
Impaled so deeply into the gut that it causes internal bleeding, leaky organs that smell like rotten sewage. Forming mold, spores, and spreading throughout the body, constantly jabbing into the brain.
The pain is never really forgotten, it's just buried within a bunch of other mistakes, spit on and choked til there is no air left to breathe.
Till you're left there, on your own, with your own pity to swallow and savor as the wounds of the past take you out.
So if he could hold onto unhealthy habits, then he will, until it kills him, because it doesn't hurt anyone but himself.
He doesn't have to pretend to be someone he's not, doesn't have to put on a fake smile. Or even try to be the perfect son for his father, because he's not ideal, and he never will be.
And even though he knows his wife loves him, he can't help but despise her. Because of how perfect and put together she is, and even though he's done so much wrong, she doesn't seem fazed, at least not in public.
She still smiles and waves, complimenting him as she advertises her pristine wine. Cherry red with such a rich taste, all on her own, while he is a pitiful excuse of an offspring, he was supposed to be the leader. To take charge and bring honor to the Acres name, but instead, he brings shame and doubt.
The opposite of stability.
"You know you used to be something great before you threw it all away, and what for jealousy? Lust?" She shook her head, "I had sacrificed everything for a family I didn't belong to, and all I asked was that you simply be there for me. Support me, support us!"
She hit her chest and squeezed her palm, "But, no, even when I gave up everything that wasn't enough, and when I took the money your father gave us and turned it into more, you got mad?! I thought you would be happy, and we could go on trips and actually be one of those families that get along, but no, we have to fake it."
"We don't have to fake noth-"
"We!? There is no we anymore, and if everyone knew that I suffered for nothing, it wouldn't be worth it. You think someone wants to see a successful, unhappy person? No, it's a oxymoron in itself. Be for real now, I'm not a complete idiot like you've become, now."
She pulls out a cigarette and a lighter, making quick work of it before stuffing the lighter back in her pocket.
"Now, look, you got me smoking", she took a deep inhale, exhaling the gray smoke onto him.
"How pitiful, you have an excuse to say to me now? Some victim plead that you want to fish out?"
She flicked some of the ashes onto him and he didn't even flinch, he was just quiet, for once he didn't say anything back.
What could he say, I mean she wasn't wrong except for pretending everything is okay, for people who don't give a damn about her.
Because at the end of the day, they're out to get her, and show the whole world how imperfect and twisted they really are. It's not just her with the facade, it's the entire family.