Camden

Camden wanted out. He'd always wanted out. It was one of the reasons he'd fled as soon as he was legal and didn't exactly have to be under the care of his parents. Now, for reasons out of his influence, he was back under the one roof he'd always wanted to flee at all cost.

One would think he'd feel a little bit of nostalgia, wanting to reconnect with the family he'd gone so long without hearing from, watching them gather together to coo at the family albums from their younger years and just talk late into the night.

But there was nothing. He was just numb. There was no wistfulness or regret and it was even harder to picture himself gathering with his siblings to reminisce. If they wanted to recall and laugh over the past then fine. His was something he'd always tried to avoid if he could. It was too dull, too sombre.

If he could wipe all the memories associated with his past, then he would.

But he couldn't so he simply stayed far away from it.

It'd been three days already but he felt like he was suffocating with each hour he spent back here. His room was at least thrice the size of his apartment downtown. It was airy and spacious with high ceilings and large windows that overlooked the meticulously manicured lawn but the longer he stayed, the more he felt it was all too tight— constantly closing in on him.

He hadn't planned to deviate much from his schedule and wanted to spend most of this unwelcome holiday working on his latest music. Unfortunately, it was like all his creativity had dried up. His brain was fucking clogged.

Putting away his old guitar against the wall near a stack of dog-eared music books, he picked up the green apple he'd taken up the previous night and bit into it. Even now, breakfast wasn't reason enough to leave the slight comfort of his room. He'd rather just have his solitude.

Alex, Rae, his mom, East, had all come calling— one reason after another but he could care less for all of that. The only thing he wanted was for the burial to come quickly so he could get it over with and return to his life.

He bit away at the apple quietly, leaning back in his swivel chair and glancing around his now bereft room. Stepping into his room initially, he'd hardly been able to catch a breath. His baby blue walls were cluttered with family photos he'd once cherished, knick-knacks and souvenirs from his parents' trips around the world. He didn't think twice before clearing it all out.

The posters. The photographs that had always represented his need to belong. His trophies and medals from sports meets. They were a reminder of an identity, one he didn't want any longer. Hoping, needing, waiting. He didn't want to remain stuck in the past. The disappointment wasn't something he could handle much longer.

He sat slouched in the chair at his desk until he'd eaten the apple down to its core. Doing a long toss into his waste bin all the way across the room, behind his door, he glanced past his laptop and a few of his then favorite books lying about on his table, gaze finally fixating on the post-it that was pasted on the wall in front of him.

One he'd written in a time that suddenly felt so long ago, a reminder he'd always felt he wouldn't not ever need.

Smile, it said.

So, he'd always listened. He smiled and smiled and smiled. Now, it was so long since he'd had a reminder and he'd almost forgotten what his smile felt like on his face.

What was there to smile about anyway?

It was the only connection he had to that eighteen years old boy who was always hoping, always waiting. So he left it up there.

It'd always been a reminder he needed.

Pushing himself off the chair, he went to slump back in his bed, willing himself to go back to sleep. His stomach hurt. An apple for breakfast was hardly enough for him. He just wanted to go back home.

There were raps on his door and he ignored it, getting too muddled to care.

"Uncle Cam," he blinked his eyes open at the cheeriness that seemed to bypass any resistance his door could provide, piercing straight for his heart. "It's your favorite niece."

She was his only niece.

He rolled his eyes but there was only endless doting he himself didn't recognize as he slipped off the king-sized bed, padding across honey colored hardwood floors, cool from the cold, to get to his door.

"Uncle!" she piped up chipperly again when the door was finally opened up for her.

"What's the matter?" he asked, leaning against his door and smiling down at her. "Hungry?"

"Uh huh," she nodded matter-of-factly, pigtails bouncing with each jounce of her head. "Let's go have breakfast."

Camden didn't even have a chance to present his long list of reasons why he'd rather not before she was clasping his hand with her tiny digits and aiming to pull him along.

He just let himself be dragged along any which way and while she went to take her seat, he took the rest of the dishes from his mom on her way out of the kitchen, setting up the rest of the table and taking his own seat on the other side of Willa.

"Are you guys going somewhere?" No one had a chance to have a bite of the carefully prepared fluffy, buttermilk pancakes or the scrambled eggs and crispy, smoked bacon before he was breaking the comforting silence. Not that he could help it. They were all dressed properly. Not to the nines per se but not exactly stuff they should be wearing to sit around the house.

"Would we leave you out of an outing?" Jules asked, putting an extra pancake out for her granddaughter with a soft smile when the little sunbeam gazed up at her.

Yeah. And it wouldn't be the first time.

"I knocked on yours last night," she related, going to take her seat when his expression was hardening and he didn't bother to give such an obvious question an answer. "The will reading's today. You should get ready once breakfast is over."

Camden said nothing to that and just started eating his food, dousing his stack of pancakes in a light glaze of honey as opposed to everyone else's maple syrup and his niece feasting dry. Breakfast passed in silence. His, anyway. His siblings and mom made small conversation he could input on if he so desired but wisely didn't go out of their way to include him in it.

His cutting comments would be the only thing that awaited them, they knew.

So, he just contentedly carried on with his food, helping his niece who was too busy stuffing her face to care about atmosphere whenever she needed to reach for more orange juice or have more bacon.

"Where are you going?" Jules asked when he started for the front door once he was done with breakfast and his niece had promptly made herself scarce with the absence of food.

"Out," his reply couldn't be any more succinct if he tried. He'd walk around the block, maybe see a few friends. He needed the air and time to think. He'd thought he'd already made it clear he didn't want a part of whatever they were up to next. Well, maybe not.

Jules just stared, at a loss as to what to pipe up with.

"You just heard mom say the lawyer's coming for the reading today," Easton said, quietly stacking the dirty dishes  to take back to the kitchen. "I get that you don't want to be here but you could at least try to be considerate."

"Oh, you mean like you?" Camden turned an indifferent expression on him though his words were packed with underlying scorn.

Easton paled as he met his expression and then fell silent too. With everything he'd put his parents through in not having his act together, inconsiderate was understating it for him.

"Cam," Alex called gently. "What East's trying to say is it'll definitely be best if we could all sit through this reading together. As a family."

She was the last person he wanted to go head-to-head with if he could. How did one even slap a smiling person? You couldn't. So, it was only all the more stifling.

Still, he'd try.

"Why should I?" he snorted. "What would I even be doing? Sitting around to watch and clap while he shares his assets among you lot? It's alright, I'll pass."

Jules stared, mouth agape as the words fell from her son. "Cam, you know he wouldn't," she finally said, heart breaking. "You're his son and he loved you so much."

"Sure," his response was non-committal.

"Cam," he paused, hand on the front door at the sound of Rae's quiet voice. It was tender and had always reminded him of fragile, tinkling glass. "Can't we. . ."

He turned, gaze zeroing on her figure still seated at the dining. But her gaze was lowered and he'd never seen her look so small.

"Can't we go back?" she suddenly asked, voice trembling with emotion. "We're all still your family. Right?"

He paused, lip line tightening as he glanced between the faces of Alex and East then his mother, all waiting, expectant. His words dried up in his throat and he paused for a long time, picking at the skin of his thumb idly from where it hung at his side. Were they really? In the end, he just walked back to his room to change out of his sleep shirt and returned to the living room to wait for the lawyer's arrival with his family.

Thankfully that didn't take too long and Camden just wanted it done with. He knew himself and he knew what his relationship with his father had soured to so his lack of expectation to prevent disappointment was something he had a total certainty of.

There was no doubt he had no place in the will.

"Let's begin," Ron Delgado, lawyer and family friend to the Garcia's began, not sure if the tense atmosphere was at the worry for the appropriation of assets or something else.  He cleared his throat and decided to just out with it anyway.

"The last will and testament of the late billionaire, Maximilian Garcia," he read fluidly. "I, Maximilian Garcia, being of sound mind and disposing memory, do hereby declare this to be my last will and testament. . ."

Camden listened to the distribution, bored, as he more or less could determine how it was going to pan out. To his beloved wife, he left forty-five percent of his total assets including their primary residence and vacation homes, jewelry and art collections and that fraction of his liquid assets. To his darling daughter, Alex, he left twenty-five percent of his total assets, including his real estate investments, business interests and the family company.

Camden expected no less. Alex had always been the apple of their father's eyes and the man had personally groomed her, ecstatic that at least one of them had taking after his talent for business.

To East, he left fifteen percent of his total shares, including stocks, bonds and trusts, more financial assets while Rae got allocated ten percent; personal assets and a few luxury items like his ship harbors, plane hangars and some of his private islands.

Even Willa got a share of his assets and Ron taped off the reading with his own allocation.

"And to my son, Camden," Ron read and Camden could only describe the slight twitch of his lip as awkward. "I leave five percent of stock in the family company to help him earn dividends for the rest of his life."

Camden couldn't help his scoff. His old man could manage to convey his condescension even in death.

The reading ended there and while silence pervaded, Jules numbly got to her feet to see their lawyer out with quiet appreciation. When she returned, she didn't get very far back in with the arresting gaze of her son.

"I. . ." she paused, not knowing what to say to alleviate what burden he'd probably felt in his heart. "I had no idea, Cam." The words felt hollow, even to her own ears.

Camden didn't say much because this was well within his expectations. "I've always known him, mom," it was the first time in years he'd let himself call her that but Jules couldn't even bring herself to be happy about it. "He'd never loved me this much. It's you who never really knew your husband."

Jules felt her trembling digits curling into the folds of her skirt but couldn't find the words anyone needed no matter how hard she tried.

Eyes shifting, he brought them to Rae who had been fidgeting with her fingers all through the reading, eyes misting as they met his. "I'm sorry, Rae," he managed, as sincerely as he could. "This hasn't been family to me in years."

He got to his feet then, slipping his phone into his pockets and making to leave.

"Cam," Alex was genial and had always tried to be impartial but just this once, Camden didn't want to hear it. He didn't want to hear one more person making excuses for that man.

"Even Willa got five percent of his net assets," he said simply.

"He got to know her last year," East interjected, expression a complex myriad Camden was too tired to begin deciphering last year. "She's his granddaughter." He'd really seemed to like her, he didn't add.

"I'm his son," Camden said simply and that ought to explain it all. He'd learnt long ago not to have any ties that could compound his disappointment so even having a right snatched away from him was something he could swallow too. "And he left me stocks." Five percent of the family business high up the Fortune Global 500 was still monumental enough he could really earn dividends the rest of his life.

But that was hardly the point. His dad had told him long ago he wasn't worth the effort with no actual talent to groom. Now, he'd shown him too.

"I'm heading out since we're done here," he said.

Smile, he'd once written. But there really wasn't anything worth smiling about in a family like this.

So he left.

And no one tried to stop him.

(a/n- 2.4k words)