Velika: The story of a lover

That was the moment Larissa Weiss realized that even Rachael refused to admit, she did care about her. When Rachael stepped out of the door, she locked her eyes on Larissa Weiss for a few seconds, with complicated emotions. Larissa Weiss nodded, and for the first time, Rachael smiled at her. It was a genuine smile that she hadn't see on anybody for a long time.

It was a Monday, she remembered vividly, like a permanent mark in her memory that could not be erased. Kurt didn't go to work that day as he worked rotating shifts. Larissa Weiss was planning to leave while Kurt was asleep since he seldom woke up before noon. But that day was different, he was up even earlier than her, making loud noise in the living room like the usual hangover self. She was expecting him to go back to sleep sometime in the afternoon. To her disappointment, he didn't. Perhaps she could choose another day, she told herself when she locked up her bedroom door. The only thing she appreciated in this house was that there was a lock on the door, and that was the only barrier between her and drunk Kurt, sometimes, her own father. It didn't always help, from times to times they would giving up banging against it. Most of the times they would yell at her and forced her to open it. If she didn't, it was violence that she had to face the next time she was out of her room.

'Why do I have to take all of these abuses?' The eight-year-old Larissa Weiss asked herself when she was wiping off her tears.

'No, you don't deserve this, sweetheart.' Answered Astoria, 'you are getting out of here, we are getting out of here.'

'Astoria is right,' Margaret followed up, 'We are indeed getting out of this craziness.'

Matthew Weiss came home at twilight, with a bottle of liquor in his hand. He yelled at Kurt's name the first thing after he entered the door and said that it would be a great night if Kurt could join him drinking.

"I'm sorry, man," Kurt shrugged and said when he was going down the stairs, "Can't do that tonight, going to get some blow with my boys. We can crack some hard liquor tomorrow if you want."

"That's fine." Matthew Weiss shook his head, "I can get this baby done myself."

"'Meaning,?" Kurt paused and pointed upstairs at Larissa Weiss' door, she could hear the men laughing hard.

"Both. Why not?" She heard her father said, with a tone that she couldn't comprehend. If only her biological mother was alive, she would never let things like this happen to her precise daughter.

Matthew Weiss started drinking even before Kurt was gone. The entire time Larissa Weiss locked herself up disregard how many times that her father called her to come downstairs. She knew that within the next couple hours he would be drunk and then her chance would come.

She was right. She also knew that he would come up and threaten her to open the door, and if she didn't, she would not live to see the sunrise. No answer, she decided to not answer a word he said. Eventually, he got tired at screaming at her and went back to the living room, where he gradually fell asleep.

It was almost eleven at night, she had to take her move. There was no estimate time for when Kurt would be back as he tended to stay outside for various amount of time.

Slowly. Larissa Weiss opened the door and quietly moved to the stairs without turning on the light. From the dim shine of the lamp in the living room, she saw Matthew Weiss was in his heavy sleep. Step by step, not making a sound, she moved to the backdoor, her freedom was right in front of her eyes, even she didn't know where to go but anywhere was better than staying in this household. She turned the door knob, held her breath. It was an old wooden door and might make noise at any time.

Everything is going to be fine, young Larissa Weiss told herself. She counted to three and pulled the door open, and that was when it made a loud squeaky sound.

"Larissa?!" Matthew Weiss called out. He was a light sleeper and the lightest sound could wake him up. He wasn't sober so he didn't have a grasp of what was going on, but he knew, out of an instinct, it was his daughter, "Larissa?!"

But she was already out of the door, running into the woods behind the house, running towards a brighter future in her imagination.

Then she saw someone approaching from the opposite direction, her heart dropped instantly.

It was, no doubt, Kurt.

"Hey little one," Said Kurt, Larissa Weiss could smell alcohol in a distance, "What are you doing here at this time?'

She stood there, too scared to move. It was dark in the woods and the only source of light was the dim moonlight. He could do anything to her and no one could hear her, no need to mention helping her.

"Let me deal with him." She heard Margaret whispering in her ear, "Let me protect you, Larissa."

Larissa Weiss agreed. She then gave the light to Margaret and went to sleep. She was too tired to stay up, didn't have the courage to watch what Margaret did to Kurt. It was not hard to picture what happened next.

Of course, Margaret would seduce Kurt, and killed him with the nearest weapon that she could find, which was, a stone. Larissa Weiss could imagine the cold stone covered in warm blood, dripping slowly into the muddy ground and absorbed by earth.

Sometimes she wondered, what could ever be the mark of her existence, what could be the marks of all our existences?

Larissa Weiss, or more accurately, Margaret, managed to find the closest household to stay for the night. And in the morning, the kind elder couple sent her to the local orphanage, where later that year, she was adopted by Dr. Christopher Carling.

She knew precisely that she stepped on a brave new path when she legally changed her name to Larissa Carling.

###

"Did she tell you all of these?" Asked Velika O'Sullivan, sitting next to her psychiatrist, fulfilled with curiosity.

"No. She told my father." Answered the soft-voiced gentleman, "But I was the one who discovered that she was, let's say, different. I was seventeen when she was adopted, and I spent the most of time with her, just like with Alicia and we were very close. From times to times, she wanted to be called 'Astoria' or 'Margaret'. Mostly Astoria. When I left for university in Germany, I told my father about my observations and then he started to study her."

"Then why would she tell people that you were abusive if you were close?" Velika O'Sullivan tilted her head and frowned.

"I was close to Larissa, but apparently not Astoria," Aaron Carling smiled, Velika O'Sullivan loved to see the wrinkles on the corner of his eyes when he smiled, "Astoria was very defensive and kept everything to herself. I can't feel any empathy in her. By the time I left, I knew one day Astoria is going to take the full control and Larissa had to sit aside. That's why I told father, because I was afraid the lovable Larissa would be gone forever."

"How did your father's study about her go?"

"Well," Aaron Carling paused, seemed like trying to find the best way to phrase his story, "My father kept a detailed file about her and sent me a copy of it just in case anything happened to him, and this could be my last safe bet towards Astoria. He knew that Astoria is ambitious and very dangerous. She would use all her power to against me in order to gain what she wanted. And father was right."

"Then?"

"When I was twenty-five, and Larissa sixteen. My father had a very sudden cardiac arrest and passed. Mother passed two years before that, so Larissa had nowhere to go but came to Germany to stay with me. I was working on my PhD back then, as I have a MD/PhD degree. My then friend, and you might know him, Shane Leontes, who was a Master's student, worked in the laboratory down the hall of mine. The day Larissa arrived, I was running a long experiment and couldn't make it to the airport, so Shane was kind enough to help me pick up my sister. That was an mistake, and to this day, I still wonder what would happen if he didn't pick her up."

"Did they fall in love?" Velika O'Sullivan could almost guess where the story was going.

"He fell in love with her, but she didn't." Said the psychiatrist slowly, turned away from her lover and stared at the wall, "She was, and still is, an extraordinarily pretty woman and it's easy to fall for her beauty. Shane was twenty-two, young and impulsive. They started spending more time together. He told her that he was from the States and he had a family business. Then, as you could think of, Larissa, or more like Astoria at that point saw the potential in Shane and would do anything to make him take her back to the States."

"So, she told you that you were abusive and your whole family was psychopath?" Said Velika O'Sullivan with a sneer, "What a woman."

"She put our names in her story," Said Aaron Carling without any expressions, still staring at the wall, "I tried to tell Shane that she was dangerous and he should stay away from her. But that man was insanely in love and threatened to 'report my crime' if I didn't stop interfering his relationship with my sister. I know that I should've insisted asking him to step aside, but I didn't. When Astoria turned eighteen, they got married. Then, as soon as Shane finished his Master's degree, they went back to the States. And I was cut off from contact."

"I could imagine how reluctant you were when you were dragged back to this mess." Velika O'Sullivan sighed.

"I was indeed reluctant, yet I feel it was partly my responsibility to take care of my sister, even she was adopted, she still had my last name." Aaron Carling continued his story in monotone, "They were married for five years. She changed her name to Astoria Leontes, from which I know that my Larissa is completely gone, and she was the perfect wife that she could ever pretended to be, meanwhile trying to take over the Leontes business. She was flawless as she always will be but the old Mrs. Leontes knew her plans. She tried to tell her son, but Shane was so deep in love with her, and all her charms so he never listened to his mother. After Astoria found out that Mrs. Leontes was going to contact me, and get her mental condition records, she poisoned her mother-in-law and it was an accident to overdose her, which resulting her death. That was when Shane realized that his wife murdered his mother but he had no evidence. So, he reconnected with me, and I feel it was part of my responsibility to put my sister under control, I gave him the access to her records. Later that year he filed for divorce and left the family business for good. What he couldn't do was to get his then wife out of the business as well. He told his little brother, Romeo Leontes about his ex-wife and made him to promise that no matter what, he should get rid of his sister-in-law. And, naturally, Romeo got in touch with me and asked for my help. But regardless of how much I would love to help out, I couldn't at that moment."

"Why couldn't you help?" Asked Velika O'Sullivan with confusion.

Velika O'Sullivan wanted to ask, but she didn't. Her curiosity wasn't as important at this time. She knew that she didn't have much time to spend with the man who she was crazy in love with, and probably never would have enough time. So, she kept quiet and held all her questions back.

It was only after she followed Daniel Heinrich to San Francisco Bay area later that year, when she found out the other half of the story.

It was because of Landon Hetherington.