Alex Grayson

The tea had gone cold, a thin film forming over the amber liquid. I watched Alex trace the rim of his porcelain cup, his fingers steady, entirely devoid of the tremors he usually simulated when he sat in that motorized wheelchair. He had forgotten to lock the study door. A simple, arrogant mistake. The molded silicone mask rested on the mahogany desk between us, propped up like a hollow skull. Without it, his face was smooth, unblemished & entirely ordinary. The phantom scars he had described during our brief, mandated dinners were nothing more than layers of theatrical adhesive now peeling in the wastebasket. "You missed a spot of glue near your ear," I said. My voice sounded flat, even to me. Alex did not look up. He leaned back, the leather creaking under his weight. The charming, persistent cousin who had cornered me in the hallways for 3 weeks had vanished, replaced by the bitter architect of a very expensive trap. "Sally told me your father was desperate enough to sign anything. I didn't think he would hand over his remaining daughter quite so fast." "He needed the money." "And you needed to be a martyr," Alex countered, a dry, humorless smile touching his lips. "The grieving bride, marrying the monster to save the family name. It makes for a beautiful tragedy, doesn't it? Except the monster is perfectly fine & the money is tied up in trusts you will never touch." I looked at the mask. I had stood at that altar while my sister Mina whispered jeers from the front pew, all because I thought this faceless man deserved dignity. It was a joke with no punchline. "Tita really broke you, didn't she?" I asked. His smile vanished. For a second, the exhausted, petty reality of him laid bare. He had built an entire labyrinth of deceit, a rotation of marriages & legal traps, just to prove a point to a woman who had moved on years ago.