chapter three

Dinner at the Vale mansion was always a performance, but tonight felt particularly suffocating.

Elias sat in his assigned seat—third from the head of the table, neither close enough to matter nor far enough to escape notice, and wished he were anywhere else. The dining room was oppressively elegant: crystal chandeliers, imported china, fresh orchids arranged with mathematical precision. Everything beautiful, nothing warm.

"Elias, darling, Mrs. Henderson asked about you at the charity luncheon," his mother said, her tone bright with forced casualness. "Apparently her daughter just returned from studying abroad. Literature, I think she said."

Elias cut into his salmon with more force than necessary. "That's nice."

"She's very accomplished. And quite pretty, from what I understand."

Across the table, Alexander raised his wine glass to hide what might have been a smirk. Their eyes met briefly before Elias looked away, jaw tightening.

"I'm not interested, Mom."

"I'm simply making conversation." Catherine's smile remained fixed, but her eyes sharpened. "You're twenty-three years old. It's natural for a mother to wonder about her son's romantic life."

"There's nothing to wonder about."

"Exactly my point." She set down her fork with deliberate gentleness. "You spend all your time in your room or the library. You never go out, never bring anyone home. It's not healthy, sweetheart."

Richard cleared his throat, still focused on his meal. "The boy's just focused on his studies."

"Online courses he barely completes," Catherine countered, her voice still saccharine. "I just worry that you're isolating yourself unnecessarily."

Elias felt heat crawling up his neck. "I'm fine."

"Are you?" His mother leaned forward slightly, concern etched across her carefully maintained features. "Because from where I'm sitting, you seem—"

"Catherine." Richard's voice carried quiet authority. "Perhaps we could discuss this another time."

"I'm just saying," Catherine continued, lowering her voice, "that it wouldn't hurt to meet some nice girls. To have a social life like normal young men your age."

Like Alexander, she meant. Like the tabloid fixture across the table who couldn't keep his face out of the gossip columns.

"Maybe I don't want to be like normal young men," Elias said quietly.

The table went still. Even Alexander's perpetual amusement seemed to pause.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Catherine's smile had frozen into something brittle.

"Nothing. Forget it." Elias returned to his meal, though his appetite had vanished entirely.

Alexander finally spoke, his voice smooth and infuriatingly casual. "Leave him alone. Not everyone needs to broadcast their personal life for public consumption."

The irony was so thick Elias almost laughed. Alexander, defender of privacy. Alexander, who'd probably already arranged his next tabloid appearance.

"At least you have a personal life," Catherine muttered, then seemed to catch herself. "I mean—both of you should. That's all I'm saying. Connections matter in this world."

The rest of dinner passed in uncomfortable near-silence, punctuated only by Richard's occasional business observations and Catherine's desperate attempts at neutral conversation. Elias counted the minutes until he could escape.

Finally, mercifully, dessert concluded. Elias excused himself immediately, heading for the stairs while his mother called after him about breakfast plans he had no intention of keeping.

He was halfway up when he heard Alexander's voice drifting from the study.

"Tomorrow night works... No, somewhere visible. Somewhere with photographers." A pause. "I don't care which restaurant, just make sure it looks good... Yes, she's fine. Blonde this time, I think. Change the pattern..."

Elias stopped walking, hand frozen on the banister.

"It's all for show anyway," Alexander continued, voice dropping slightly. "Just book it and send me the details. I'll play my part."

The casual cynicism in his stepbrother's tone—the easy admission that everything was performance, that the women were interchangeable props made something twist violently in Elias's chest.

He didn't wait to hear more. He practically ran to his room, closing the door harder than intended and leaning against it, breathing hard.

It's all for show anyway.

Of course it was. Of course Alexander's public romances were as manufactured as everything else in this family. But hearing it confirmed so casually, so carelessly—

Elias crossed to his window, staring out at the manicured grounds without seeing them. His mother's words echoed: normal young men your age. Alexander's voice: just make sure it looks good.

Everything was about appearances. About performing the right role, wanting the right things, being the right kind of person.

What if you didn't know what you wanted? What if the version of yourself you presented to the world felt like a poorly fitted costume you couldn't remove?

What if the tightness in your chest when you looked at your stepbrother meant something you couldn't name and didn't want to examine?

Elias grabbed his laptop with shaking hands and collapsed onto his bed. He needed answers. Needed to understand why he felt so fundamentally wrong in his own skin, why every day felt like drowning in expectations he couldn't meet.

He typed carefully: struggling with sexuality.

The search results overwhelmed him—articles, forums, resources he'd been too afraid to look at before. He scrolled through them with his door locked and his heart racing, feeling exposed even though he was alone.

One forum thread caught his attention: How did you know?

The responses varied, some people had always known, others figured it out gradually, some through specific moments of recognition. Elias read each one, his chest tight, seeing fragments of himself in strangers' words.

He kept searching, falling deeper into threads and articles, his careful walls beginning to crack. One post mentioned finding community, finding spaces where you could explore without judgment.

Someone had replied: There are places in the city. Exclusive places. Where people like us can just... be.

Elias clicked the thread. Most responses were vague references to underground clubs, invitation-only spaces, places that required connections to access. The descriptions were cryptic but consistent: safe environments, strict privacy, guided experiences for people questioning their identity.

One comment included only an address and a cryptic phrase: Ask for the midnight guest list. If you're meant to find it, you will.

Elias stared at the screen, heart hammering. This was insane. These could be scams, dangerous situations, anything. He should close the laptop, delete his search history, pretend he'd never looked.

Instead, he screenshot the address.

His phone buzzed—a text from his mother: Please think about what I said. I only want you to be happy, sweetheart.

Elias looked at the message, then back at his laptop screen, at the cryptic references to places where people could explore who they really were without the weight of family expectations and social performance.

Something inside him had been stretched too thin for too long. Tonight, listening to his mother's concerns and Alexander's casual manipulation of public perception, feeling the suffocating weight of being something he wasn't—

Something had finally snapped.

He saved the address in his notes app, buried under innocuous file names. Then he closed the laptop and lay back on his bed, staring at the ceiling, feeling terrified and oddly alive.

Maybe there were answers out there. Maybe there were places where the masks could come off.