She clinched her fist and squeezed her eyes shut, trying desperately to take deep, calming breathes but only ending up with short, hyperventilating ones instead. "You really think I don't try?" Bea bit back, eyes flaring open as she pressed forwards, advancing on her brother as he faltered at the edge of the steps.

"You don't know anything, Victor. You don't know how hard I try. You don't know all the times I've cried myself to sleep because I know just how much of a failure I am? How much of a disappointment I am to you? To Momma? To Pappa? To everyone?  Because I know how much of our money I've wasted trying to find a husband? You don't believe me? Ask Pansy. Tell her I told you to ask. She's the one who to deal with my swollen eyes in the mornings. Or talk me down when's all just to much and I feel like I can't  even breathe?"

Her eyes were wild, unrestrained and bordering on the 'hysterical' label Victor liked to taunt her with. He'd done it. She'd snapped. She'd reached her breaking point and she just as much felt the roaring rage as she felt disconnected, a passive bystander to the whole scene. Still Beatrice advanced, pushing forwards faster than Victor could get away, her hands outreached like she wanted to grab him. To shake him.

"Do you think I like that all of society - my own family included- looks at me with pity? That they think I'm nothing more than a dimwit better suited to a country home than any kind of social scene?"

One last step and she closed the distance between the pair, her hands grasping his lapels and trembling. To grab him. To shake him. Like it would help him understand just how hard she tried. She had wanted nothing more than to make her family happy. That they'd be pleased with her for once in her life.

"No, no, no, Victor. That's the problem. I do try. I try so hard. I care far to much about what everyone thinks. What you think!"

To grab him. To shake him.

To push him.