The Lombardozzi Sorellina

Chapter 13 - "Why did you bite our sister?!"

This chapter contains: Mentions of abuse, Some swearing

The nightmare was not welcome at all, but I do welcome the clearance I needed of my emotions. Yes, I feel sad, my own stepfather abused me, and my mother did nothing to stop it. Yes, I feel happy, my brothers found me, and they are giving me a better life. But most of all I feel an excruciating amount of guilt and it is eating me alive from the inside. I feel guilty because my mother had died for me, because I wasn't brave or strong enough and if it wasn't for me, she would still be alive.

----------------------------------------------

Vivianna's POV:

The rest of the night is a repeat from the previous night – staring at the ceiling, staring at the wall, staring at anything, except for the back of my eyelids. The entire night I am stressing about the fact that my brothers will have questions in the morning – questions that I am not ready to answer yet, or rather questions that I will never be willing to answer.

At 07:00 there is a knock at the door. I am very tempted to turn on my side, with my back to the door, and pretend to sleep, but I don't have the time before the door opens, I do have time to close my eyes though. "It's almost time for breakfast, Vivianna" Lorenzo whispers. I ignore him, maybe he'll let me sleep in peace. "I know you're awake" he says knowingly, and I can hear the smirk in his voice. I squint my eyes open and let out a slight groan, still going with my act of sleeping and only waking up now, though I know he isn't falling for it.

"Never knew we had such an amazing actress in the family... maybe work on the sleep acting, but you'll get there soon." he jokes. The fake sleeping has actually made me realize how tired I am and now I'm regretting on putting my sleep of for the entire night. "Just one more minute" I plead. See, I'm still not very comfortable or outspoken with my brothers, but when someone or something comes in between my sleep, or messes with tired Vivianna, I will win.

"One more minute" Lorenzo says. With a small, satisfied smile I snuggle deeper into my blankets and just as I'm about to drift off, Lorenzo speaks. "Alright, time to get up, it's been a minute" "I didn't mean an exact minute!" I groan, but nevertheless push my upper body off the bed with my elbows. He just chuckles and makes his way to my door. "Don't be late for breakfast" Then he leaves me to get ready.

I quickly get up and grab my clothes for the day – a blue skinny jean and an oversized, short-sleeved t-shirt. After getting dressed, I wash my face and brush my teeth. I pick up the makeup brush, but immediately put it back down – they already saw the bruise last night so why cover it up. Right as I'm about to leave the bathroom, I remember the bite mark on my wrist. I can't bandage it, because they'll notice that plus there are no bandages in the bathroom, but I also can't put makeup on, because I have none left. "Vivianna!!" someone yells from outside my bathroom door. "Coming!" I yell back. I'll just have to hope no one looks at my wrist and I'll make extra sure to try and subliminally hide it.

Giuseppe is waiting for me outside the bathroom. "Lorenzo said I had to come make sure you didn't fall asleep again" he laughs. I give an awkward laugh, but with Giuseppe I don't have to worry about that, because he takes from a fake smile, to a glimpse of a smile to a full-blown laugh, all as being happy.

A chorus of "good mornings" reach me as I enter the kitchen with Giuseppe. "Morning" I softly reply. "I hope you like pancakes" Andreá says, stacking two on top of each other and handing me the plate. Luca requested that I make pancakes a few times, and the one time, I was soooo hungry. I hadn't eaten in three days, and I felt on the verge of passing out, so I took one of the pancakes, not thinking that he would notice - and he wouldn't have, had he not come into the kitchen at the exact moment I was about to take the last bite. Let's just say I never took any food from his meal ever again after the punishment I received that day.