Olifina: Love And Trouble

15. To Hide And Fight Together

Things went on as usual in the following weeks, but not in my mind. I was planning. I couldn't sit back and watch as things went bad without trying to do anything to stop it. I fought the feeling of calling Dad and meeting up with him to get details of Mother's location. I felt like jumping into the situation and saving the day, we weren't in a fairytale. I needed to plan things well. And I needed to take things as planned if I wanted to win.

I began running the things Mother had said through my mind as I tried to get anything that could serve as a starting point. Then I got it. Mom had talked about a place surrounded by woods and if she was meeting with my dad at the mountain, it meant she was living close to the mountain.

First, we needed to scout the mountain grounds. Thankfully Oliverio knew the grounds around there so well. I looked up at him from where I sat in the kitchen. He looked like he had something bugging him too. He only glanced at me when the key I was fiddling with fell to the floor -that was five minutes ago. He turned to me with a piece of pancake on the plate he held.

"Thank you," I said as he dropped it in front of me.

"How are you feeling?" he asked.

I gave him a small smile. "Mentally stressed."

"Rufina..." he started, "I know it's hard not to think of the situation, but you need to breathe. You look like someone who hasn't slept for days."

"I feel like just getting out into the mountains in search of her."

Oliver sighed, then turned back to his work. Minutes later he was done. He told me to come with him and he led me out of the house.

"Where are we going?" I asked.

He smiled at me but did not answer as he continued walking. I decided to follow in silence. I trusted that he knew what he was doing.

"My mother used to always take me for walks," I said, "we'd walk for a long time and she would tell me a lot of stories."

"That must have been interesting."

I shook my head but he didn't see me since I was a little behind him. "It wasn't all that interesting since I was complaining whenever we walked for a long time."

"Guess you were a wimpy kid." Oliverio laughed as he glanced at me.

It sounded funny but back then during the long hours of the hot summer afternoons, when my mother would drag me on a walk, I didn't think it was funny.

"My mum always tried to put the fighting spirit in me." I shook my head, remembering the number of times she tried to toughen me up. "She'd always wanted me to be this strong woman when I grew up."

I was now walking beside Oliverio. "Even after she left I still had this feeling that I was going to fail her. I was super mad at her but I still didn't want to fail her though she was the one who left me and... and kinda broke me in the process."

Oliver stopped and turned to face me. "You're not broken or anything close to it, Rufina."

I looked up at him with teary eyes.

"That's what I try to tell myself every day, but when I look around, I see a broken home with a mother brought held captive by a maniac!"

"No, no, don't say that," Oliver held my chin and turned me to face him. "Look around, what do you see?"

I stopped and looked around the area. For the first time, I realized that we had arrived at our former hiding spot on the mountain. I looked back at Oliverio whose gaze was on me the whole time.

"This is our hiding spot."

He nodded, "Yes it is. And we're going to hide together from all of this situation until we're ready to face it. Together," he said, intertwining our fingers.