She's a fifteen-year-old girl who killed her "father" in self-defense and lied about it to the police. She thinks she has no other family members and now she has nowhere to live but the police tell her she was kidnapped from her real family when sh...
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ATHENA RUSSO:
He doesn't look at me, he looks at the ground. I stare at him in shock. He was right. I definitely don't like the answer.
"Where is she now?" I grit out, my fists clenching.
"I don't know. She quit and left when I was fifteen. I never saw her again," he quietly answers, still not looking at me
"Was it just once? Or—"
"She did it every month. Snuck into my room and stripped me naked until I was fifteen," he cuts me off, finally looking at me.
His eyes are dark and empty and it scares me. He doesn't feel anything because it hurts so he blocks it out. That's why he's like this.
He's broken.
My heart breaks for him.
He was only ten.
I close my eyes and turn around. I feel sick. Who could be so sick and cruel as to rape a ten-year-old boy and continue doing that for years?
"I'm sorry if I made you uncomfortable. I didn't mean to."
I turn around and shake my head. "Marcello, I wanted to know. You can't blame that on yourself—you can't blame any of that on yourself," I choke out, feeling my eyes burn from tears.
Marcello slowly nods, "I know."
Normally there is a but. But Marcello isn't the one to make excuses, he doesn't bother to defend himself because he doesn't feel like he's being competed with. He doesn't feel anything. And now I know why.
"Who else knows?"
"Only you know."
He's been hiding it for a whole decade now. How—No fuck that. I'm going to find that bitch and kill her. Well, maybe not literally kill her but— Who am I kidding?
I am going to kill her.
But what really hurts me the most is that he hides it so well that no one would be able to tell he's broken. Everyone puts on a facade. Even I do. Even Marcello does. He puts on this scary intimidating look on his face.
Does he do that to push people away? So he doesn't get hurt again?
"This is weird. I'm feeling a need to be comforted. I think I need a hug," Marcello tells me, staring down at me.
I give him a small smile.
Of course, you do. You've hidden this for so long, haven't you? Now that you've told someone, you want more. You want comfort even though you've probably never felt what that feels like. You need it. And I am willing to give you what you need.
I step forward and wrap my arms around him. He hugs me back and buries his face in the crook of my neck. Closing my eyes, my heart breaks even more for him.
"I believe you. "
He stays silent and I understand why. He doesn't want to speak. He wants someone to comfort him.
"You didn't deserve that. At all."
He holds onto me even tighter. I squeeze my eyes shut, hugging him tighter.
"It's not your fault."
And that officially breaks my heart. Because I've been dying to hear someone say that to me but now I am saying it to another person.
No. You don't get to feel that right now. This isn't about you. What you have been through is nothing compared to what Marcello has been through.
I internally scold myself for thinking about myself at a time like this. I need to pull my shit together and comfort my brother because he needs it.
He pulls away and he keeps his head low so I can't see it. "Can you look at me?" I softly ask him. He slowly looks at me and I feel like a knife has been stabbed through my broken heart.
He's crying.
I hold my breath. I've never seen any of my brothers cry before but now I am. And no one would have expected it to be Marcello.
I slowly raise my hand and gently wipe his tears away with my thumb then I cup his face with my hands.
None of us is strong enough for this. And I am not going to let him be the one who needs to act strong because I know he's been doing exactly that for years. He needs to break down and then get back up.
So I will be strong. Strong enough for both of us.
"You are going to be okay. I am going to help you and make sure you get better. And you are going to let me. Do you understand?"
He closes his beautiful eyes and his eyebrows are furrowed, showing he's in discomfort.
He looks like he's in pain. He's starting to feel. And it hurts.
He grabs me onto me, like he doesn't want me to disappear, and hugs me. I slowly rub his back soothingly as he cries. "Hey. It's okay. Let it all out," I whisper.
"I don't want to feel this. I don't want this. Make it go away. Make it... Go. Away," he mumbles.
"No one knew. No one noticed. No one cared. Why?"
My heart has been broken and stabbed and as if that wasn't enough, it falls apart. I can't come up with an answer so I stay silent.
"Every month. On the eleventh. She came into my room. And raped me."
I place a hand over my mouth and I look up at the ceiling, trying to not make a sound. Trying to not let him know I'm crying too. How can I be strong when I'm not? How can I do this when my heart has just fallen apart? I quickly wipe my tears and pull away from him.
"It wasn't your fault," I tell him.
He leans against the wall and looks at me with his teary dark blue eyes, "You don't mean that."
A knock on the door interrupts us. "Hey. Are you guys okay?" Dante asks us, from the other side of the door.
"Yeah, we are. We're just talking," I quickly say.
"Oh okay. Well, hurry up. You're missing the movie." Then I hear him walk away.
I sigh in relief and look around the room. Why the hell do they have another office? And why does it look like someone is going to perform surgery in here—
"This is Elijah's office. He doesn't use it, though," Marcello explains.
I grab the box of tissues on the desk that is in place in the center of the room. I wipe his tears away with the tissues and then fix his messy hair. I throw the tissues away in the bin and look at Marcello.
He stares at the ground, lost in his own world.
I clench my fists. I will find whoever did this to him. And I will ruin them. That is a promise.
