A Dance With Hades

Chapter 27 | For Me

NYX MANSON

Vincenzo gives me a hard, hot kiss I have to pull away from before I make any noise because his family is still in the room.

I don't know how to act around his family when Vincenzo is so openly affectionate. He says Italians love physical touch and that his parents don't mind at all.

"Uhm... good night, everyone," I announce, and they all say good night to me. I smiled at them for the last time before making my way to Vincenzo's bedroom. I walk into the bathroom and make sure to lock the door behind me.

I open the water in the bath so it masks any other sounds. My stomach growls, and I quickly lean over the toilet bowl as all my food comes back up. I try to keep the noise of me wrecthing my dinner down.

If Vincenzo were to find out, I don't know what he would do. He hasn't really picked on what's going on with me, but it bothers him whenever I don't want to eat.

After being bullied for four years straight in middle school, I developed an eating disorder. Girls from my first middle school used to call me all sorts of names. I was on the chubby side while growing up while other girls were skinnier than me.

I didn't care what other people had to say at first because it wasn't such a big deal. As I got older, their words started getting to me even more. Even Jessica and my adopted mother would call me things such as fatty, chubby thing, fat, fat ball, and so many other cruel names whenever they saw me eating.

By the time I got to the eighth grade, still in the same horrid middle school, I had lost a lot of weight, a sickly amount. My father obviously noticed and found out about the bullying. He first got me professional help and then went after the families of all of the kids who bullied me.

Most of them apologised while the others were too stubborn, so my father bought their parents' businesses or where they worked and ruined their lives until they apologised.

Crazy, but it worked.

I changed schools for the remainder of that year, and I was fine by the time I got to the ninth grade, but then it started again, and I learnt to hide it from my father. He thinks I stopped bringing all of my food back up, and I want it to stay that way.

I groan before flushing everything away, and I just sit on the floor for a few seconds, overthinking everything like always as I fight back the tears.

"Amore?" I almost trip over my feet as I get up from the floor. I grab my toothbrush, swipe some toothpaste on the bristles, and begin to brush my teeth. "Amore?"

The door handle begins to jiggle, and I brush my teeth faster and harder, cutting my gums a bit. I rinse out my mouth and wipe it clean before running to the door.

I unlock the door and open it with a fake, bright smile. "Yes?" I hum as I look up at him with innocent eyes.

The large Italian man stares down at me, his eyes telling me he thinks something is going on, but I do not let my happy façade crack by the slightest. "Why was the door locked?"

"No reason," I lie while walking past him, and he doesn't push it any further, calming my raging heart. I grab my towel from the dresser and act as if I was planning to take a bath. I throw the towel over my shoulder and turn back to him.