Vincenzo Ricasso (surprise!)
My eyes widened slightly when I saw the place that we arrived at. Wasn't this where Dad used to bring me whenever he had some business to settle with Uncle Ethan? We stopped coming here after the passing of Uncle Ethan. A thought just flashed through my mind. Does that mean the girl whom I used to play with might be here as well?
As the door opened, we walked into the mansion and I spotted a large dining table near the kitchen. There were three people seated at the table and the girl was back facing us. They all stood up when they saw us approaching the table and what Mum did surprised me. She hugged the girl who had kept her head low the whole time and I saw her jumped a little at the sudden contact. What my Mum said next surprised me even more.
"It's been a long time since I've seen you, Avery." Avery? As in the Avery in the class today? I took a few steps closer to verify and it was definitely her from my class. This means that she is Avery Romano? The daughter of Uncle Ethan?
"Aunt Valentina?" She sounded shocked but she managed to compose her shock. She smiled. And it seemed like a sincere smile.
"Uncle Francesco, Aunt Valentina." She greeted my parents and her eyes finally found me. Her eyes widened in shock and it seemed that my mum caught onto it. She grinned widely and said,"Ahh I see, you guys probably have already met in class today? No?" She nodded in response but did not say a word.
"You guys were so cute when both of you played together back then. Enzo was upset for almost one whole month when we stopped visiting your family." My ears perked up at my mum's words. She was the girl from back then? Then why did she deny that she saw me before? She forgot? Tons of questions zoomed past my head and I had no answer to a single one.
The other two, whom I assumed to be her brothers, greeted my parents and acknowledged me with a nod. Mum shot me a glance and pointed to the seat beside Avery with her head. She was being too obvious, gee thanks mum. I took the seat next to her but she did not look at me once. She was definitely guilty of something, and I plan to ask her after the dinner.
Another two more men appeared at the table and they were also brothers of Avery. My dad had been friends with Uncle Ethan for years and he was working for him for a long time. He continued working for the mafia even after the passing of Uncle Ethan because he wanted Uncle Ethan to rest assure that he would continue helping his son to run the business. And mum did not mind dad's line of work either.
The dinner begun in silent, with some occasional small talks between my dad and Alexander, the current Don of the Italian mafia. I took small glances at Avery while eating, she was taking small bites in between, but was mostly shoving the food around on her plate. It felt as though she had changed. She used to be cheerful and bubbly during the times that we were playing together. But now, there were no traces of happiness in her. I wonder if it was truly because of the passing of her father and disappearance of her twin that turned her like this.
After dinner, dad and Alexander were still engaged in their talk while the rest of her brothers had gone up to their rooms. Just as Avery appeared from the kitchen, I stood up from my seat and headed towards her.
"Can we have a talk?" She probably already knew what I was going to talk about, but she agreed anyways and we went to the balcony. We stood at the balcony for a good one minuted before I started the talk.
"Why did you deny that we've met before? You... don't remember those times when we played together at the garden?" My voice sounded hesitant, as though I was scared to hear from her that she had forgotten. Soft breeze blew across us, which caused some of her hair to cover one side of her face. She gently tugged the loose strands of hair behind her ears and sighed softly,"No, I do remember." I let out a silent sigh of relief upon hearing that. That's good.
She continued,"It's just... I didn't know your name and you don't look the same as you do like before, so I couldn't recognise you." That was.. logical, I guess. I used to have some baby fats framed around my cheeks but I lost them when I reached seven or eight years old. Even mum said I no longer looked cute, which I was really glad. I nodded at her response, at a loss of words to say.
"Then, are you...okay?" I wanted to slap myself for sounding so unsure of what I was asking but at the same time, this was the best tone I could muster. I don't know why I asked, probably I just had to make sure. Because she looked.... lifeless.
Her eyes shone an expression which I could not fathom, but she blinked it away in an instant. She smiled lightly and asked,"I'm okay. Someone said before, time will heal. I'm still coping, I guess." Her response somehow did not manage to convince me but I decided to drop it. I did not want to make her feel pressurised the moment we met after so many years.
I then turned to face her and asked,"Didn't you promise me to make me a friendship bracelet the last time I came here? Did you make it? Can I have it?" Her eyes widened slightly at my questions. Then she smiled, a bigger smile than the one she gave before, as genuine as the one she gave when she first met my mum.
"Of course I do, it's in my room." She then turned around and headed to the opposite direction, and I followed suit. Her room had a drastic change. It used to have many of their family pictures pasted on her walls but now the walls were just a in a plain white colour, with nothing on them. Her bed was neatly tucked in with her chair pushed into the desk. It felt so different.
She opened her wardrobe, and I saw the amount of black coloured clothes she owned. There were not much clothes but most of them were black in colour, to which I had only spotted one shirt in white. She used to love clothes with some colours, and disliked clothes which only consist of black. She then took out a box with her and placed it on the ground.
Gesturing the seat on the small couch, we took a seat and she opened the box. I could recognise some of the toys which we used to play with and a pile of pictures which she used to paste them on the wall. Digging through those, she grabbed a small box and handed to me.
I opened the box and a small bracelet lied in there, consisting of both blue and white which were our favourite colours when we were young. There were three letters in between the small beads that said 'V&A', which probably stands for Vincenzo and Avery. I smiled at the bracelet as I touched it carefully in between my fingers.
Noticing a small piece of white paper underneath the bracelet, I slowly pulled it out of the box and opened it. It was Avery's handwriting which wrote,'Cheers to our friendship!<3' If it was possible, my smile had only grew bigger. It was so precious. I carefully put the paper back in and covered the box, only to find Avery zoning out while having her gaze on the pile of pictures lying in the box.
Is she really okay?
Updated! a week left before the start of my internship JWNKJWNS I'm nervous but excited at the same time
I would have doubts in myself thinking, 'what if I screw up something during work' but I knew I was overthinking too much but sometimes I just could not help it and to keep thinking about it
Any tips to calm my nervous ass down for my internship? I would be super super grateful for that WNDIJNWSJNWJ
Happy reading! - 28/8/2022
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Broken Bonds
Teen FictionAvery Elizabeth Romano had a twin, whom she loved dearly. Yes, you heard it right, had. Her twin was taken away by her mother at the age of 5. Her father was killed on the same day. Her brothers abandoned her on the very same day as well. Sounds tra...
