Exchanging Trust

15//sky full of stars

Katarina made slow steps towards the mass of people in the hallway. Her last lesson, Italian, had just finished and she cringed even thinking about it. Ignoring the last class, her first day could have been worse. She was happy the way it turned out.

Turns out Katarina sucks at Italian. She could almost cry in the class at how frustrated she was becoming with herself. She was living in a country that she didn't even understand the language of. More importantly, she was living with people who spoke it fluently.

Even worse, people whisper.

God did she hate when people started to whisper. 

She always had the anxiety they were looking and talking about her, and if you were right, you could always hear what they were saying.

She really hated when the whispering started.

Katarina found it hard to wurm her way through the crowd to get to her brothers. Everytime she bumped into someone, she apologized with a soft voice, making another person run into her and bump her. On repeat.

Finally after some more apologizing and getting hit, she made her way to the other side and stood next to her brothers, her breathing hard and panting from the crows she just wrestled with.

"You ready for tryouts?" Isacco asked happily, making Katarina snap her head.

Shit, she forgot about that part.

"I'm not sure, Isacco." She mumbled, looking down at her feet as she felt uncomfortable.

"Trying doesn't hurt, right? And you can still decide if you want to position or not when you get it." Isacco tried to reason. He couldn't understand how she didn't know how good she was. And he really wanted her with him on the team.

It was like a dream, playing basketball and winning the season with his little sister in his team.

"Smurf, she's probably nervous for playing in front of the whole team. What if she doesn't feel comfortable enough to play in an all boys team?" Ezio scolded, Isacco was pushing her in a way she wasn't feeling comfortable in. 

Yes, it would be amazing if she got on the team but only if she wanted it herself and felt comfortable with it. The last thing they wanted to do was forcing her to do something she didn't want or like.

"You know us." Mattia smiled, putting his hand on the shoulder of Isacco. He really wanted to see the sibling duo play.

"Besides, the team will absolutely love you. But it's totally up to you. If you don't want to be on the team, you can still join your brother and us when we hang and play basket out of school, just for fun." Santiago said as he stood with his arms crossed.

Katarina was hesitating, she did really wanted to try for the team, but if she did got in, could she handle it? The stress, the anxiety, the attention? She wasn't the girl she once was. That girl wouldn't even think twice about trying for tryouts, but now things were different.

Things were so much more different since that day.

But how long was she going to let that hold her back? She found it time to get back in her social life, time to get back to her old self, with baby steps of course. But this, this decision was a jump she didn't know she wanted to take.

She sighed, knowing her mind was already made up the second she saw the excitement on her youngest brother's face.

"I'll try." She smiled and Isacco and his friends started to scream of happiness while Ezio and Gregorio just smiled at her.

Maybe it wasn't so bad after all...

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She spoke too soon.