ROMEO (book 1)

32. DELILAH

There has never been a nice christmas dinner in my house. Usually someone got mad, or mom and dad were drunk.

So I was alone most of the time.

I'm so jealous watching the Reign family all happy, passing each other food, making jokes, no one is drinking, everyone has a smile on their face, even Romeo is happy.

I feel awkward.

I look down at my untouched plate of food, back up at Emilio sitting opposite me. He smiles at me, then starts whispering to his dad, Luca, on the side of him, who laughs.

I look down again, picking around the skin on my nails.

They're all so open with each other.

Ilaria is annoying Matteo about her recent boy problems, Romeo and Matteo are threatening to murder him. The twins are joking around with Luca. Asher and Arabella are jokingly flirting to make their kids squeamish and Romans just watching proudly.

I feel so out of place.

Romeo nudges my knee with his, I look up and he nods his head at my full plate of food. "Need the bathroom." I bite my lip, I need to go before I ruin their christmas by crying.

"Second door through the left."

"Excuse me." I stand up, walking around the table with my head down and breathing properly once i'm out of the room.

I walk into the bathroom, I look around for the lock but there wasn't one, so I just sit on lip of the tub.

I sniff, keeping my eyes shut to not let the tears escape.

There was two knocks on the door before it opens and Arabella walks in, "Hey." She closes the door.

"Hi." I stand up.

She pouts a little, "So, before I met Romeo. Christmas at the Costa house was me cooking and cleaning, by myself, then being ordered to sit in another room to eat alone because I didn't have a dick and I weren't a high ranking woman." She sits where i was previously, "Your turn."

I shake my head no.

"Ok, Asher's Christmas was him looking after his little sister, or being sent to work anyways. He never has spent it with his entire family, usually his dad." She rubs her hands on her leggings, "His mom would refuse to see him unless he had a girl for her to see. Asher never wanted to marry a Chinese girl." She looks at me, "Now it's your turn?"

I lean against the counter, "I'm okay, Mrs. Reign-"

"Romans christmas was different entirely." She raises an eyebrow, "His father would make him stand in the corner of the room, naked, all of Regno would be in the room. They would whip him, drag him through snow, burn him with the fire accessories." She nods her head. "You see how three different situations all lead to a type of trauma. The first time I celebrated Christmas with Roman, I was shocked when he didn't make me stand in the kitchen for hours to cook. Asher was shocked he could see all his family on the same day. Roman was shocked no one beat him. Now it's your turn Delilah. I'm not going to judge you, I just want to help you."

I clenched my jaw, biting my lip again. "Until I was 12, Christmas wasn't a thing. They'd give me underwear and that would be it for the year." I sniff, "Thirteen, I learnt how to make Christmas dinner. They didn't like that I used their electric to make it, so they played the knife game with me."

"Knife game?"

"Threw knives by my feet to see if I could run away quick enough." I hiccup. "Fourteen, I bought us all a ready made dinner. Asked them, first time we ever at Christmas as a family. They got drunk, beat me after."