Thorns & Roses

-thirty-

AURORA VALENTINA MARINO

I haven't been well for the past few days so I've spent most of it locked up in our room.

"V, it's been 3 days, you haven't spoken about Lucas once. He wants to see you and Riccardo keeps bugging me because you're not calling him back."

"Eli, you know I'm not well, I don't even want to be thinking about that right now."

"You have to at some point."

"Yeah, well, it doesn't need to be now, does it?" I said, raising my voice. His eyebrows furrowed and he looked slightly taken aback. I sat up and pinched the bridge of my nose. "Sorry. I'm sorry. I don't know where that came from."

"It's ok." He said and sat down next to me, kissing my forehead.

"I don't know how to feel about all of this. I'm happy that he's my brother and all, I like Lucas and now that means Valentino is my nephew. But I don't know, it's just weird. The fact Padre didn't tell me too. It just makes me wonder if Lucas was never at the hospital that day or came later than we did so we never met, would Padre even had told me I have a brother?"

"I'm sure he would've at some point."

"But if Padre had actually died, I would've gone the rest of my life not knowing I had a blood brother. Baby, I've been here for almost 10 months and Lucas has been living a 25 minute drive away from us. I'm not mad at Lucas, I can't be, none of this is his fault. It's not like I can blame Bonnie, she's dead so it wouldn't do much use. It just hurt that Padre kept that from me, it's not even like he kept it to keep me safe."

"He didn't tell you because he wanted to keep Lucas safe; with all this Sofia stuff going on, bringing him into your life would've caused more issues and put him in danger. I think Riccardo just wanted to wait until it was all over." I sighed and nodded.

I have almost 21 years of sibling bonding to catch up on.

"How you feeling, are you getting better?" I shook my head.

"Worse if anything, I don't know what's wrong with me, Eli."

He kissed my forehead again, pulling me close and I felt a burning sensation in my throat. I got up, running to the bathroom and the moment I got to the toilet, I threw up.

Eli came in and I shouted at him to get out but he ignored me and held my hair back for me. He took the hair tie from his wrist and put my hair in a puff.

Once everything was out, I sat leaning against the wall, trying to catch my breath. "I think I should get an appointment for you. That's the third time you've thrown up today."

"I'm fine. I promise I'm fine." I said breathlessly. "I'll just have a shower and go to sleep for the night."

"Do you want help?" Fuck, I feel so tired. I nodded slowly. I felt my eyelids get heavy and Eli's arms wrapped around me before I was over come by darkness.

-

I woke up hearing Eli's and Mrs Elena's voices outside of the door.

"Mama, I don't know what to do, it's been days. She doesn't want to see a doctor. What if she's really sick?"

"She'll be fine, hijo."

"Healthy people don't just pass out like that, Mama."

"We'll wait a few more days. If it gets any worse, we'll bring the doctor to her." They both walked in and I smiled weakly at them.

"Hey, my love. How you feeling?" Eli whispered as he laid down next to me.

"I'm ok, just hungry."

"What do you want, I'll get it for you. Pick anything."