Finding Solace

15-- The betrayal...

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It's 4 am. I couldn't go back to sleep, I wouldn't even if I could. I laid on the bed pretending to be asleep silently watching as sandro walked into my room and picked up the plastic bag I had disposed in the middle of my room, placing it on the nightstand beside my bed.

I watched as Lorenzo entered my room, quietly dragged my duvet down uncovering my face and placed a light kiss on my forehead, I think i heard him give a light chuckle when I attempted to peek to see if he had left. I watched as he pat tiger softly before finally walking out.

Since then I was just turning side to side, running tigers soft fur through my fingers, thinking about whether Noah thought I have forgotten about him I hope not. I badly want to talk to him and fill him in on everything that has been happening but I can't....I felt a surge of anger bubbling up, I took slow breaths in and out as I tried to calm myself down.

Then the one thing that has been bugging me but I never had the courage to ask surfaced. What about my real dad? I never heard any of my brothers mention his name let alone talk about him....where was he and I'm sure he must have heard about my arrival but why hasn't he come to see me? According to what I know the brothers are always busy but he wouldn't be too busy for me right? Is there a reason they never mentioned him or I haven't even seen a single picture of him in the house?? Is it possible he's dead??

I turned to face the opposite direction at that, it's not possible! I mean even if he was, why hasn't anyone mentioned anything about it? I had a right to know....

I wanted to know if he would be happy to know about my arrival here, I wanted to know if he would actually love me as a father would love his daughter.....there were a lot of things I wanted to know but one of the things really bugging me was mother.

The way none of them mentioned my dad, mother was not mentioned either. She was also their mom right?

They never bothered to ask me about her or how she was....

I tried to block out the different thoughts going through my head as I sighed and sat up in my bed.

I checked the time once again to see it was just 4:30 am.

I got out of bed as I went down on my knees beside the bed and outstretched a hand under the bed, I felt the farmiliar feel of the outworn fabric then pulled it out.

I opened the smallest zip in front of my backpack. I dived my hand into it just to emerge with a few empty cases of pen, a bent compass, crumples of papers I never bothered to open, an almost empty bottle of painkillers and finally what I was looking for. Money.

I gently slipped off the rubber band holding it together and started counting it. 200 dollars in total.

I dipped my hand again to see if I missed anymore and that was when I felt it. It was stuck in a little hole right there and only half of it was sticking out. I pulled it out. It was 'his lighter'.

I remember when I stole it, he went crazy looking around for it. I took it on purpose because he had denied me any food that night, he couldn't go without smoking a cigarette for hours and when he did I was at the receiving end of it, the cigarette burns on my body are proof of that, I was just 12. Despite all the beating I received that night, I denied ever setting my eyes on it.

That night as I laid on my mat in the attic, fumbling with the lighter, I burnt myself. It was an accident but then I enjoyed it. I watched as the flamed kept dancing and kissed my skin, I kept focusing on the flame instead of the pain and burning sensation that kept crawling on my skin, it was like I wasn't myself anymore,and for a moment, the pain in my heart lessened.