TRAPPED

18

Celine

Léo tilts his head. "Have—have you thought about what you want to do?"

     "What?"

     "Tomorrow. They'll ask you, Camilo told me. They'll ask who you want to stay with." He clarifies.

     I glance at him. "You already know what I'll say."

     He scrunches his mouth to the side. "You want to go with our mother?"

     I nod.

     "Why?" He asks, a little exasperated.

     "Because I don't know any of you." I state.

     "You know me."

     "No I don't." I say.

He frowns. "I know you."

"No you don't." I say.

"Yes I do." He says quickly. I can't really tell because we're in the dark, but I think his eyes start watering. "Just—just because I don't know everything about you it doesn't mean I don't know you."

I don't respond.

He sighs shakily. "Please choose us, Celine." His voice trembles, too. "I—I—none of us will know what to do if you go again. I didn't realise it before, but dad was different when you were gone. And when you came back he started being happy again."

     I furrow my eyebrows.

     "Why—I don't get why you hate us all so much." He says. "Please tell me. I can try fix it."

"You can't do anything." I say.

"So it is something? You don't just hate us?"

I don't respond again.

"Celine." He pleads. He sounds desperate—so desperate that it sort of makes me sad. "Please just tell me."

     "Just leave it." I say.

"No." He responds. "Tell me."

"No."

"Celine." He says. He stands and sits beside me, looking down at me. "Please. I won't tell anyone. I promise. Not even Camilo."

"Stop." I say quietly.

     "You need to tell me, Celine. I can try help." He says.

     "Fine!" I exclaim, exasperated. "I know what everyone did to my mum. Everyone said mean stuff to her and—and hit her and did horrible things."

     He stares at me for a moment before his eyebrows knit together. "What?"

     "She told me everything. So don't act like you don't know." I say, my voice slightly shaky.

     He continues to look at me for about a minute, utterly confused, before saying: "what?"

     "You said that already."

     He shakes his head. "Celine. That didn't happen."

     "Yes it did. She told me everything."

     He shakes his head again—doesn't stop shaking it. Suddenly he looks so frustrated and so annoyed and so angry and so confused that it makes me feel all of those emotions, too. Does he think I'm stupid? Does he think I wouldn't have been told?

     "Dad doesn't even kill spiders. He takes them outside. He wouldn't hurt anyone. He wouldn't hurt us, you, and he wouldn't have hurt mum. He loved her. Didn't you see that on the videos? He loves all of us. He wouldn't hurt us."