Chiara Rose

quattordici

tw - mentions of drug use, suicide, self harm, abuse, rape and eating disorders

Chiara's POV

"Can you stop chewing so loudly? It's seriously annoying." Bruno says bluntly, sending Carlo a death glare to help convey his message. Carlo momentarily pauses chewing his pancakes, before looking Bruno dead in the eye and chewing 10x louder than he was before. It's highly irritating, but I'm too scared to say anything.

"Stop being a pig." Dad says, raising an eyebrow in Carlo's direction. Somehow, Dad also manages to slide my plate with two pancakes in my direction without even looking at me. Which is impressive, because I would've sent it flying off the counter.

After that, the usual banter and noise spread throughout the kitchen. I'm sitting next to Carlo on the island bench, playing with my pancakes to avoid eating them. Bruno and Gi are sitting on the opposite side of Carlo, and Enzo, Tino and Rocco are all nowhere to be seen. Which I'm not exactly mad about.

"Chiara, you okay if Tino goes into your room and grabs those pills out of your top drawer? Otherwise, you or I can go grab them." Gi pipes up, and I scrunch my nose whilst I think.

"Tino can grab them." I mutter in response. I don't really care if Tino goes into my room, it's not like I exactly have anything to hide. Plus I also really can't be bothered walking all the way up the stairs and into my room, and then come all the way back. It's just too much effort, and at least he asked instead of just waltzing in there without me knowing.

"You not overly hungry?" Dad asks quietly once the other three have ended up in another conversation. He casts a worried glance at the half a pancake I've eaten, before refocusing on my face.

"Yeah, sorry." I say regretfully. They're really good pancakes as well, and I really want to eat them. But the thought of food right now makes me feel so unbelievably sick it honestly annoys me.

"You don't need to apologise, just eat whatever you can. There'll be someone who'll eat your leftovers, don't stress about it." Dad says with a small smile on his face. But his attention is caught behind me by someone walking into the kitchen, and based on the way his posture stiffens slightly, I think it's Rocco.

And I'm right, because Rocco waltzes into the kitchen wearing nothing but his underwear, and heads straight to the pantry. Then he walks back out with a thing of cereal in one hand, whilst the other is shovelling cereal from the box straight into his mouth.

"Okay," Dad says, swiftly grabbing the cereal box out of his hand and placing it down on the bench. "Why don't you go put some clothes on, and then come down and eat cereal from a bowl like a normal, civilised human would."

Rocco looks at Dad, clearly unimpressed. Then he tracks his gaze across the room, starting on my other brothers in the room before finishing with me. I could be imagining things, but I swear a small look of guilt appears on his face. But it's gone in a flash.

Once he's done doing whatever he just did, he grabs a bowl out of the drawer, puts his cereal and milk in it, and shoves a spoonful into his mouth. "How about we meet halfway?" Rocco says to Dad, his mouth still full of cereal.

"Just go sit down." Dad says with a roll of his eyes, and I automatically stiffen. The only empty seat is next to me, and Rocco's clearly hesitant about sitting in it. Eventually, he makes up his mind, and slides into the seat beside me.

I don't have the opportunity to start to overthink it, because now Tino's walked into the room. He's already in a suit, which I'm starting to think he lives in. He slides something across the bench, clearly meant for Gi, but it's swiftly intercepted by Rocco who looks very curious.