Mend (Care Duet, #2)

35 | mend pain

AVELINA COCKED UP a brow as she awaited Natasha's news. She only watched as Natasha sat down beside her on the bed. Avelina could tell that she was nervous based on the way she would procrastinate telling her what was up.

"First things first, how do you feel?" Natasha asked, placing her palm against Avelina's forehead before flipping her hand over to the back side.

"I'm in pain. I'm not sick," Avelina muttered, pushing her hand off softly.

"Cranky today, I see," Natasha acknowledged much to Avelina's displeasure. She resisted rolling her eyes as she pushed the blanket off of her. It was becoming too hot, and Natasha's close proximity wasn't making it much better.

"I'm just in a lot of pain that I wish would just end already," she explained. There was a bit of sassiness in her tone, but it wasn't like she could help it. Her stomach led to so little patience.

"Did Adrik already give you your medicine?" Natasha asked worriedly.

"Yes."

She laid back down in her bed, holding her stomach with the palm of her hand. It was like every day, the pain was only getting worse, and the doctor really believed pain medicine would fix everything.

"I'm sorry," Natasha whispered. "If only you weren't taken from the hospital, none of this would've happened. I should've been there."

Avelina cracked open one eye to look at her just before shutting it again. She was looking for something genuine which wasn't a common thing for Natasha, apparently. There was a frown on Natasha's face, her shoulders had fallen, and she could only stare off into space—probably thinking of what she could've done better to protect her niece's mother.

"No one knew that it was even possible to go down like that. Don't blame yourself," Avelina told her. She winced in pain as the moment she moved, it was like she could feel a sharp stab in her lower abdomen. A grimace settled on her face.

"Are you okay? Do you want me to go get Adrik?" Natasha asked. Avelina shook her head. It wasn't like there was anything he could do except worry. 

"Just get my mind off of it. What is it that you wanted to tell me?" she asked her. 

Natasha sighed again. "A few things, actually. I wanted to talk to you about what happened when we first met..."

Now, it was Avelina's turn to sigh. It wasn't like she didn't want to hear Natasha out, she just knew that no words could ever fix what she broke. However, she loved Adrik. He would want Avelina to at least hear every single word Natasha had to say. It was important to him which meant it was important to her as well.

"Okay," Avelina muttered.

"Despite what you may think, Avelina, it wasn't fake. None of it except for my name and who I pretended to be. I just didn't want you to run or push me away. I was scared, and I panicked and I told you I was someone I wasn't. Everything I told you, though... everything we talked about... it was me. I was genuinely myself, and I had a rough past couple of years, but being your friend actually made me happy. I felt closer to my brother, I felt closer to my past self, and most of all, I was closer with you,"  she explained.

Avelina opened her eyes and stared at Natasha. She was silent for a moment as Natasha anxiously waited for a response. There was so much she wanted to say, but for some reason, she felt she shouldn't. Like a life jacket, even when she didn't want to, it was her job to make sure everything stayed afloat. Or else, chaos would ensue and everyone would drown. So, she nodded her head.

"I appreciate that, a lot. Thank you," Avelina told her.

"No. Be authentic!" Natasha exclaimed. "I'm not stupid. I see the look you give me every single time I hold your baby, and I see the way you fake laugh at my jokes only when Adrik's around. And when no one is looking, it's like you look at me with such disgust, or you can't look at me at all! Just like right now!" 

Avelina scoffed. "You are the last person who should be telling someone to be authentic."

"I'm tired of always trying to please you. I told you I was sorry, Avelina. Again, I am deeply sorry. But if I could do it all over again, I wouldn't. You can pretend all you want, but deep down you know that even if I hadn't done what I did, you would still treat me like you hate me. All I wanted was to be close to you, and I had to pretend to be Lucia to do it because you would never allow me to as Natasha," she told Avelina. 

It was a fair point. After all the hurt and pain she experienced, for some reason, it was easier to blame Adrik's sister. She thought it was all Natasha's fault for why she couldn't get the life she so desperately wanted. For God's sake, she thought Natasha was the one that murdered her grandmother. Turns out, it was no one else's fault other than her own family. She had no one else to blame but herself, and for some reason, she found herself putting all of that blame, and anger, and hurt onto the wrong person.

"Why did you want to be close to me?" Avelina asked her.

"Believe it or not, I saw you. I was walking down the street, and you walked right past me. You accidentally bumped my shoulder, and you looked me in the eye and said 'I am so sorry.' Then, once I smiled, you returned it just before you kept walking. I saw you enter that OB/GYN office, and so I had to be sure it was you. I followed right behind you and listened as you said the name that confirmed everything... 'Avelina Santos.' That's when I found out you were pregnant and my brother was the father. I didn't tell him. I didn't use you to blackmail the one man that was after me to kill me, your brother. No, I got a job as a taxi cab driver, and I waited for your next appointment, and I was there. It sounds hella stalker-ish, but I was raised with the mafia. It's all we know how to do," she chuckled unenthusiastically. 

Avelina listened intently as she continued, trying her best to be free of judgement. 

"When we talked, I realized how different you were from the girl Adrik told me about. I knew that look on your face. It reminded me a lot of myself when I was going through something similar. This was the other thing I needed to talk to you about. When I was about seventeen, I met your brother. We were enemies and we hated each other because we were both from opposing fields, but we fell in love..."

Avelina's eyes almost fell out of her head. Not another curveball, she thought.

"...I had never been so happy in my entire life. He understood me in ways no else had even bothered. I was insane and sometimes toxic, but he balanced me out for all the right aspects. We were together for so long, and then, I was pregnant. When I went to tell him, I wasn't even given the chance. He looked at me with pure hatred and screamed that he knew what I did. I hadn't done anything, and I didn't even know what he was talking about, but that only angered him more. He claimed that I used him and that I was pretending the entire time. He gave me thirty seconds to get out of the house before he would kill me. As I sat there, begging and pleading with him to explain what was going on, he fired a gun in the air and began to countdown as tears streamed from his eyes. I ran out of the house and I never got to see him again. The mob boss who had practically took care of me, ended up shunning me because I slept with the enemy. I was out on the streets. I ended up losing my baby. I lost the love of my life, my unborn child, my freedom, my happiness, my home. I lost everything."

There was a tear that fell from her eyes, but she quickly wiped it away and forced a smile on her face. "We are a lot alike, you know? And when I saw you, and you looked so alone just like I was all those years, I just wanted to be there for you." Suddenly, she began to sob. Avelina, despite the immense pain she was in, sat up and wrapped her arms around her. 

"I understand now. I know this must've been difficult to share with me, but I am so grateful that you did. It's okay, Natasha. I promise," Avelina whispered. Natasha responded by wrapping her arms around her and letting her cries echo through the room as Avelina rubbed her back soothingly.

-

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