Losing Her Wings

Chapter 11

Paige couldn’t believe the way everyone was acting. First of all Danny had started barking orders at her about accepting Angelo’s generous gift, and then he’d got jealous and angry that he’d been talking to her in Italian when he couldn’t understand them. So she’d explained that all Angelo had said was that she had a heart of gold, probably because she was humouring his request when the last thing she wanted was to see him looking at her the way he was going to when she sang. But no, he’d got jealous and started demanding that she didn’t ever see Angelo again, never mind talk to him and so, while she was in the middle of trying to tell him where he could stick his demands, Raya had interrupted her train of thought, and so alright, she knew she shouldn’t have shouted at her, but everything she’d said was true. She was always falling over herself trying to impress or get closer to Angelo and it was disgusting. But Paige didn’t think it was fair for them to treat her the way they were. As soon as Raya left the room to get the essay she wanted Angelo to look at, he turned to her with a look of pure hatred in his eyes. “You little bitch.” He swore suddenly, catching everyone by surprise even though neither his father nor hers were going to stop him. “Why do you always treat her like that? You’re always talking to her like she’s nothing more than some little child who’s invading your space. Well, here’s a newsflash for you Paige…you may not like her, but everyone sure as hell likes her more than they like you.” Angelo revealed much to her surprise, only stopping from saying more because Silvia approached him and laid her hand on his arm.

“Come help me with dinner Angelo…you can watch it while Raya does her homework and that way I can finish my arrangement for tomorrow.” She asked softly, making him sigh in defeat, nodding with a smile.

“Alright. You go get started.” He agreed, reaching into his back pocket as he pulled out his mobile phone. “I’ll call Jacob and tell him I’m staying here.” Without another word on it, he walked out into the hallway and made the call, as everyone else went back to their day as though nothing had happened and Paige couldn’t believe it. Whenever she did something or said something as cruel as that, everyone in the house jumped down her throat about it, but when Angelo did it, all that happened was that he got asked to do something which he would probably have offered to do anyway.

“Come on honey, we’ll go out for a while.” Danny sighed, cupping her elbow as though to guide her out of the room, but she still wasn’t happy with him, all the more now that he’d called her honey in front of her father, who looked up from his paper disapprovingly.

“Don’t call me honey.” She bit out quietly, pulling her hand out of his grasp. “And I’m not going anywhere…not with you.” She objected, leaving him to his own devices as she escaped into the kitchen, poured herself a cold glass of fruit juice and went out onto the patio in the back garden for some peace and quiet. It was so unfair that everyone always doted on Angelo when he wasn’t even their son, and yet she was their daughter and she got nothing. She was never treated with the same love and pride that Angelo was and her parents never showed her the same devotion and support that Raya received in everything she did. Paige had had to beg for months before her father had even begun to consider letting her do her business degree. But she didn’t see how she was going to be able to take over the private law firm if she couldn’t understand how to run a business, and she’d known that she couldn’t go on and do the Masters in Criminal Justice without having a basic understanding of how to run a business, at least that way, the shortest course would be over first and she could show her father how capable she was. Nevertheless right now, Paige didn’t feel capable…she felt lost and alone, and now that Danny was beginning to show his true colours and how judgemental and jealous he could be, she could see that she was always going to be alone.

By the time Raya had let Angelo read through her essay, to accompany and expand on her English talk, which she was due to make in just a few days, Silvia had sorted the nights dinner and returned to her flower arrangement, trying to decide on the best window display without having to stay at the shop all night. And he had to admit, Angelo was very proud of Raya. She hadn’t told him what her talk was going to be about, to make sure that it was clear from her essay and boy was it clear. There were twelve pages to prove it. She was writing about Julius’s law firm, and the junior job he’d offered her just a week ago for when she wasn’t at school. And it had everything. The first paragraph read like the prologue of a detective novel, describing a previously solved case, as thought it were the initial document given to a defence lawyer. On from that, Raya described the duties she would be entrusted with and the types of documents that would pass through her hands in her new job, which she had started last Friday afternoon, straight after school. It definitely had everything that her class would be interested to know. It had lawyer’s names and their position in the company, how well they were liked by their colleagues and their impressive case log’s, either of results of case or of the actual case names which they had worked on. There were charts and photocopies of documents which she was intending on using for visual reference in her talk and Angelo was astounded by just how much she knew about the profession. “Well…?” Raya asked, sitting on the edge of her seat at the kitchen table as she gazed up at him nervously, biting her nails.