Finally Found

Chapter 11 • Safe

Normally I would be pretty good at getting out of certain conversations, like for example when my English teacher saw me limping one day and asked me to have a chat with her to see if I was alright, it ended with me telling her how I was completely fine I just sprained my ankle. She was such a nice lady I felt bad for lying to her, although I told her some of the truth, my ankle was sprained, I just didn't sprain it.

Except this time I know I can't get out of this conversation with Lorenzo and surprisingly I'm ok with that. I don't know if it's because he's my brother and I want to tell him or if it's because it's all to much to handle on my own.

But even with those thoughts in my head I couldn't deny the part of me that was completely frightened to tell him.

I'm scared of him rejecting me when he realizes just how messed up I am, when he realizes I'm broken beyond repair, in more ways than one.

Lorenzo grabbed my desk chair and rolled it to the side of my bed before sitting down. I can tell he tried not to be as intimidating as he normally is.

He's failing.

"I know this can be hard but I'm gonna need you to be as honest as possible with me, can you do that?" He raises an eyebrow while looking all over my face as if he was studying it. Studying me.

"Ok." I'm surprised I was able to keep eye contact with him. I think he could tell how anxious and frighted I was by how tense my body was. He looked away from my face and towards my hands before grabbing my tiny cold hands in his big warm ones while rubbing my knuckles with his thumb.

"Good. Listen you can take as long as you need to answer but I need to know the answers." His voice was filled with a softness that made me relax slightly but it was also filled with authority.

I just nodded trying to prepare myself to be 100 percent honest, something I haven't done in a while.

"How long was John like that?" I couldn't look him in the eye while answering his questions. Yes I'm a coward, to scared to answer his simple question. All those T.V shows where someone was abused and they told them how brave they are, I'm not, I know I'm not. If I was brave then I wouldn't be so broken and traumatized.

"Uh since mom died t...two years ago" I was looking out the window as the sun was just starting to come up. I didn't even think about what time it was until now, making me feel even worse about burdening all of my brothers. Especially Lorenzo.

"I know this is gonna be a hard question but I just want you to answer it as well as you can." When I just nodded he continued talking. "Ok. What did he do to you?" I could tell that he didn't want to use the word abused which I appreciated.

I took a deep breath calming my racing heart before answering his question. "He would give me punishments for the littlest things, and some of the pu..punishments were worse than others. And so...sometimes h..he would, h...he wou....would." I couldn't finish my sentence I didn't realized I was squeezing his hand until he placed his other hand on top of our conjoined ones.

"It's ok, he's not here, he can't hurt you we wouldn't let him be able to even get in the same state as you. Just take a deep breath ok?" I just nodded and did exactly what he told me to do. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath before releasing it and opening my eyes. I looked up at my oldest brother before continuing, no matter how much I don't want to.

"Um sometimes Jo... his friends would give me p...punishments." I looked away from him and back down at our hands waiting for him to say something.

"What kind of punishments?" He asked stiffly, I could tell he was getting angry no matter how much he tried to hide it from me so I squeezed his hand.