Beyond the lies

Chapter 17

The next morning Sofia woke up feeling refreshed. How many years had it been since she had slept so soundly for so long, and without the need for her pills? She hoped it would be like this more often.

The girl nearly had a heart attack as she got up and noticed all the stuffed animals from the park yesterday taking up a considerable amount of space in her room. She would feel bad if she threw them away, and so decided on which ones she wanted to keep and the rest which she would find new homes for.

The girl then went downstairs to find Eva in the kitchen.

The old woman smiled at her warmly, "good morning signora!"

"Good morning, are you making breakfast?"

"I already did as I woke up earlier than usual today, now I'm was just tidying up the place."

"Oh...let me help you."

It took a lot of persuasion, but eventually Eva gave in and had Sofia help her clean the countertops and arrange and put away the dishes. The girl had only come to fill up her water bottle and go to the music rooms, however was forced to eat something first.

"Breakfast is the most important meal of the day you know!"

Half an hour later, the woman explained that she would be away for a while to go visit some family in Italy. Lately she had been stressed and so requested a short vacation.

"Your brothers were very kind and even paid for my ticket."

"I see...are you busy now?"

"Well not really, I've got a while before I start preparing lunch."

The girl glanced at her nervously, "would you like to hear me play the violin? There's this piece I'm working on and I wanted some audience."

"I'd be delighted."

Eva loved hearing her play, and told her about how her granddaughter in Italy had started to learn the violin, and how she hoped that one day she could play as well as Sofia.

"How old is your granddaughter?"

"She'll be seven this December, Lucia is one of my oldest grandkids."

"Right," a thought popped in her head, "I've got a lot of toys I won yesterday which I don't know what to do with, if you wanted you could take some for your grandchildren?"

Eva laughed, "that would be wonderful."

Sofia nodded eagerly, feeling relieved that she wouldn't have to discard anything. Eva then left in order to prepare lunch and she continued to practice, after all the competition was going to be a big one.

The word discarded reappeared in her head as she wondered about how her brothers had felt when they found out that their mother had ran away with their sister all those years ago. Being abandoned by your own parent was never a good feeling, and she was curious to know if they had ever blamed her for it.

Evening soon came and the girl was cooped up in her room, revising for her biology test which was tomorrow.

She heard someone knock and the door, and to her surprise found it was Remo.

"Oh you're studying? Am I disturbing you?"

Sofia shook her head and her brother used that to stay for longer. He plopped down on the bed and motioned for her to sit next to him. She looked over him, he had dark circles and looked sick. Even his hair was messy and he was still in his work clothes.

"You look tired."

Remo laughed awkwardly and rubbed his hands together, "yeah the hospital's quite busy these days. Vince gave me full responsibility of it and I don't want to let him down so I try and handle it by myself."