Lost and Found

Oblivious

"What the hell..." Alex broke the silence. They all stood over me, practically staring into my soul. I sat up against the headboard and tried to play it off. I put my hand over my heart and laughed.

"Holy shit, you scared me!" They didn't join in my laughter. Instead, they all stood around me with raised eyebrows and unamused expressions. I could tell that I had been screaming or making a bunch of noise in my sleep from their slightly concerned faces. "Yeah so... I have nightmares a lot, it's really no big deal..." I looked over at the alarm clock on the dresser. 5:47. It was close enough to 6 o'clock to be an acceptable time to get up.

I rolled out of bed, attempting to escape them, and walked out of the bedroom down to the kitchen. I thought about a hundred different things I could say to not make it sound like a big deal, but none of them seemed like they would work. I walked down the stairs and heard them all following me in silence. What do I do, what do I do....

I walked into the kitchen and started to look through cabinets. Lorenzo leaned against the island, and the other boys scattered across the kitchen around him. I took a quick peek over my shoulder and noticed them all still staring. It started to get really awkward really fast.

"Lizzie-" Lorenzo started, looking like he was at a loss for words. He almost seemed to look at one of my brothers I hadn't met yet for help, which seemed weird to me, although I couldn't explain it. I continued to ignore them and look through the cabinets, and none of them seemed to think to help me find what I was looking for. They were clearly still stuck on the whole nightmare fiasco.

"I looked back at Lorenzo and right when he opened his mouth to speak, I spoke. "Where are the bowls?" He looked at me in... shock? That also seemed weird. It barely even counted as interrupting if the person hadn't spoken yet, right?

Then Nick answered my question. "Top right cabinet." I muttered a thank you and focused all my attention on finding a spoon, milk, and some cereal. Once I put all of the stuff back, I went and sat at the table. As expected they each took a seat too. I sighed and finally spoke. "Look, I still get nightmares about my mom dying, okay? It makes it worse when I'm in a new place and there's really nothing to it." I said, trying to make it sound as believable as possible.

I lied because I wasn't about to tell them about how I killed two guys who tried to rape and probably kill me. I liked my brothers- I liked some of them, and they didn't need to know about my killing people. It wouldn't help them to like me, and it seemed unnecessary to tell them at all. I looked around the table at them and they each looked as if they were trying to figure out if I was lying or not.

One of the two that I hadn't met yet spoke up, only not in english. "Sta mentendo." He said, in italian. I was surprised. Did they not know I was fluent in Italian? My mother had spoken it a lot to me growing up, and I picked it up very quickly. I quickly painted a confused expression on my face as if I didn't understand. I'd happily play their game if it meant I could listen to their private words to each other. Under normal circumstances, I wouldn't be so petty, but they were literally speaking about me in front of me. If it was about me, It was my business. They looked collectively at me to make sure I didn't understand before continuing on with their conversation.

Alex continued. "L'abbiamo sempre guardata. Cosa ci siamo persi?" Those sentences surprised me, and frankly, scared me. What did he mean by that? I had to fight really hard to keep an oblivious expression on my face.

What I really wanted to do, was scream at him, 'Chi mi stava guardando ?!', but I knew that having this secret ability to listen in, would benefit me more than my momentary amusement at their expressions. Especially since I was starting to get a weird feeling just being in the house. It was an indescribable feeling, literally.

I stood up from the table, seeing my opportunity to leave, and walked away. Before I left the kitchen, I spoke to them all at once- in english. "If you aren't going to talk to me, I'm leaving." I walked out of the kitchen and patted myself on the back for somehow getting out of that situation unscathed? It was vigorating.