Camilo x Reader -Broken Reflection

Chapter 30 (Agape)

Y/N's POV

I could still remember the way I felt back then.

My sweaty skin dripped with despise and envy. Julio stood next to me with his arms wrapped around my torso. We both helplessly watched as our father smiled and kissed my mother, an interaction that almost seemed to never occur in our house. They were both dressed better than they usually were- it was something they would do just before going out to the casino to make a good impression.

My mother held onto my father's arm as he downed one last glass of wine. We watched as the lump of liquid in his throat squeezed down the tube while he squeezed his eyes tightly shut. He cleared his throat and then they were out of the door without so much as a glance at us.

I scoffed.

"Hermana," Julio whispered to me. "Where are they going?"

I led my younger brother into the kitchen while I sat him down at the table. The kitchen was a little cleaner because it wasn't ours. It was our Aunt's. We had officially hit rock bottom. We had no money, and no home to call our own. And what were our parents doing?

They out gambling like the selfish addicts they were.

It didn't matter how intense my forgiving nature was, there was nothing my parents could ever do to reverse the damage- to make me forgive them for their wrongdoings.

They could beg and plead and fix up their lives, get sober, find a job- it wouldn't matter.

None of it would be able to save us. Nothing would fix their past mistakes.

And I knew better than anyone that there was nothing they or I could do to help Julio.

I pulled a small teatowel from the hook on the oven and mopped the sweat that had developed on my little brother's forehead. He coughed.

"Don't fix on what they're doing," I told him. "You just focus on getting better, okay?"

Julio nodded once before breaking out into a fit of coughs. He clutched onto the table and shuttered. His knuckles gleamed white from the strain. He coughed for what seemed like forever and I held his head as not to let him fall.

"The- the towel," he managed to say between his fit of coughs and wheezes. I handed him the towel and he coughed into it for a few more moments before it fell to the floor.

I leaned down to pick it up for him, swallowing the lump in my throat at the sight of blood spotting the cloth.

I couldn't help but gaze out of the kitchen window as I held Julio close and thought of my parents. They were no doubt in the south of town right where all of the dirtiest people of the citizens gathered to do dirty things.

They were probably surrounded by hookers and addicts and people who cheated others out of their money. They were probably with their people. They all were unlucky most of the time, but the thing that separated them was that they were probably good people who had to resort to bad things. There was no doubt in my mind that my parents were simply unapologetically evil.

I was jealous of everyone who had a better life than us. My aunt constantly encouraged me to think on the bright side, to think of all of the good fortunes I'd been experiencing. She encouraged me to do so as if my brother wasn't slowly dying beside me. It was as if none of them saw him grow progressively weaker by the day.

"Want some water?" I asked my brother when I turned to look at him. He nodded and swallowed. The boy next to me slumped in his seat. He brushed the back of his hand over his forehead and under his matted curls.