Eli Borrelli

37: letting go

I felt the cold knife brush against my back as the blood from it dripped onto my back. I couldn't remember what I had done that time, but it really got my parents angry.

Then, without a warning, my mother pushed the blade into the already red skin. The belt always left a mark. Something for me to remember to be better.

I have no idea how long I stayed there in excruciating pain praying for God to strike me down as he had promised. Still, I knew, I didn't deserve a fate that good.

"Then my mother discovered fire," I said still tasting the blood in my mouth. Maybe it was just an echo from my memories, or maybe I had bit my lip again. I never knew until my mouth was filled with blood, or I was throwing up.

"I was cooking, when I took some of the food meant for them, when  I wasn't allowed to at anything, so my mother took my hand and, BANG! she smacked it on the stove," I said banging my hand against the table.

"If you look closely, you can still see the rings," I said staring at my hand, once again losing myself in my memories.

"You greedy bitch! You gluttonous little devil!"

"After that, they used a rod, that was in the fireplace and they stuck it to my stomach like a fucking cow," I said gritting my teeth.

I was going past that critical point, where I wasn't sad anymore, I was angry. That was how I learned to hide my emotions, I got angry. When I was angry enough, it covered up the pain and hurt underneath and left an indestructible surface.

"From the knife, I have cuts all around my body, some are words, that my mother ever so kindly placed there and others are just the everyday punishment I had to do. Once my dad was drunk and he sunk the knife in straight my stomach. That was the first time my mother ever yelled at him. She kept screaming about me having to go to a hospital, while I bled out on the living room carpet. She ended up patching me up, but I couldn't move for a few weeks," I explained motioning around the places, where I was marked for life.

The room fell silent when I ended. I looked up from my dissociated rant to see Lorenzo and Gabriele crying, Antonio sitting completely still looking straight ahead like he wanted to kill someone, Alessandro sitting there with his cold stare, that hid his emotions even better, than my anger, and Matteo, who looked shocked beyond recognition.

We sat like that for a good minute, until Lorenzo asked:

"Can I see them?"

I slowly nodded and lifted my hoodie revealing my stomach, which was littered with cuts and burns. The one deep cut, where my father had stabbed me, was right below my belly button on the right side. It had eight stitches on both sides, that once held the bloody mess together.

I heard a few gasps and I silent cry from Lorezo, but I couldn't raise my head to meet their eyes.

All I did was turn around, and show them my back. My back was not only scared and burned, but the scars formed the words, my mother had been screaming at me for as long as I could remember. Worthless, brat, faggot, cunt, dead, regret, ugly. That was how far I ever got to reading them before I couldn't look anymore. There were more all around my body, but I never looked at them, and some were so faded you could only see scars, but not the words.

As I turned back around I was met with some more silence, as my brothers were still in shock. that was until Antonio got up from his seat and walked out of the room without a word. I could see the anger boiling in his eyes as he looked at my scars.

Antonio's movement seemed to wake everyone from their sleep. Lorenzo was the first to act. He quickly got up and hugged me tight. He was soon followed by Gabriele and then Matteo and Alessandro. 

"Compared to that the camp wasn't as bad, I guess," I chuckled trying to light up the mood.

"It was a little less knify burny and a bit more rapey rapey," I joked awkwardly. I really wasn't good at situations like that.

"W-what?" Gabriele asked as he processed what I had said.

I looked down for a while, as my brothers loosened their grip on me.

"That was their way of, you know, turning us straight. they pumped us so full of chemicals, we had no idea what was happening and then he came in," I said shaking my head, trying to get rid of the memories.

"After a while, they drugged us so hard, we did it to each other. Lucky for me, I had built quite the immune system, so the drugs didn't affect me as much. Probably the only reason, I survived that place sane enough to recover, so thank God for drugs," I said once again trying to joke.

Alessandro grabbed me and brought me into his arms for a hug, that could melt an iceberg. I felt him shaking a bit and I knew he was crying. That was the last drop for me, and I let the tears fall. I never cried over what had happened, because that would require me accepting, that it happened, and I wasn't going to do that.

In my brother's arms, I let myself fall apart, as the tears fell down my cheeks and stained his expensive suit. Alessandro was the only thing standing between me standing up and falling to the ground in a crying mess. As he realized my state, he picked me up and put me down on the couch, where I clung to his shirt, as if my life depended on it. 

I have no idea, how long I cried for. It felt like hours, maybe days, as I finally let go. When I was all out of tears, Lorenzo handed me a glass of water, which I downed like it was tequila and I was remembering the death of my brother. 

After I truly realized what had happened, and came back into my body I felt so awkward. At that moment I was desperately searching for the undo button, but ctr+Z didn't do shit.

I hated awkward moments when I was in the middle of it, so I quickly got up and grabbed my phone, and connected it to the speakers. My brothers looked at me like I was crazy, and maybe I was, but at that moment, I was miming the lyrics to Don't Stop Me Now just minutes after having the biggest meltdown of my life.

My brothers too the hint of me wanting to move on from the subject for now, and they played along. Matteo want to find Antonio and make sure he was alright while the others stayed with me.

Antonio POV.

I had to leave that room, or else I would blow up in front of Eli again, and I wasn't going to do that, so I left.

I walked straight to the gym and started hitting the bag. It was something I turned to when life got too rough. It used to be drugs, but I got clean, then it was fighting, but I quit. Now I pounded that sack of grains until my knuckles bled.

I knew that it was bad, everything that happened to Eli, but a part of me hoped the songs were over-dramatized. Hearing it from Eli like that, and seeing the scars those people left on them made me lose my shit. God, I hoped they'd be alive, so they could suffer the consequences for everything they did. They got to die a quick death, while the world never got to see them as the monsters they were. They were buried next to the church they loves so much and were seen as perfect angels, who God took away too soon, while their child had to suffer their entire life for their bullshit.

As I repeatedly hit the bag, I felt warm liquid falling down my arms, and I knew my knuckles were leading like shit, but I didn't care. I didn't stop until I felt the cold tears falling down my cheeks. That was when I let my head lean against the punching bag, and I cried my eyes out somewhere, where no one would ever see me.