Help

twenty-five

I shrug again as Emilio hands me my purple mug full with orange juice. He winks at me before resuming conversation with August and the boys.

My leg bounces every second I have to sit in this packed house. Massimo comes into the room when I have exactly three sips left of my drink. He ignores everyone as he walks over to me and gives me a big hug. He kisses my cheek and hugs me from behind my chair.

"How's everything going Mo?" Emilio asks him. He shrugs and shakes his head. Maybe he is following my path of silence? That would suck cause he always has good things to say.

"It's busy and we will need to set up multiple meetings to discuss what to do moving forward and how we should proceed. I just came in here because I went to your room Florence and you weren't there. So I checked down here."

"Are you taking her somewhere?"

"Yeah, of sorts."

I love more than anything when they have conversations about me right in front of me. As if I'm not a person with ears.

"You ready Florence?" Massimo asks me letting go of the hug. I look down at my pyjamas and up at him. I try to muster up my best 'you just annoyed me face'. "I am going to take that as a no." He laughs and picks me up off my stool before I could even finish my drink. He walks through the crowd of people who part for him as if they were the sea and Massimo was Moses.

Too bad they didn't do that for me.

When we get to my room he plops me down on my bed before walking into my closet. Wordlessly he plops my outfit onto my lap and pushes me gently towards my bathroom. "Hurry." He says before shutting the door.

I take as long as possible to get ready.

I brush my teeth for three minutes instead of two. I wash my face and do my entire skin care routine. I braid my hair into two braids and carefully decide which perfume spray I should put on today. I have two, one is Marc Jacobs Daisy and the other is Prada Candy.

"Are you almost done?" He asks impatiently through the door.

I ignore him and weigh my options. The Daisy one is really pretty scented, but so is the Candy one. I put those aside for now and put on my clothes. He chose green cargo pants and my navy blue quarter zip sweatshirt.

I choose Prada Candy.

As I exit the bathroom I am bombarded by Massimo. "Are you ready now?!" He looks at his watch. "Ten minutes, what if the house was on fire?"

"Then it is a good thing I would die smelling good." I respond.

-

"Where are we?" I ask him as he pulls up to a random house on the edge of the city.

"The second you fell asleep last night I started searching for a therapist that would best suit you. Somehow I was able to get in contact with this lady you'll meet. She's really nice and deals with teenagers who have underwent traumatic experience's in their childhoods." He says as he shifts the car into park. I nod slowly.

"If you don't want to do it today that's alright. I just figured with everything going on at home this distraction might be better."