Chiara Rose

undici

"Uh," A nervous voice asks from my doorway. Shit, I didn't hear anyone open that. And when I swing my head to look at them, I find Carlo standing there with a very confused look on his face. Concern quickly appears on his face once he lays on me, more specifically the crazed look on my face.

"I'm just gonna, yeah, I'll go over there." Carlo says awkwardly, nervously pointing to the beanbag in the corner of my way. He carefully makes his way to it, being careful not to tread on anything on his way there. He gets comfy in the beanbag, and then starts to take in the mess of my room.

My body starts to function again, and I quickly start remaking my bed so Carlo has somewhere more comfortable to sit. As I fix the top sheet, I sneak a peak at Carlo who's stretched out on the beanbag, way more focused on whatever's on his phone. Good, his attention isn't on me. I despise attention.

"You can sit here if you want." I say quietly once I've finished making my bed. This gets his attention, and he wordlessly gets up off the beanbag and flips onto the bed. He's starfishes out on the bed, it doesn't look very comfortable, but he doesn't make a move to change. I just head into my closet to start dealing with that mess.

15 minutes later, my closet is organised just how I like it. My books, the whole 30 books Dad demanded I ordered a few days ago, are all situated where they should be on my bookshelf. I'm still standing in front of it though, pretending to be busy so I don't have to face Carlo.

"Chiara." Carlo says, catching my attention. I put the book I was fidgeting with back on the shelf, and slowly turn to look at him. He's moved so he's leaning back up against my headboard, and his face is full of concern. Concern for me.

"Hi." He says after I don't say anything to him. I don't know why, but suddenly it feels like my eyes are on fire. I can feel the tears building up behind them, and there's a fat lump sitting at the back of my throat. Aw shit, and I thought I'd get through this without crying.

"Hi," I say so quietly, I'm surprised he even hears me. But he does, and a small sad smile appears on his face. He slightly shifts to the right of the bed, so there's enough room for me to sit.

"You wanna come sit? Or do you want to pretend to be busy?" He asks softly, and my eyes start burning a little more. I thought I was doing a really good job at pretending, I don't know how he caught me. But I oblige, walking over and sinking into the spot he was previously patting with his hand.

We sit there in silence, not a word coming from either of us. I'm waiting for the ball to drop, I'm waiting for him to start questioning me. About the breakdown I just had. About why I tore my room apart just to clean it. About the massive bruise on my ribs. I'm waiting, because I know it'll come.

"Are you going to eat the rest of your dinner?" Carlo asks, breaking the silence in a way I hadn't expected. I follow his gaze just to find him heavily focused on my leftovers, sitting on my desk. Does he really want to eat my cold salmon?

"Uh no? You can have it if you want." I barely finish the sentence and he's already run there and came back with the plate in his hands.

He happily eats up the cold salmon in peace, every now and there mumbling about how it's "so good" and insisting I try a little bit. I end up eating a quarter of the food he shoves it against my mouth so much, but I don't mind it. I was hungry, I just chose to ignore the hunger.

"That was so good." Carlo grumbles, placing the plate on my bedside table before flopping onto his back. To pull it all together, he starts lazily rubbing a circle on his stomach, like he needs help digesting all the food he just ate.

"What do you wanna watch?" Carlo says, snatching the remote from my bedside table before gently tugging my arm so I'm lying down next to him. I try not to freeze up, but I do. Carlo doesn't notice though, he just continues flicking through different movies on Netflix.