Chiara Rose

quattordici

"Why are you on birth control?" Rocco asks, studying the boring box with a curious look on his face. I don't think he's trying to be mean? I actually can't really tell, he just seems curious to me, but I'm still waiting for him to slip something in about me being a whore.

"Rocco-," Dad starts before I cut him off. I'm brave, I can explain this to Rocco.

"I get bad cramps." I say with a shrug, and Rocco starts slowly nodding his head. Then a knowing look comes over his face.

"Right, bad cramps." Rocco says, putting a heavy emphasis on the end of his statement. A disappointed sigh comes from across the bench, and I find Dad with his face looking to the sky looking like he's mumbling something to himself quietly.

"I'm being serious." I say, scrunching my eyebrows.

"Never said you weren't." Rocco says, shrugging his shoulders. I can feel everyone's gaze in the room bouncing between me and Rocco, waiting to see what happens. I still can't tell if Rocco's trying to insult me, or if this is just naturally how he is.

"You don't have a uterus, do you?" I say, tilting my head in fake confusion. Rocco looks genuinely confused as to why I would ask him that.

"No." Rocco responds, phrasing it so it's more like a question rather than a statement. I think he's still mentally calculating where on Earth I could be doing like this, and figuring out how he could then respond to that.

"Well, then I really don't think you're qualified to have an opinion on what I do with my uterus." I slowly respond, testing the waters. I don't really know if we're at a point in our sibling relationship to be saying stuff like that. If it were Carlo or Bruno, I would, but not Rocco. I start regretting my decisions when he raises his eyebrows in surprise.

"Fair enough." He says, an impressed look coming onto his face. I let out a deep breath, I was already planning for whatever insult he could've thrown my way. My attention is quickly drawn to Dad when he clears his throat, an oddly proud look on his face.

"If you're not going to finish your breakfast, why don't you head up and get ready? Then we can get this over with quickly, hey?" Dad asks softly, wearily gazing at my half-eaten pancake. I'm proud of my half-eaten pancake because I ate two whole ones before. It's small, but it's progress.

"Yeah okay, I'm done." I say, sliding my plate forward slightly. But before it can go too far, Rocco quickly snatches the plate and slides it in front of him.

"Don't mind if I do."

⁕⁕⁕⁕⁕

"Get that thing away from me, Giacomo." Carlo says, shooting daggers at Gi who's slowly coming towards the both of us. Dad rolls his eyes from where he's seated in a seat opposite us.

"It's just a thermometer, Carlo, it's not going to hurt you." Gi sighs, pausing.

After I'd run up and gotten ready into a pair of trackies and some random jumper, I came back downstairs and Dad drove Carlo and me to this weird building. This weird building for some has a med bay area. I would be confused, but these people are incredibly rich, so I'm just leaving it.

Gi got us set up in a little room, where Carlo and I are both sitting on the medical bed that's against the wall. I already had my x-rays on basically my entire body, but Gi's just waiting for them to be sent to us and whilst he waits, he's checking on Carlo.

"My temperature is fine. I'm fine. I don't need a check-up." Carlo huffs, crossing his arms across his chest unhappily.

"Sit still, or I'll get Dad to hold your arms down." Gi says sternly, sneaking up and Carlo and quickly running the thermometer across his forehead. After reading and writing down the temperature, he does mine. I don't understand what Carlo was so worked up about, it took 2 seconds and I didn't feel it.