BROKEN BEYOND REPAIR

ALEXIA KING

After a shower and much-required pep talk, I reach downstairs only to meet with a vexatious sight.

What a Good-fucking-Morning!

Nich, Ed, Pastry, Martin, Rohn, Joseph, Xaiyla, the bull-headed- Kevin, and my personal favorite, Victoria, are sitting on the breakfast table, eating and talking as if nothing out of normal happened. Not to them but my day has started on the wrong foot and Victoria has no equitability to sit here.

First of all, Kevin is getting closer to the past I am ashamed of and the unnerving part is, it only took him weeks to learn something that nobody knows. What is it about him that makes me feel preserved? Why did it felt so better to share the most vulnerable aspect of me with him? I feel........ethereal. 

Secondarily, Victoria is sitting with my sister and laughing like a dying hyena as though she heard the biggest joke of this century.

For God's sake woman, it's still early in the morning and I want to hear birds chirping not your irritating voice.

"Join us, Alexia, to the once-in-a-family dinner", Rohn chirps, food hanging off the corner of his mouth.

"With a certain someone sitting around, I'll hardly call it a family dinner" I not-so-discreetly eye Victoria to make the person in question clear.

"She is our family. She has been a family since you adopted her as your sister and even after you discarded her" Xaiyla reprimands, giving me a disappointing look only a twin sister could pull off.

I avoid looking at Kevin but his heavy gaze on me is itself an attestation of his mammoth presence.

"I assume that we both have very different perceptions of 'family' because where I come from, the family helps you in trouble. They hear you when you cry for them. They find you when you can't find your way back. They look after your safety. They can feel you when you're in pain and they certainly don't run back on their tail seeing the first sign of danger, leaving you in a hell-hole to fight for your survival" I look directly into Victoria's eyes, something I haven't done since I don't know how long and the word kept coming out of my mouth without much consciousness. I know my voice holds so much pent-up anger and venom, so does my heart, but she has no right to look all shocked and hurt. She should know that I remember. I remember asking for her help but she chose to turn her back on me. She could have saved me but she didn't.

"What do you mean by that?" She asks, afraid that I miraculously got my memory back and will snitch on her. Despite everything, she was my best friend once. The one I always protected. The one I shared everything with and the same one whose cowardice brought me here.

Victoria will always be someone I would hate but not someone I might hurt.

"Don't get so worked up, Victoria. Just stating mere facts about the family. It's nothing personal so take a chill and enjoy" 

I sit beside Kevin to avoid his gaze, which shamelessly remained on me the entire time, keenly observing me.

"It was not much about me sleeping with her rather something cavernous" He mutters only for me to hear.

And that's the problem. I don't have an answer to his question. No doubt I would have still hated her even if Kevin had not been in the picture but isn't it true that I am more envious of her than I was before? That I hate her more because there was something between them?

"It was never about you"

"If you say so but I must admit, you are much broken than I first believed" I can sense feign humor in his voice. He is on edge and ready to strike for his answers. A man like Kevin should not be tested. They are unapologetically selfish and would do anything if they sense a threat. However, it's open for discussion, whether I am the threat or the thing he would be selfish about.