Sweet Truths & Silent Lies ✔️

CHAPTER 18 - ❝spill the damn beans❞

“They’re two faced bitches.” Eden scowls, sitting straight in her seat again.

 Her onyx-coloured painted nails still painted as if it was done yesterday tapping on the table every now and then to keep them from flipping everyone off around us.

“They grieved your, uh, death too but now they’re acting as if they don’t even care that you’re alive.” Eden continues, shaking her head in disbelief. “Anyways,” she sighs heavily, folding her arms behind her back, “are you going to tell me who drove you to school this morning in that fancy Maserati?”

Shit.

There was no way I could avoid this conversation any longer. I might as well just tell her what happened, leaving out a few details too, of course. She doesn’t need to know about what happened to my brother and what happened to him.

She doesn’t need to know everything.

“Here’s the part where you’re not going to believe me.” I bite my lip in between my teeth. “It was,” I pause, looking around the cafeteria to see if someone was listening to our conversation but when no one did, I looked at Eden again, “Giovanni Castiglione.”

I feel sick as I watch Eden, waiting for her to react to what I just told her.

The aromas of the spaghetti and meatballs as well as sweet ketchup fills my nostrils, making my stomach churn.

I didn’t eat anything except a bite out of my apple, but I still felt as if I could discard everything out onto the table in front of me, right now, in front of every single one in this cafeteria.

Eden blinks once, then twice and then a third time. Her mouth was agape before she closed it again.

She repeated those things a few times before she finally sputtered out a response. “What? You came to school with Giovanni Castig—”

I lean over the table, closing her mouth with the palm flat against her lips, preventing her from saying anything else.

I got a few funny stares all around me, but they eventually went back to eating their lunch and talking amongst themselves like I wasn’t just trying to suffocate my best friend with my hand flat against her mouth.

“Shush.” I tell her, taking my hand away from her mouth. “I don’t want the entire world to know that I’ve been with them this entire time.”

“Them?” She asks, her eyebrows rose in question. “You’re living with them? You’re living with the Castigliones?”

I nod, placing my half-eaten apple back on the tray beside the spaghetti and meatballs I didn’t dare to touch today, not while I felt so sick to the stomach. “Yes.” I tell her. “They took me in after my uh,” I swallow hard, feeling another wave of nausea washing over me, “brother died.”

She offers me a sad smile. “I’m sorry, Scarlett. I’ve been so caught up in where you’ve been this entire time, I didn’t even ask you about your brother, if he was okay or not…”

I shake my head, blinking away the tears. “It’s okay, Eden. The Castigliones… They’ve been taking good care of me while I was there.”

I didn’t tell her how Antonio died, at least until I’ve figured out why he betrayed the Castigliones in the first place.

“How are you living with them?” She asks. “I mean… How did you end up living with the Castigliones? Nothing makes sense. I am so confused.”

Hell, I was too in the beginning. I didn’t know a damn thing to what my brother was mixed up in and now that I think of it, it can’t be anything good.