'Oh my god. I can't do this.'
"There you are! You had us so worried. Where were you?!" Romeo says. My father is no where to be found. "I was with a friend." I say in a small voice. I honestly don't have the energy for this. My head is pounding.
"A friend?! Who! I want a proper answer from you." Lorenzo yells. I can't do this right now. "Please let's talk later. I can't do this right now." I say feeling awful. "Are you okay?" Aurelio says.
"Yeah." I say and try to leave only for Romeo to step towards me. He puts his hand on my forehead then gives me a soft look.
"You have a fever. Come." He doesn't even give me a chance of say anything. He picks me up and puts me on his hip. I physically don't have the strength or mentality right now to fight with him so I just rest my head on his shoulder.
He brings me to the living room then sits down on the couch and puts me in his lap. Nico comes in with a thermometer and some other things. "Bambina I'm gonna take your temperature okay?" I nod my head slightly as he puts the thermometer in my mouth.
For a couple minutes he just holds me and rubs my back. Taking the thermometer he looks at it. "101 fever. Baby that really high. Lorenzo call dad." He gave the thermometer back to Nico and Lorenzo leaves the room pulling out his phone. "Here this will help." Nico gives me some medicines.
We just stay like this. Romeo holding me Nico sat in front of us while Dante, Lukas and Aurelio stand around looking nervously at me.
Soon Lorenzo comes back and says. "He won't be back for two weeks. He is gonna try get back as early as he can. He wants us to take care of her and if she get worse to tell him."
"Where did he go?" I ask in a weak voice. "He had to go on a business trip last minute. Don't worry we are gonna take good care of you. I promise." Romeo says into my hair as he kisses my head. I nod my head in response closing my eyes and falling asleep
The next morning comes around and I wake up in my bed, feeling worse than yesterday. I've a really bad cough that has developed over night. Every so often Romeo came into my room to take my temperature and give me medicine. If it wasn't him waking me up it was the fact I couldn't stop throwing up. It felt like I was in the bathroom every 5 minutes all night long.
Deciding I should probably shower and clean myself up a bit I get out of bed. After showering I put on one of Andrew t-shirts with another pair of black shorts and get back into bed.
After a little while there is a knock at the door and Lukas comes in with a try of food and drink. "Hey I brought this up just in case. I know you keep throwing everything up but I thought you may want something." He says softly. I'm still super pissed off with him even if I am sick.
I attempt to roll my eyes but my headache says other wise. So instead I just glare at him for a second and roll over so my back is facing him.
"Look, I'm really sorry love. I didn't mean to lose my temper like that." He says softly. "You don't understand Lukas, in that moment you reminded me of her. You scared me." I say and sit up. I can see his face visibly pale. "And then at dinner that look you all gave me. I just couldn't take it. I felt like I was back there, I felt like I didn't know what was gonna happen, if someone was gonna hurt me." Now looking at the bed sheets unable to meet his eyes.
As much as I am angry, he is the only one to understand my feelings about the subject because he was there right along with me. "How come you never told them about the abuse? I mean I know they know about the drugs and alcohol. But..." I trail off. "Because it's just as much your story to tell as it is mine and I felt like it was something we should do together, something we should agree on. I didn't think it was right for me to tell them with out you or with out you even knowing."
He sits on the bed and hugs me. God I'm clingy when I'm sick. We just sit like that for a while then he stands up and grabs my hairbrush and hair ties. "What are you doing?" I knew what he was doing. He was doing something he hasn't done in a long time.
"You know. Now turn around." He motions with his hand. I do as he says. He takes his time to brush my hair out before he starts to Dutch braid it. I could never figure out how to do it and I still can't so he taught himself and would do it for me.
Just as he finished with one side the door opens and in walks in Romeo, Lorenzo, Nico and Aurelio. When they see us smiles grow on all their faces.
"This is the last thing I thought I would ever see happening." Aurelio says laughing. I could hear Lukas tell him to shut up. "Baby, I need to take you temperature." Romeo comes over to me putting the thermometer in my mouth with Lukas continuing my hair.
"Well?" I question as Romeo looks at my temperature. "It's gone up." He looks at me. "Oh. That's not good." I state the obvious. "It's fine, Principessa I talked to the doctor he will be here in an hour. We will see what he has to say." I visibly tense at the mention of a doctor.
I hate anything and everything to do with doctors. My mother drilled it into our heads that if we ever went to the doctor about our injuries she would know and beat us more.
Lukas sees my uneasiness and starts to speak but only not in English. We both know a few languages. I know Greek, Spanish, French, Russian, German and Bulgarian. When I was away I also learned Italian. Lukas knows the same except for Bulgarian and German I had also learned them in my time away.
"Its okay, she is not here. Nothing will happen and I'll stay with you if you want." He spoke in Greek. Our brothers look at him shocked and confused.
"Yes I want you to stay. Just because she isn't here it doesn't make me like doctors any more."
Now it's my turn to receive shocked and confused looks from our brothers.
He nods and finishes up my hair.
"How is your arm?" Lukas asks switching from Greeks to French. I look at him and glare. "Bruised. You dumb fuck." I try to yell but I start to cough.
"Hey! Both of you calm down. When did this cough come on?" Romeo comes to me and rubs my back. "During the night." I answered.
"You guys are late for school." I say confused as I point to the clock, it's 10:00am. "We are taking care of you. When you are feeling better then we will go." Aurelio tells me. "Then where is Dante." They look at me and Lorenzo says. "He is the only one who went to school. He didn't want to face you. He feels guilty about last night."
'His mood swings are giving me whiplash.'
"Okay now can we talk about how you guys can speak a different language. That is sooo cool." Aurelio says exactly. "Did you forget that you speak Italian and English?" Lorenzo say to him. He scoffs. "I mean like...what language was that?" He says.
Lukas and I answer him at the same time. "Greek and French." "Freaky." He says "How many languages do you speak?" Romeo questions. We again answer at the same time. "7" 5" Lukas looks at me confused. "Wait what?" He says. "I learned Bulgarian, German and Italian while I was away.
Romeo looks shocked so does everyone. "Why did you learn 3 languages while you where gone? I mean I understand the Italian but why Bulgarian and German?" Lorenzo looks confused. My eyes widen at his question. I can see that they all notice this.
"Oh god. I'm going to probably regret asking aren't I?" He shakes his head. "I'll tell you if Dante tells me his reasoning. I'll tell you all some things as part of my going you a chance and why I learned those languages while I was away." "Deal" they all say together.
Finally the doctor came and checked me out. Lukas stayed with me the whole time and held my hand. When the doctor was finished he asked my other brothers back to tell them what he learned. "How is she?" Romeo says speaking to the doctor.
"I'm not going to lie, she is quite ill. She needs plenty of rest and needs to stay hydrated. I listened to her lungs and she has a severe chest infection which explains the cough and her fever is not good either. If it keeps going up she will need to go to the hospital."
I start to freak out inside at the mention of the hospital. Lukas is still sitting next to me on the bed now holding me to calm me down. "I am going to give you some medicine to help you get better. This is antibiotics for the infection, and this is a painkiller. And this one to help her sleep. She needs to take them at every meal. Breakfast, lunch and dinner and just take the sleeping pill before she goes to bed only." The doctor explains to Romeo.
"If that's everything I'll be on my way-" he is cut off by Lorenzo. "Before you go, I would like you to check her upper arms please." Romeo and Aurelio give him a confused look while Lukas and I both tense up. The doctor nods his head and come back over to me. He lifts both my sleeves and sees the big purple-black hand mark bruise on my upper arm.
Everyone's eyes go wide even Lukas' I don't think he expected it to be that bad. "What the fuck." Romeo looks murderous again. I start to feel overwhelmed looking at his face. My head is turned and I am pushed into Lukas' chest by him.
The doctor checks my arm and concludes that my arm will be fine I should just ice it. When he leaves all the brothers look at Lorenzo. "How did you know?" I question him
"I speak French." He says. "Shit." I say. "Someone fill us in on what is going on." Aurelio pipes up. "When they were talking earlier, Lukas asked her about how her arm was and she yelled at him that is was bruised. That is what they were starting to argue about." Lorenzo tell them.
Romeo calms down a bit when he sees my scared look. "Okay. Well now I want to know where you got it from Marina and don't you dare lie to me. I can see the finger marks. Who did that to you?" Romeo states. I glance at Lukas and Romeo follows my eyes putting the pieces to together.
"You hurt her?" He says more as a statement than a question. "Yes" Answers Lukas in a guilty and sad voice. "Wait what?! Why would you do such a thing." Aurelio looks beyond angry with Lukas. "I don't mean to. I didn't realise I was holding her that tight, I was angry." He tells them genuinely sorry. "Why where you angry?" Lorenzo asks him. "I saw her talking to a boy at school. I would have been angry but I was especially angry because that boy is a bastard. It was Leo." They look at me.
"What Lukas did was not right and he will be punished for hurting you but I want you to stay away from that boy. He is bad news. I also want you to know that if you are ever hurt in the future tell one of of you brothers it doesn't matter if we are busy we will drop everything to help you. Am I understood?" Romeos says sitting on the bed rubbing my hand.
"Yeah." I say with a yawn and rub my eyes. "We will let you get some rest. I love you bambina." Romeo says kissing the top of my head. Lukas stays with me holding me as I fall asleep. "I love you too." I say seconds away from falling into deep sleep.
'I love my brothers...'