I've always believed clear life equals clear skin.
I know what I want in life, I know what I don't want. I know to stay away from liars because all they can cause is stress.
This Matteo bullshit just gave me a pimple.
Especially since Lori and I plan to break in- again- today.
Fun, right?
After Matteo caught us with that rookie mistake, Lori took the time to set up a camera in his office and see how many procedures he set up. Now we're prepared.
"Wait... guys." Marianne starts, about to say something either really stupid or kind of smart. I give her a hum in response. "You know my name is Marianne Johnson?"
"Oh, really?" Athena asks sarcastically.
"Shut up." She rolls her eyes. "What I'm trying to say is, people should start calling me MJ."
I never thought of that. "Cool."
"Can I call you that instead of Tia Mari, that's way too long," Seriyah asks.
"You know what? MJ is a nickname reserved for the kids. Yes, you can call me that."
We're all in the living room relaxing. Athena's here to take the kids and Marianne's here because she's interested in Lori's love life mission, we call it Operation LLLM.
And oh yeah, Marcus is here.
"Marcus, why are you here?" I ask, just now remembering because he's being quiet in the corner. "Didn't you have something important?"
"Not in front of the kids, it's too violent."
"I can handle violent." Ria raises a brow.
"Yeah." Seriyah agrees.
He sighs. "You guys did this to yourself."
"Whatever." Sy and Ria say at the same time.
"Her name is Diya-"
"Aww, how cute!" Lori interrupts and her brother glares at her. "My bad, continue."
"She is the worst. She's so annoying and cocky and confident and it bothers me. I have to make a painting with her for this stupid challenge thing that I don't fully understand and I can't handle her. It's not that she's bad. She's probably as successful as me."
"Oh..." This is cute.
"I've never been tempted to hit a woman," Marcus states. "But this one makes me want to come close."
"Never been tempted, my ass." Lori raises a brow. "Remember our childhood?"
"You don't qualify as a woman, you're just Lori." He shrugs causing her to gasp.
"-Okay! Forced proximity, enemies to lovers. Love those tropes." I cut off Lori's argument before she even opens her mouth. "Good luck."
"Enemies to- what?" He almost yells.
"Marcus, I didn't sign up for this. You're normally quiet and nice. What is this?" Marianne says.
"Excuse-"
"Ehh, let him express some emotion." Athena shrugs.
"Thank-"
"I want to meet her, bring her to dinner!" Seriyah demands.
"Respectfully, n-"
"Diya sounds like an Asian name," Lori comments for no reason.
"She's south asian."
I hum. This is very cute.
"Invite her to brunch," I demand.
Seriyah claps her hands and Maria grins.
He sighs. "Just know I'm going to tell her a lie if she asks why."
"Alright, are you ready to go girls?" Athena asks. They reply with excited tones and she hugs everyone goodbye before leaving with the girls.
"I'm going to be late for my second meeting with Diya."
Lori gives her brother a kiss on the cheek and I side-hug him. Marianne waves and he leaves.
"Okay, everyone is gone," Lori states. "Let's go."
I nod and we all head out to the car.
Right before we reach it, some random girl appears.
It takes me a moment to realize it's Kara with her weird disguise. She's in army pants and a black tight-cropped long-sleeve shirt. She also wears boots and a lot of jewelry and covers her face with huge glasses.
It looks like she took out her braids because her natural hair is in defined curls going down her back. Kara has the most extended natural hair out of all of us. She reset it ten years ago when she was fourteen and now it goes down to her ass. She used henna to dye her hair as well so her hair is probably the best out of us all.
"Kara! My dear sister, how are you?" Marianne says.
Kara side-eyes her as she walks to me. "I want to help, I heard about your little break-in-" Lori opens her mouth to say something. "Don't ask how. Anyways, I'm here because it sounds fun, now let's get going."
"Kara... we're going as maids," I furrow my brows.
She hums. "Good thing I brought a maid outfit as well... but it's kind of ugly. Why don't I be a doctor going upstairs to check for an injury I was called for and you three are just showing me the way?"
"Alright." Mari shrugs.
Lori and I share a look, hers says: "If she fucks up our plan, it's your fault."
I raise my brows and my look says: "Hey! Don't blame it on me."
Her counter look is: "It's your sister."
Then we stand there for three seconds and say at the same time. "We blame Marianne."
I don't even know how we could read each other's looks but we just had a short conversation so maybe we're more connected than I thought.
"Blame Marianne for what? Don't blame Tia MJ-"
"Tia MJ?" Kara furrows her brows.
"I'm trying it out." Mari shrugs.
"Uhuh." Kara nods then she lets Mari walk in front of us and turns to me, "did she have a disability or something that I don't know about?"
I roll my eyes. "Kara, leave our sister alone."
"Such a mom."
"You're about to be a mom." Lori raises a brow.
I throw an arm around her shoulder. "Can't wait to see how he turns out-"
She throws my arm off of her and exclaims. "Hey! What does that mean?"
"Oh, shut up."
Lori snorts.
"Can you guys hurry up?" Mari asks from the car.
"Hey, get out!" Lori yells. "I'm shotgun!"
"... I didn't know you were a firearm." She grins. "When were you going to tell me?"
>|<|>|<|>|<|>|<
Now we're onto phase five: sneaking in. Phase one was getting rid of the kids, and two was prep and disguise but we clearly didn't do that in order. Phase three was a final review of the mission and then move out but we switched those too and did a final check in the car after we left the house. Anyway, after phase five, it's phase six: break into the office.
But we have to complete sneaking in first and we're not doing a good job of that.
"Hurry up, fatass," Kara shouts.
Lori and I gasp.
Marianne only says smugly, "I know."
Kara rolls her eyes and pushes Marianne through the window. Lori left it open the last time she was here and we decided it would be our sneak-in window.
Marianne falls through with a grunt. "I landed on my face!"
"I doubt that's the first time." Kar sighs.
"Woah." I gape at her.
"Damn." Lori mutters, glancing away and scratching her head.
Mari gasps. "What's that supposed to mean?!"
"I mean... there has to be an explanation..."
"Are you calling me dumb?"
She shrugs.
"Okay, my turn!" I go into the window just to cut the tension between my sisters.
Lori hops in next, then Kara.
The walk upstairs is tense and quiet until Mari speaks, "You're calling the lawyer... dumb? Okay, Miss. Bob The Builder."
Lori and I burst into laughter.
Kara sighs then pulls out her phone, dialing someone.
"Who-" I try in-between laughs, "who are you call- calling?"
She glares at me then someone answers the phone and she clicks speaker. "Hey, mom! I was in the shower and was thinking for a while and got curious-"
"Must be your first time thinking." Rita interrupts.
Lori and I laugh harder, this time Mari joins in.
"Mama!" She shouts. "Don't be mean, I just want to know... did Mari get dropped as a kid?"
"Yeah." She states. "All of you were, your father has butter fingers. Never by me though. He even dropped your cousins."
All of us go silent and Lori mumbles, "wow."
"Is that Lori? I'm your favorite now, right?"
"For sure!" She states.
"Anyway, K. Is that all?"
"Mhm." Kara hums then thanks mom before hanging up.
The rest of the walk is quiet but not tense.
I watch Lori's eager expression. She wants to find something bad so she can finally get some answers out of him. We thought this thoroughly, making no mistakes. She just wants it to be over.
Marianne looks excited, though. This is probably the funniest thing she's done in a while. Kara on the other hand? She looks annoyed. Maybe because of all the walking we're doing, or because she found out she was dropped as a baby by our shared sperm donor. Austin.
As I walk through the long halls I observe every turn and interior detail so I don't get lost if I have to run. Marianne bumps into everything in sight without even trying and Kara glares at her every time she makes a loud noise.
"Hey!" Someone shouts.
The four of us turn around to find some random guard running from the end of the hall toward us. We begin sprinting to our destination and slip into a random room to throw the guard off our trail. This time, nobody walks out of the bathroom and we leave the room to find Matteo's office a couple doors down.
We're all breathing hard as we approach the office. "It's so much easier to do this when you're not pregnant," I state.
"I don't know if I should be concerned that you've done this that many times." Kara furrows her brows.
"It's only the fourth or fifth." Lori shrugs.
My sisters raise their eyebrows at us.
We enter the office and Lori goes straight to the closet. She opens it with a copy of the necklace that we made after Matteo hid the original. This time we knew the ten-second code that fucked us up last time so we got in easily but what we found made us all pause.
It was empty.
Completely empty.
He cleared whatever was in here. He probably knew we'd come back. Or maybe he never had anything in here in the first place. But why would he put up all these procedures to hide nothing? Was it a test?
"You guys see nothing, right?" Marianne asks. "That isn't just me?"
I nod distractedly and Kara sighs like she missed out on something fun. Lori is frozen. I can't tell what she's thinking but she hasn't lifted her eyes from the closet.
"Lor-"
Lori interrupts me with two words, "it's over."
"Huh?" Kara asks confusedly.
"I'm over it." Lori shakes her head. "I'm going to end it with him."
"'Bout time." Mari rolls her eyes and I glare at her. It isn't the time for comments like those. She puts her hands up in surrender. "We can listen to that album together if you want."
"What album?" The question comes from Kara as she turns around and observes the rest of the office.
"Over it," Mari grins.
Kara snorts.
"I'm ready to leave," Lori says.
We exit the mansion twenty minutes later and begin our journey home. When we get home, Kara leaves immediately after getting a call from Leonardo and Mari leaves around an hour after, claiming she has a date with Sole Segreto.
Crazy! I know. If Lor weren't so bummed I'd be helping her get ready.
Athena, Aiden, and I are still the only single ones left in our family. I just realized both our names start with an A. It's the A Curse. I don't know what that is but I'm spitting random bullshit now.
Lori went straight to her room, not wanting to talk to anyone but while walking past her door, I overheard her inviting Matteo over. I'll give her time to process, she'll talk to me when she's ready.
I have nothing to do. The girls are still at Athena's and they're not coming back until tomorrow.
Athena was always the most mother-like out of my siblings. She'd wake us up early to get us ready for school because Austin had work early and Rita kept forgetting to set her alarm. She'd take care of us when we were sick or injured. She'd help us if we weren't making the right decisions at school, either with friendship or the way we acted. And she'd tutor us if we didn't understand a subject.
Out of everyone I know, she seemed most likely to have a family yet she doesn't. And I know she wants it the most out of all of us. Marianne met Sole, Lori met Matteo, I have Seriyah, Kara met Leo, and Marcus met Diya- even if they're not together yet, I ship it so hard.
Aiden doesn't care about making his own family right now, he wants to focus on basketball first. But Athena always wanted a fantastic husband and lots of children, I hope she gets that someday.
My mind drifts to Angelo. I hate not knowing what he's up to. If he's seeing my child I'll file a restraining order. I don't want him near Seriyah, he only makes things worse.
I wonder how he aged though. It's been five years, I know, but Matteo doesn't look the same as he did at twenty-three. His jaw is a lot sharper and his eyes show his age. I think he isn't getting much sleep. Other than that, he looks the same.
I go into my room, shower, brush my teeth, and drown in my covers before falling asleep. I'm too bored to stay awake and keep thinking, I'll just wait for Sy and Ria to come home.
The second I get home I say a few words to Lana and head to my room. I don't feel like talking. She knows I'll talk to her when I'm ready to discuss it. But I do need to talk to Matteo so I grab my phone and dial his number.
He picks up after the second ring and his voice is breathless as he greets me, "ciao, Lori."
Fuck, I love his voice when it's like this. Stay focussed, Lor. "Matteo-"
"Yes?"
I take a deep breath. He actually interrupted me to say yes. Seriously? "I need you to come over."
"Of course, but I might take a while." He says. "Do you sound mad or is that just me?"
"Your wife is always mad." Someone comments in the background. They sound familiar but I can't put my finger on it.
"Hey! Who is that?"
"Just a work friend." He replies. "I'll be there in an hour."
"Okay." I hang up.
What should I do while I wait? Maybe take a shower, cleanse me of all this stress or something. I go into the washroom and sit on the counter, washing my face and beginning my night care routine. Shaving my face, putting on a face mask, putting on those nose things because they work so well taking off my acne. Also, pimple patches. I got this one in the middle of my forehead, I didn't even see it appear.
When I'm done, I wash my hands and enter the shower. I make the water temperature heated and steam feels the room in seconds. The glass door fogs up and I get lost in the heat.
I use my cinnamon-scented soap and scrub, every month I switch it up then restart every year. January is for cinnamon, next month will be for orchid.
Right as I'm washing myself off, I feel a sharp pain in my lower back, then again in my pelvis area. I shout and hunch over, circling my arms around my stomach. "Fuck!"
"Lori, are you okay?" Someone enters the washroom. It takes a moment for me to recognize the voice as Matteo's.
I look up and use my hand to swipe some of the fog off the window. Matteo's walking toward the shower door but another sharp pain forces me to look back down.
I pause.
Blood. So much blood.
I stare at it, not believing what I'm seeing and don't look up when Matteo enters the shower. "Lori..."
I sob. So hard and loud and I can't stop. I just lost my baby. I couldn't bring it into this world. I failed as a mother. It would've been so beautiful. If it were a girl, I would've named it Rosita. I haven't decided on a boy yet but Rosita would've been perfect. Her, Maria, and Seriyah.
Tears flow down my cheeks as I watch all the blood leave my body. I can't even feel the pain in my lower body anymore, I'm too focused on the realization that I'm not expecting anymore.
Matteo hugs me to his chest as I cry my heart out. It reminds me why I've stayed with him for this long. No matter how much he's lied to me, his love for me will never be another lie. He's always there for me. I just wish he told me what was going on.
>|<|>|<|>|<|>|<
Word count: 2889
How are y'all?
I'm doing great
This chapter took ages, I was so stuck
Also!!!! I read once upon a broken heart and am so hookeddd
Tell me why I just realized Caraval was lowkey- but kinda not- supposed to be read before once upon a broken heart
I found that out 20% into reading Caraval
I only read Caraval bc I found out the author was the same and it's been on my tbr for a while
Anyway, it's kinda good but I'm in love with once upon a broken heart, I can't wait for the third book in September
Anywho
Feedback/ideas?
Adios my lovelies!
2/12/23