TW: suicide talk, depression, child neglect, abuse
Elijah
We got called home. Caleb didn't think much of it. Probably because he was still drunk as fuck. Every day I cared less and less about everything and at some point it felt like that again.
*3 years ago*
I just lashed out on my brothers and Kiara looked at me with pity when I ran upstairs. She didn't understand.
Her life was so fucking perfect. We were well known at school. Everybody liked us. The difference between Kiara and I was that she enjoyed coming home. I hated it.
At home I was alone with my thoughts. I didn't bother telling anybody. They wouldn't understand. They would say I'm overreacting.
I fucking hate life. I wish mom and dad were home more. They always had work to do. Right now they were home but I don't feel like telling them.
They spent all their time teaching Kiara the mafia basics. I was taught by Alex. It felt so unfair.
I'm not sure how long I was in my room for but at some point I was going downstairs for dinner and ran into her.
She looked like she had cried. Usually I'd feel bad but at that moment I just glared at her.
"What the fuck do you have to be sad about?"
She looked down.
"I'm sorry"
She ran past me and locked her door behind her. She didn't show up to dinner that evening, nor the next seven evenings.
*a week later*
I hit the lowest of lows today. School was shit and everything felt so overwhelming. Caleb tried to ask me if I was okay but I always lied.
So I made my way to the bridge close to our school. It was a pretty remote area. I met with my dealer and got my stuff.
**What happened next you already know**
The drive home was silent. She kept looking at me. Dylan picked us up that day. Nobody else noticed something was off.
Later when we talked I found out that she had been worried earlier. She did show it but I guess that I never realized.
I got clean. She helped me get clean. And by the end of the year I was fine. I was cured and I promised to never let myself get that bad again.
Until now.
I thought the reason Alex wanted us home was our parents' death-anniversary. It was in two days.
I almost landed on my ass when the following words left Alex's mouth.
"Your sorellina will be home in 20 minutes"
I was so confused. And so was Caleb.
Apparently Dylan had tabs on her all this time but he only now told us because he wanted to see what she was doing.
And sure enough a black car drove through our gates. Our guards grabbed her out of the car and she was fighting back. She was fighting back hard.
I think she even bit one of the guards. They sedated her immediately and she was put in her room.
Alex called us all to the living room. He wanted to talk to the weird guy who was with Dylan and well so did all of us.
He told us his side of the story first. How they met and how they kidnapped Bethany together. He said that he had been scared of her at times. Apparently she was so apathetic that if he hadn't stopped her she would've killed a lot of people.
He said that she was driven by anger. Fucking duh. Don't have to be Poirot or Sherlock to know that.
"Why did you bring her home?" I asked first. The others seemed to be confused at that question. "I mean that soon" I added.
"A girl almost died because of your sister and Athen- Kiara needs a doctor" he explained. I can't say I liked him a lot. He was two-faced.
Kiara
The thing about sedatives is that they break down every wall you build up.
Unlike drugs, which strengthen the walls.
All the memories started coming back. Ones that I hid and those that I had forgotten. And they weren't good memories.
*The day Elijah tried to kill himself*
I wanted to help him so badly. He just yelled at everybody. Alex was furious.
Dad came up to me to take me to my daily "lessons". I can't believe everybody always fell for that. It was almost like they were blind.
Dad's lessons consisted of beating and torture. He had so much anger inside him and when he couldn't take it all out on the enemy he used me. Not Elijah, not Caleb, me.
He always "took me to his office" but not once did we actually make it there. He had a room in the basement. A torture chamber if you will.
He would tie me up and do whatever he felt like doing.
My mother knew but she wasn't bothered. She always looked away. It confused me.
They were such perfect parents to my brothers. What was so wrong about me to never receive that?
This time he had changed the room. A bathtub full of water. I froze at the sight.
The water was cold. I almost drowned.
He slapped me before handing me a towel. As always he told me about the very disturbing ways he would kill me if I told anybody.
I ran upstairs crying. Elijah was there. He was so angry at me for being upset. For all he knew I had no reason to be sad at all.
He was right.
There are people who have it so much worse than me.
***
Father's words haunt me still sometimes. Their death-anniversary is coming up and I'm not planning on going. I haven't visited them once.
Partly because I would most likely vandalize their grave.
A knock on the door pulled me out of my thoughts.
Luke stood there. He looked tired.
"You're not going to run up to me and jump in my arms" he laughed. I didn't
"Kie?" he questioned. I just looked at him. I had no energy to even correct him at this point. I was so done.
I was stuck in this house again.
My enemies were happy.
Bethany probably used her PTSD to get clout. She is that kind of person.
"I still love you. Even after everything" he said.
"Obviously" I scoffed.
"Drop that. It's not who you are" he groaned.
"How would you know who I am? Nobody knows who I am" I crossed my arms.
"That's not true. You have to know a person to love them" he says smirking.
He wasn't pushy. I was surprised by that.
"You love who I was before" I say simply.
"It's still you. You can bring her back" he says.
It's so easy for them to say that. Everybody is acting like the only right thing to do is bring her back but the thing is...
I don't want to.
I don't like whoever she was. I hate who I was before.
Stan Melanie Martinez.
I don't love myself now. But I like myself better like this. I like being tough. I like the fact that I can be mean. I like being honest. I can do what I want.
I don't squirm under everybody's eyes. I don't spend my days doing everything I can to please others.
I finally learned which way I want to go. And now here they are dragging me back. Are they that unaware of how miserable I was?
Why would somebody want back someone that was so fucking miserable?
Why can't they love the new me as much as the old me?
Siblings' love was supposed to be unconditional. Yet here we are. If they can't love whoever I am now then they don't love me. Same goes for Luke.
And fuck me. I lost all the love in me.
My father washed, beat and tortured the love out of me.
All these years I have been acting on what I thought it was like to show love to others.
I read books and I watched movies.
I became the characters I read about or who I watched.
I acted according to what I thought was right.
And I'm so fucking tired of being fake now.
I don't need love. I don't need to know how to love.
Love makes us weak.
Love hurts.
Love kills.
My father was right all along. He did me a favor.
Because I was never going to love anybody. I don't know how. And I'm better for it.
We live in a cruel world.
Our family is in the mafia.
I'm doing them all a favor.
I was weak. I'm not anymore. Weakness has no room in life.
And with that I walked past him.
I wasn't going to run again. I didn't need to. I had a new plan. And it was so much better than the other one. I was going to get my revenge. And nobody could stop me.
But I was going to give them a chance to join me.
——————————————————————————
Y'all WTF AM I DOING.
Please give me some feedback. Do we like where this is going? Do we want to end up with Luke or somebody else?
Somebody from TikTok suggested Kiara ending up with Lorenzo.
Give me something people. Comment under this and let me know who does Kiara end up with?
Some of you are probably confused since she literally spent like half the chapter talking about how she hates love but just stay with me people.
I have plans. Now I just need you to tell me things so I can write out those plans.
Anyway
Express yourselves
Drink water because it's fucking amazing
And have a nice rest of your whatever.
Love ya
<3