I remembered to eat something before I went to bed yesterday and now, today, I was still sitting in my bed, even though the clock had turned twelve AM.
The door opened, but I didn't bother turning my head to look over at who it was. "Nina, my dear, what are you still doing in here?" Gabriella asked as I sighed deeply.
"Just relaxing," I told her, even though she probably didn't believe me the slightest. I had never been good at lying.
"Oh honey, I know this is hard." She crawled up on the bed beside me and sat down. "Just remember that you can tell me anything, Honey. I'm here for you." She smiled sweetly, her eyes sparkling with youth.
"Anything?"
"Absolute."
I took a deep breath and put my hair behind my ears. "Why did you steal my brother?"
So, right there, I said it and for once, I didn't regret opening my mouth or maybe even hurting someone because of the truth.
For a moment, I couldn't hear her breath and the silence cut through me like a knife. Her legs gently folded as she repositioned herself. "How do you know?" She asked quietly.
"You didn't answer my question."
She took a deep breath. "No, I didn't, because I'm mostly ashamed of what I did."
"Ashamed? Well okay, please explain further. I want to hear your story before I judge or do anything to anyone," I told her calmly, trying to keep everything inside. Even my emotions.
She gulped. "First, when we figured out that they were with child, we wanted to take the child out of revenge, nothing else. However, as we found out about their living situation, our motivations slowly changed and though we still wanted revenge, we needed to get that child out of that environment."
"If you're the good ones, then why didn't you do it legally and you still let both Liam and I stay in that house. Why?"
"When they three years after got your brother, they had control over their lives and we didn't interfere with them and your mother was working hard on becoming a good lawyer."
"I don't understand! You stole a baby! My brother! My parent's son!" I jumped down from the bed and strolled over to look out the window. My eyes found the bench where I had talked with Luis the other day. A swirling in my stomach made me realize how bad I felt about yelling at Luis mother. He had kinda helped me yesterday and I should maybe repay a little of it like this.
"Nina, I'm so sorry, I...I... I just cared too much for your mother to let her have Antonio," she said low.
My breath got stuck in my throat and I didn't dare turn around to look at her. Only a single tear dripped down my chin as I spoke. "What do you mean?"
"I... I," she gulped.
"You what?" I snapped out of intention as I turned around and faced her, her eyes meeting mine.
"Your mother wasn't ready to become a mother and neither was your father ready to become a father. They were young, very young and a child would only make their situation worse. I loved your mother as a sister and even though our age may be different and I was mad at her for so long, she was my best friend. She supported me when I began dating Joseph and when we got married, but I never supported her, when she finally found the one there was meant for her. I just hid, because I was afraid of your father."
"It has been twenty-six years, Gabriella. You are all adults and shouldn't you be able to talk it out or something?" I asked, as the paranoid girl I was. Talk it out? Seriously, something like that couldn't just be talked out. But I said it and I couldn't change it.
"It isn't that easy even if I wished it was. We took something precious from your parents. The one thing there meant the most and maybe even the thing there kept them together."
"They lived fine for many years," I told her as I hugged myself protectively.
"I know, they kept themselves together because of-"
"Liam. I know and then when he left they fell together again, but that's not true. It began long before he left." I bit my lip, shifting my gaze to the wall.
"Nina, you didn't let me speak," she said calmly, stepping forward. As an instinct, I took one big one away and she got the message. "As I was about to say." She corrected her shirt. "They kept themselves together because of their thirst for revenge. They may have said they loved you, but in reality, the only thing they wanted was to get revenge on me and my family."
The words hit me like a big, thick rock and pushed all the air out of my cold lungs. I couldn't talk, I couldn't breathe. What the hell was she talking about? My brain was like a great orchestra. The catch? All the instrument played a different song, making it all a complete mess.
It felt like something or someone was dead, that a hole in my heart was being drilled slowly. I hadn't lost someone, but the last part of someone. I had lost the last thing I had to cherish about my parents. Their love they once had felt about me.
And now it was gone.
But was it?
Maybe she was lying.
Yes, she had to be lying.
My parent had loved me once and no one was going to take that away from me!
I swiped away the tears with the backside of my hand. "Liar!" I yelled and pointed at her, my chin trembling like a crying kid. "You're fucking lying!"
"Don't talk to me like that!" Gabrielle snapped back, but that only made my fire ignite deep within and turn dark; really dark.
"How dare you even talk to me! You took my brother from my family and now you're telling me that my parents never loved me! They loved me more than anything! I was their daughter!" I screamed at the top of my lungs, waiting for the moment someone came running through the door to check if someone was dying.
"They didn't love you, Nina, they never did. They only wanted revenge, because I took something from them. I regret what I did, but it was the right thing to do!" Gabriella took steps back, seeing the rage in my eyes even I was afraid of.
"They did love me!" I screamed higher than I ever had done before. I so dearly wanted to believe it, so it just came right out of me. Slowly, I fell to my knees as the door opened wide and in came Anthony, Antonio, and Liam, all with wide eyes.
I buried my head in my hands, crying like a newborn baby in my mother's arms. "They loved me." It was barely a whisper, but I repeated it over and over again, hoping to make it true. My vision turned blurry and dark, only the floor was in my sight. It was as if I was locked behind bars, wanting to get out, but not being able too. And then hearing the guards mock me with devilish words there made me go insane. That was how I felt.
I was frozen in a prison of my own emotions. I couldn't escape them as long as the key wasn't placed in my palm.
I could just pick out any voices between the yells of my own mind. I couldn't figure out who was talking or what the person said, but it was helping. My breath started to calm down together with my heartbeat. Still, I could feel the sweat drip down my forehead.
I took one deep breath and sunk further down towards the floor, only for a pair of arms to wrap around me and scoop me up. "They loved me," I whispered again, leaving my lips slightly parted. "They did."
"I'm sure they did," he answered and stroked a lock of hair away from my face.
I coughed. "They took him."
"Who? Who took who?" Anthony asked, waiting for an answer I couldn't give him.
"They loved me," I told him, a smile forming on my lips. "They loved me."
"I know, beautiful, but you need to tell me what you are mumbling about."
"It doesn't make sense."
He smiled. "Try me."
"Your-"
"Anthony!" Gabriella's harsh voice got through.
"What?" He asked, looking away from me and up at his mother.
"Take Nina to your room. I have something to tell all of you and I don't think that Nina is emotionally stable enough to take anymore today," she told him with a calm voice.
She was really going to tell them. Tell them that Antonio wasn't Antonio but Mason Watson. My brother and my parent's son. What a sad fate.
Anthony nodded and began walking and as he walked past Gabriella I opened my mouth. "Don't," I mumbled just high enough for her to hear. She responded with a shook of her head and a sad smile. She was really going to do it, even though it meant that there was a chance that her family would be ruined.
Lies ruined everything.
Look at how I ended up.
I watched the white walls as Anthony carried me to his room in silence. I could only just hear and feel our breath there was close to being in sync.
When I was young, I was always the giver, the lover. I was warm and loving, something people loved me for and I loved me for as well. I couldn't remember crying as a kid. Now, when my time of suffering came, I couldn't bring the little happy girl forward. She was gone without a goodbye.
Anthony placed me gently on his bed and in an instant, I crumbled together and turned my back towards him. "Go away," I growled at him.
"Okay," he replied with a heavy sigh and seconds after, he left the room in a hurry, probably excited about Gabriella's excitements. And even though I had told him to leave, it still hurt when he did. Maybe I should start getting used to that people didn't fight for me.
"You shouldn't shy away from people because they actually want to help."
Luis words were true and by repeating them in my head I discovered that it wasn't because people didn't want to help me or stay with me, but because I didn't let them. I dug my own grave and only I could dig myself up again.
I only needed a shovel.
One hell of a good shovel.