“Enough with the silent bullshit!” I ordered, now hovering above her. “If you really couldn’t speak, you’d be a lot better at hiding the fact that you’re just another stray from the streets, and it’s only a matter of time before I throw your ass back out there. I can see right through you… I’m not my brother.”
“Kraven!” Julius shouted, reprimanding me from my door. “For fuck’s sake, I can’t leave you alone for two minutes.”
I jerked around, the sound of his voice only fueling my fire. “Are you here to hold her hand? Or did you get here just in time to catch her snooping in my bedroom?”
Her abrupt movement was enough to bring our attention back to her. She stood, and I expected her to run into Julius’s arms. Seeking shelter from the hero he was trying to be. I guess that made me the villain.
Her enemy and I had absolutely no problem filling that role.
Flying over to my desk instead, she surprised me as her steady grasp snatched the sheets of paper and pen off it to show them to us.
The realization of what she was searching for in my room hit us at the same time. She then laid the paper back down and began writing firmly on it. Each letter was more heated than the last. We waited there as if she were about to read us our favorite bedtime story.
In yet another quick movement, she lifted it to us.
It read:
I’m sorry.
With that, she slammed the sheet into my chest and left. Leaving us to contemplate…
Those were the first two words she ever said to us, and they’d carry a heavy hold.
Especially to me.
CHAPTER
SEVEN
JULIUS
“Silence speaks when words can’t.”-Unknown.
One month later.
Everything changed so fast.
Overnight, my world turned upside down.
All because of the girl with cinnamon-colored freckles and bright red hair.
She’d been living at our house for the past month, leaving behind whatever shitty life she’d become accustomed to. It was crazy the things she wasn’t used to. Simple stuff like having her favorite drinks in the fridge or the snacks she seemed to enjoy in the pantry. Her eyes would light up every time she found something new. It was only after I insisted that she could eat whatever she wanted.
When I asked her for a list of her favorite foods and drinks, I quickly realized she was easy to please. Her list consisted of only three things: water, crackers, and peanut butter.
All cheap.
All filling.
No fuss to cook.
Which came in handy when you didn’t know where you’d be getting your next meal.
Those little things made me feel crazy, as if I already knew so much about her without her having to say a word to me. She still hadn’t spoken. The last thing I wanted to do was push her until she was ready, unlike Kraven.
Any chance he got, he’d openly show his disdain for her. He was never one to hold back, and she seemed to bring out the worst in him, or maybe he was just trying to piss me off and was well aware he could do it through acting out.
He was skipping school again. When he did happen to show up, he was acting up in class and getting detention for talking back. He was staying out until all hours of the night and not telling me where he’d be or who he was with. As it was, he barely answered my texts. Constantly throwing out that I wasn’t his parent, and he could do whatever the hell he wanted.
