Chapter 272: I Just Want It To Stop Hurting
Chapter 272: I Just Want It To Stop Hurting
Camilla
"Don't worry, she was just saying this because she knows what will make me back off." Adriano said, shaking his head and it was at this moment I realized it was denial he was experiencing right now. His pinned gaze practically daring me to admit to the lie.
When I didn't respond, it looked like he had been punched with desperation to make me say anything else, continuing by tearing his eyes away from me to look at his brother who seemed a second away from jumping in between us if it was necessary.
"I mean, haven't you heard?" He glared, holding his hand out in my direction for a moment before letting it drop back to his side.
"Camilla Ranger is a brand new person." He continued, my lungs seizing up at the switch in my last name and making me feel worse than if he had walked up to me and slapped me.
I took a step back and accidentally bumped into Gregorio's shoulder at the movement, instantly taking three steps away so I could mask how much I hated the way he just said my name.
"She kills people, does her father's dirty work and manipulates like the perfect soldier she was raised to be…."
"What is the matter, Adriano?" I cut him off, refusing to let myself be walked all over even if he was rightfully in a bad mood.
"Don't you like it now that I don't need you to take care of me and shield me from the ground I walk on?"
"I am mad because you were supposed to do it by our side!" He yelled, Domenico taking a step towards him even though we all knew Adriano wasn't going to hurt me. Not physically at least.
"You see this right here?" He continued, pulling the chain of a necklace out from under his shirt and showing me the ring, the ring he had given me countless months ago, hanging from his neck.
"It was supposed to mean forever, we never would have been good for you but we also knew you were never looking for prince charming!"
He met my gaze with desperation, with frustration and anger and sadness. I gave him all the same in return, hugging my arms around my middle and refusing to let myself cry. I shook my head like it could undo everything he was saying but it didn't and instead I hear him tell me about the future I fought for with my life and lost.
"Fuck, Camilla. We wanted to train with you, make decisions with you." He seethed, looking like he was fraying at the edge every bit that I was.
"We wanted to love you and have you rule by our side as our equal, a unit that would rebuild the future of the Mafia based on loyalty and respect rather than the fear and manipulation our father implemented. I wanted you!" He yelled.
"Peach!" I cried as everything inside me finally shattered, breaking like a dam and flooding out in an overwhelming rush of emotions that knocked me down.
"You know what? I take that back, screw you!" I yelled, not being able to stop it as tears began to pour down my face.
"We could have had that all and you fucked everything up. You promised me the world but lied to my face, you promised you wouldn't hurt my father and you have tried to kill him goodness knows how many times. You kept the fact that I had a brother from me for weeks but despite all of that, I tried to come back for you." I cried, the memory of those earlier days at The Safe hitting me and refusing to relent.
I didn't want to break down right now when their mother should have been what we were talking about but I was so overwhelmed it made me sick and Adriano looked like he was more interested in continuing this anyways.
"Right, you tried so hard to come back to us while you were busy fucking someone else." Adriano spat, the anger in his eyes aimed so harshly at me, I knew just how much he hated me.
I saw in his eyes that we were done but I refused to just sit back and take the accusations in his tone either way. He didn't know about the beating or the drugs or the restraints that I had earned myself. He didn't know the way I died everyday without having them there and how after enough time, I just accepted that they were never going to find me.
Even then, I couldn't stop the words from spilling from my mouth, the admission I have never made to either myself or any other person I have spoken to.
"I didn't wish to be kidnapped!" I shouted back and just like that, I couldn't hold myself up any longer as I crushed to the floor on my knees.
I sobbed out everything, my voice breaking even as Gregorio dropped to my side and simply touched my arm like he didn't know what to do.
"They hurt me, Adriano. They hurt me everyday and nobody came for me. You want to call me a bitch, tell me I am not myself anymore? Go ahead because I am not, I waited for you to find me but the only people there were Jacob and Stella. I have fought so hard my entire life for things that normal people just have handed to them, so why am I hated when I decide I need a break?"
I know I should have stopped now, I know I was going to regret opening up like this in the morning but I was just so tired. I was so tired that I didn't stop myself as I leaned against Gregorio's body, my heart aching more than words could describe.
"Camilla…." Adriano began but I didn't let him continue.
The edges of my vision were starting to grow dark and I feared that if I didn't speak now, I wouldn't give myself this chance again.
"I have fought for food and water and my home since I was a little girl even when it was in some shitty trailer park with no heat in the winter. When my father left, I had to be strong for my mother, just to watch her kill herself on the same shit you smoke now, Domenico. I watched her die as a child and then I had to watch it again for real after learning my boyfriend was hiding everything from me while thinking I didn't have the right to know!"
I was full on sobbing through my words at this point but I was going to let them see it all. I was done and even though the truth of them saying they hadn't abandoned me was spoken, the loss of hope I had experienced then has become a part of me now.
"I can get over the lies." I cried, suddenly feeling a rush of dizziness followed by the heavy lull of sleep in the back of my mind.
"I can get over it and I can forgive you but why am I labeled the asshole when I don't even want to be here anymore!"
That last line had been meant to be a scream but all I was capable of was a mere mutter, my voice raw and my heart a bleeding wound before them. Somewhere in the back of my head, I could feel the way my body was shaking, the way Gregorio was silently crying beside me as he planted a saddened kiss on my head but all I knew for sure was that it felt so good when I rested my head on his shoulder and closed my eyes.
"I just want it to stop hurting." I pleaded with no one in particular and not even a second later did I fall willingly into the shadows around me.
The sad truth of this reality was that this world has been trying to break me since the day I was born and when I had finally been taken to The Safe, I let the world win. I had fallen into the cruel hands of the darkness around me but although I could still feel my tears running warm tracks down my face like the scare painted across my soul. It wasn't because of the words I had just spoken.
With Gregorio holding me to his side, through the devastation I saw a flicker of light, a spark of hope that told me that maybe, just maybe our story wasn't done after all.
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