The Ones Who Failed Us

Chapter 13

The week flew by quickly, and it was now Saturday. Today I would finally go home. I hadn't seen the twins since going to the hospital, and my stomach was turning just at the thought of seeing them later today. Alessandro, Elijah, and Leo had kept their promise of not telling my brothers the real reason of my hospitalization, but I was worried that Emilio and maybe even Matteo would call me "sweetie" again. I needed to tell my older brothers how much this word hurt me even if I needed to lie about the details.

We were waiting for Dr. Bianchi to check my back one last time before releasing me from the hospital. Alessandro, Elijah, and Leo were seated to the right of my hospital bed while Teddy was sitting next to my on the bed.

"Alessandro?" I called.

"Yeah, Aves. What's up?" He said, looking up from his phone.

"Um, I thought I should tell you something before we go home. Something to do with the twins," I said as I fidgeted with my fingers.

Leo gently took my hands and asked, "What is it, amore?"

I opened my mouth, but no words came out. It was so hard opening up to my brothers like this, but they had to know so they could protect me from the twins. I looked at Teddy, who quickly realized what I wanted to tell them.

"It's okay, Ava. I'll tell them," Teddy said. "You know when we went shopping, and Ava punched that woman in the mall? Well, it's because she called Ava 'sweetie.'"

"Our stepdad used to call me that," I lied.

My three older brothers had sad looks on their face as they started to understand what had caused me to act the way I did that day.

I took a deep breath and said, "Emilio overheard what the woman had said to me before I punched her and realized how much that word hurt me. At school, he called me that word and told his girlfriend, Lauren, to call me that, too. She was calling me that word all day, which is why I punched her. Emilio used that word against me."

Leo looked like he was ready to kill Emilio as he tightly balled up his fists. Elijah was less angry with just a clenched jaw while Alessandro was scarily calm as if he was silently planning a long and painful death for Emilio.

"I will talk to them before they see you and make sure they don't call you that ever again. If they disobey me, they will receive the harshest punishment of their entire lives," Alessandro said. "I promised to protect you, and I will. If they ever call you that again, come straight to me, and I will come home right away to deal with them. No matter how busy I am, I will always be there for both you and Teddy."

"Thanks, Alessandro," I smiled.

"Good afternoon, Ava," Dr. Bianchi said as she walked into the hospital room.

After greeting my brothers, she checked my back. "Everything is looking great. Your back has almost completely healed, but you need to continue taking antibiotics for a few more days. One of your brothers can pick your prescription up for you. Other than that, you can perform some physical exercise but nothing too strenuous," she instructed.

"Now, I do want to talk about the scarring on your back. You have extensive keloidal scarring, which basically just means that your scars are raised. There are some medical treatments we can do to reduce the scarring, maybe even have it completely gone. Would you like to do that?" Dr. Bianchi asked.

I turned to my brothers, not knowing what to do. Over the years, Sir had made me feel extremely self-conscious of the scarring. In truth, I would do anything to be rid of the memories of my trauma, and this was a way to do that, but I didn't want my brothers to see how deeply Sir's words and actions had hurt me. They might be making a conscious effort to treat Teddy and I properly, but people can change.