Vulpecula ✔️

Ava.

"My place? A person like you will show me my place?!" A snarl left my lips. The audacity of this man!

"Don't talk to me like that." He asserted.

"No you don't talk to me like you own me. You're nothing to me except for the sperm donor and you," I turned around to face my mother whose face was red in humiliation, "are just the birth giver. Nothing and no one else."

"Quit being a nuisance Ava. People are witnessing this." Mother warned me.

"Or what? Are you're gonna leave again? Be my guest. Do it. C'mon. It's not going to be hard for you is it?" I taunted.

Anger clouded my otherwise rational thinking. I would never disrespect someone like this, but this is not me. I've been facing changes in my body and my mindset. I've become more fierce in the last few years. And that's the exact time since I last saw my parents. They haven't visited here in a couple of years. So they have no idea how changed their daughter is.

They dare to stake a claim at me as their daughter and now they want to discipline the girl they abandoned 17 years ago. Funny, because the girl doesn't want them anywhere close to her. These two people mean nothing to her. They are just a liability for her. She is obliged to follow them until she is 18 because they are legally her guardians.

I hate to be this girl.

"Tony back off." Papa John stepped forward and stood on my right. His warmth engulfed me and I began to realise that had it not been for my parents, I wouldn't have known papa John and Joanna. And why cry over spilt milk?

"No you back off John. She is my daughter and I get to discipline her the way I want to. Seems like she has grown some wings that need to be chopped off." Father said stoically.

We both stared at him incredulously. He has to be high if he thinks that. Taking a deep breath I look at Kayden and Clayton. With a little nod, they both understand that they should leave. But looking at Kayden I know for sure he wouldn't want to leave.

I stared at him until he removed his gaze from my father and looked me in the eye. I've always been one to read emotions as clear as day, but with Kayden, I find it hard. It would be a blessing if any day I find the true emotion behind his eyes. They're always intense which makes me look away, but not today. He needs to know that he can't just interfere with my family matter. No matter how fucked up my family is.

"You forgot you had a daughter until today Tony." Papa John snapped.

"John that's no way to talk to your elder brother!" Mother reprimanded making me, Joanna and papa John scoff at her.

"So now you remember family etiquettes Diana?" Joanna taunted.

And then all hell broke loose.

The entire living room erupted in chaos. Papa John and father had their talks, and Joanna and mother were throwing insults at each other, which by the way made me want to smash mother's face into the wall. Nobody disrespects my family. Hardly anything could be heard. And I was somehow glad that they weren't talking about me anymore.

Father was accusing papa John of stealing the company whereas papa John just reminded father that he got what he deserved. Mother was calling Jo-Jo a gold digger who claimed papa John. And she in return just spoke the facts. Joanna wasn't a gold digger. Mother is.

A lady who is so obsessed with brands and money, how can they not be money minded? How can a lady who doesn't care about anything other than her looks and her bank balance not be after her father's money?

So much was happening around me and I could feel the same sensation bubbling up. My breathing picked up at an alarming rate. I did the breathing exercise that I was taught but to no avail. Taking the air inside my lungs became a problem. Soon enough I was gasping for air.

My heart was beating at an abnormal rate. I felt so confined. Chocked up in this place. A strange ringing began in my ears. And my body began shivering pathetically. My chest felt heavy and tight. Like someone was sitting on it or squeezing the breath out of my lungs. I felt vulnerable and I hate it. Tears pricked my eyes at the helplessness that I felt, but they didn't fall.

"Ava? Oh god, Ava? Look at me." I heard a voice call out for me but due to the blur of tears in my eyes, I couldn't focus. "Ava no. Calm down. Take a deep breath. Try Ava."

In broken sentences I told the person that I can't breathe. For the next few seconds, it felt like everything was still except me. I was still shaking and my heart was still beating fast. My lungs felt suffocated.

Then suddenly I felt myself being lifted up from the ground. It was papa John. He knows what to do. It's just him and Joanna who know what to do. I felt myself being laid down on the couch. I laid flat as I remember.

"Here." I heard Joanna mumble as someone placed an ice pack on my cheeks and chest. "It's okay honey. You're okay. We are here." She said softly and caressed my hair.

"Baby now try matching your breathing with mine." Papa John instructed. I copied his actions but it didn't help. I shook my head urgently and gripped the first that my hands came in contact with. Someone's sweatshirt. "Okay, what are the three things that you see?"

"You. Joanna. Clayton." I said while trying to calm my pathetic frantic breathing.

"I'm not a thing but okay." Clayton mumbled. I would have laughed if I wasn't having a panic attack. The intense one at that.

"Two things that you feel?"

"Ice and this." I tugged at the sweatshirt. My eyes were still hazy so I assumed the sweats were either of Joanna or Kayden. I hoped it wasn't Kayden.

"One thing that you can smell."

"Confusion." I said which confused everyone. Even me. Why can I smell emotion in the air? How do I know that everyone is confused?

"What?"

"Oh god." Everyone else other than Kayden and Clayton said what. And Clayton said the latter.

I then realised that there was anxiety, desperation, confusion and some other emotion that I couldn't place my finger on, in the air. It was all my powers. So now I can smell emotions too.

Next thing I know is that I'm being asked to sniff another creepy male like Aldrik to know what he feels.

That's something that got me out of the panic that had overcome me. My breathing was slowly getting back to normal. My heart was still beating fast and I still shivered but I know I am recovering. I sat up straight and was immediately pulled into an embrace by the two people who have always stood by my side. On my right papa, John hugged me and on my right Joanna did. My hand left the sweatshirt as I held the hands of the two people who mean the world to me.

Joanna was silently crying and papa John was so stressed it seemed like he had aged a few years in the span of these fifteen minutes. I didn't bother with my mother and father's faces. Clayton smiled a sad smile at me and Kayden just raked his eyes all over me. Not in a creepy way, just to ensure that I was okay. His eyes were still emotionless but at least he cared.

And oh no. It was his sweatshirt.