Chiara Rose

quarantatre

tw - major mention of self harm and eating disorders, there will be no tw right before scenes so please be careful!!

Chiara's POV

The news of me needing surgery caused quite the uproar in the Bernardi household, and I don't even know why it did. It wasn't anything big, to be fair, we didn't even know if there's anything wrong with me yet. It's just a diagnostic surgery, but thats not how they looked at it. I'm now being babied by every single one of my brothers, like if I get touched the wrong way I'll die.

It's gotten so bad, so bad.

Carlo was on my tail for the final two days of that week at school, and suddenly everyone wants to do everything for me. At one point, I was reaching for the TV remote when Rocco walked in and freaked out, yelled at me not to stress my body too much and got the remote for me.

My only escape was my bathroom, and that doesn't work very well. Me in a room with a toilet, toothbrush and blades? A recipe for disaster, but a disaster that was yet to happen. Every time I'd be close to hurting myself, someone would start threatening to bust the door down, no matter how much I'd reassure them that I was okay.

Now I had fallen into the exhausting routine of eating, throwing it back up, studying, making sure my brothers are okay, and even more studying.

"Carlo, I'll be fine." I groaned, trying to get him to let go of my arm.

"You sure you'll be okay?" He said with furrowed brows.

It had been two weeks since my appointment and something told me they'd never leave me alone.

"It's English, I'll be okay. Now if you don't mind, I'm going to be late." I said, tugging on my arm. He eventually let go and I basically ran to the door. Freedom.

"Text me if you feel off." I could hear Carlo yell from behind me, I just threw him the thumbs up and walked into class and straight to my desk. Emilio seemed to of gotten here before me, and was already giving me worried glances.

"You feeling okay?" He said and I groaned, had my brothers already told him?

"It's a simple surgery, why is everyone making a big deal about it." I whined and rested my head on the table, so I had no idea what Emilio was looking like right now.

"You need surgery?!" He whisper yelled at me, and my head shot right back up.

"You didn't know?" I say, looking at him with wide eyes.

"No! I didn't." He mutters, both of us trying to pretend to pay attention to the teacher who'd started the class.

"Oh, just pretend I didn't say anything then." I whisper.

"You're not going to explain?" He asks, and I shake my head.

"Fine then, I'll ask Carlo later." He mumbles. Then we both give our full attention to the teacher, who's rambling on about similes and metaphors. One thing I had noticed since I'd moved to America is that I had already learnt everything in Australia. As nice as it was and helped with a good transition from moving, it made school extremely boring. And I usually enjoyed school as well.

I let myself zone out assuming that that I had already learnt everything he was talking about. If I didn't I'd make Emilio give me his, and if he wasn't doing any there were a few of the nicer cheer girls in this class as well.

I was just about to doze off, when Emilio sent his entire arm flying into my side. I was fully prepared to glare at him but the look on his face made me feel sick.