Bruno's Daughter

Chapter 18

Kristi's POV:

 "Hold on, Kristi! I'll figure out how to pull us up!" Mirabel told me.

 "Just hang on, Kristi! It'll be ok...We won't let you fall...." Andres told me, tears forming in his eyes.

 Tears of my own stung my eyes. "You can't hold me forever, Andres...You can't pull all of us up, Mirabel....I love you, Andres...I'm sorry..." with that, I let myself fall.

 "NO!" Mirabel yelled.

 "KRISTI!" Andres screamed, reaching out for me, but not able to reach me.

 "KRISTI! I'M COMING! HANG ON!" a third voice yelled. It was familiar, but I couldn't place it.

 I felt myself hit the ground with a thud. I was surprised I was alive. Suddenly, I heard another thud beside me and a pair of arms wrap around me. 

 "Are you alright? Do you hurt anywhere?" the familiar voice from a moment ago asked me. 

 I groaned a little, holding my head and looking up. My eyes went wide. My father was kneeling beside me, his hand on my shoulder! He looked worried. 

 "P-papa..??" I asked in a quiet voice.

 "It's me, my daughter...I'm here..." he smiled at me, a tear in his eye. He hugged me, but I was too shocked to do anything. Am I dreaming....? My papa is...here...Next to me...Hugging me....

 He then stood up, lifting me up gently. My eyes went wide as I looked around, seeing the broken edges of the floor. I looked over at Andres and Mirabel and smiled. They smiled back at me, tears of joy in their eyes. I looked down, waving my hand around the fog, clearing it. 

 "Huh.." I said, seeing the ground was only a few feet down. 

 Bruno climbed up onto the floor and set me down before helping Mirabel and Andres up. We looked at him. 

 He looked over at me before saying, "Bye." with that, he left. I stood there in shock. H-he just....He...I finally get him back and now....He's just leaving me again??!

 "Wha-No, hold on!" Andres said, taking my hand and going after him, Mirabel following us.

 "Wait, wait," Mirabel said before hitting her head on something. "Ow! Why did you take the vision?"

 He didn't answer. "Knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock on wood!" he said, knocking on the wood around him, not to mention his head. I honestly don't know if I remember him being so....superstitious...

 "Is it why you came back or..?" Mirabel asked. I never said anything. I really couldn't think of anything to say. We stopped walking when we reached an area of patched walls.

 "Were you patching the walls..?" Andres asked curiously, staying right by my side.

 "Me? Oh no. I'm too scared to go near those." my father answered. "All the patching's done by Hernando." Flashbacks to when I was little flashed through my mind. When papa would pretend to be different people. Hernando was one of them.

 "Who is Hernan-"

 Mirabel was cut off by Bruno, his hood on. "I'm Hernando and I'm scared of nothing!" I gave a small chuckle. Bruno looked over at me, putting his hood down. "I used to say my real gift was acting...Heh..."

 "I remember that..." I said in a choked voice. Andres held me close to him. Mirabel and papa looked at me. When I looked over at my father, I saw he had a bucket over his head and a tool in his hand.

 "I'm Jorge and I made the spackle!" 

 "How long have you been back here....?" Mirabel asked, a little weirded out. 

 I looked at Bruno and took in his appearance. The years had certainly done a number on him. He had big bags under his eyes, his hair was graying, and he was quite thin. He had facial hair growing on his face. I could also see he was nervous and timid. Papa was always nervous around other people, but he'd never been nervous around me....

 We followed him to his room. We stood there awkwardly. Finally, I gained the courage to speak. It was the only thing that came to my mind...

 "You never left..." 

 "Well, I-I left my tower, which was a lot of stairs and uh...Here! A kitchen adjacent!" he took an arepa from off a coffee table. "Oh! Oh! And free entertainment!" We watched as he placed a rat behind a make-shift cardboard theater. "So, what do you like? What do you like? Sports? Game shows? Telenovelas?" He changed the little cutouts in front of the rat before sitting down in his chair. "Their love can never be...."

 "I don't understand." I said, my arms crossed.

 "Well, she's his aunt, but she has amnesia, so she can't remember she's his aunt. So it's like this very forbidden kind of-" he was telling us about his telenovela, which kinda sounded interesting, but I wasn't going to get distracted.

 "No. I don't understand why you left, but never....left." I told him.

 "Oh, well, because, uh....You know, the mountains around the Encanto are pretty high and uh....You know, free food! You guys like free food, right?"

 I sighed, looking away. It sounded as if he would have left if the mountains weren't so high. But, part of me knew there was more to it.

 "Hey, Kristi," Andres said, looking over at me. He had wandered over the the end of the room. Mirabel and I walked over and looked where he was looking. Through a small hole in the wall, we saw the table in the dining room. I looked down and saw a crude plate drawn with his name on it. Tears formed in my eyes. I looked back through the hole. From where his place was in this room, it was like he was sitting beside......me.....

 "Yea...My gift wasn't helping the family...But, uh...I love my family, ya know...?" we turned to look at him. He looked so sad. "I just don't know how to....I just don't know how to..." He sighed, sitting down on his chair. I wanted to walk over to him and just hug him tight, but I didn't. I don't know why....Ok, maybe I do...But it's....It's kinda hard to explain. "Well, I think you should go now...I don't have a good reason, but if I did, you'd be like, I should go because that's a good reason...."

 I stared at him, feeling like I was going to cry. Was he really going to push his own daughter away....? Didn't he love me anymore...? Or was it all a lie...?