Paying the Price | ✍🏼

09. Anxious and Tired

- Georgia Monroe - 

Hearing Ales on the phone, tears pricked in my eyes. I didn't know what to say or do. None of this felt real. There was no way a single phone call to my brothers best friend could have gotten me this close to my brother. Things like this just didn't happen to people like me. 

I had heard nothing from my brother in almost two months, and here I was, sitting here, unsure of what to do. He probably knew everything and had agreed with Raphael had wanted. Raphael did own the American Mafia, after all. He got priority over everyone, especially me. He wanted me here, so I had to be here, whether my life was on the line or not. 

"Ales?" I called out a second time, unsure of my own voice. I wanted to break down, but I had vowed to myself that I was over that, that I was going to grow up and take the world with a smile on my face, taking everything as it came. That I had been through enough for a lifetime, and that I was going to finally step up to it and face it; come to terms with the life I have lived is different to most, but not all. 

"Georgia? What are you doing?"  the way he said those words reminded me exactly of that night, and immediate regret filled my stomach. I really shouldn't have called, and I shouldn't have done anything about what had happened in that room, no matter how much it had terrified me. I should have called someone back at the house, not my brother, that I had once trusted with my life. 

"Nothing, I shouldn't have called" sinking down into the mattress of my boarding school bed frame, I ran a hand over my forehead, feeling the realization of all the work I was missing and just how much shit I would get for it by the girls that don't like me for some reason. Not many people liked me, and it didn't bother me, but now that I thought about it, it was kind of getting to me. 

No response came from the other end of the line, making me check the phone that was on charge, making sure that I was still talking to someone. I was, or I had been, but they just didn't want to talk to me anymore. They had finished with me. "Georgia, you know not to say that. Why do you need me? Why did you call Nikolas?" 

There he was. The same brother that I had left behind, in Italy. Hearing a door slam from the other side of the phone, made me jump, and drop the phone that I had somehow grabbed along the way, and onto the ground. "Shit" I murmured, as I reached for it, trying not to touch the screen that used to be my only hope, but not anymore. 

"Georgia, answer the question" a second voice came through the other end, where I knew Nikolas had put the phones together so we could hear one another. "It doesn't matter anymore. Sorry to bother the two of you" I knew that it was Ace, and excitement oozed out of me the moment I heard his voice. After our last phone call had gone down, I didn't want to speak to him anymore. 

"You want to know what? That I trusted Raphael with my life, because the two of you are fucking running around like headless chickens with money in your back pockets while we have nothing. I was fucking brutally twisted and turned just so someone could get information that I don't have, while I had to call someone to try and help me. To get out of here" 

I nearly cried, feeling the absence of everything I had worked so hard for last year, only for it to all come crashing down in almost two months. It felt like I had been hit by a strong wave, pushing me under, before dumping me in the sand on the beach, only to never reach out and grab me again when it was calm. 

With no response, I continued. "Gio isn't well anymore. Leo isn't who he used to be. It's like Raphael has sucked the life out of all of us. He isn't the person you thought he was. I've never seen Elijah work so hard in my life. Axel is off somewhere, and I never hear from him. I never hear from anyone back at the house. I'm worried, worried that something has gone wrong and I have completely missed it all" 

Tears streamed down my cheeks as I swallowed more and more sobs. I was not that girl anymore, that just cried to cry. But right now, the tears were worth it. I hadn't cried since my first night here, and that would have to have been almost a month by now. We had been in New Jersey for almost a month now. 

"Alessandro, whether you like it or not, but I am going to get your siblings. They don't deserve to be there anymore. They need to be back with you"  for what had felt like a long time, I had finally heard Nikolas speak up. Alessandro hadn't bothered to say anything to my speech. He didn't care, and that was fine. 

He could care for nothing for all I cared. If he wanted us to be here, then so be it. But there was no way that I was going to be staying here if I could help it any longer. I could hear bickering from somewhere, whether it was my phone or from someone outside my dorm, I had no idea, but my I laid my sore body back, hitting the wall that my bed was pressed against. 

Looking up, I finally took in how dark my room had really become. It was still winter here, as it was February in New Jersey, which meant that it was cold and rainy. The rain was pelting against the window, while I could care less about what else was going on around me. My chest felt light, but my eyes felt heavy. 

I didn't know when it happened, but my eyes closed, and everything stopped moving for once. My heart had stopped racing, and my mind had finally decided to take the much needed sleep. I don't know how I could possibly be sleeping after what had just happened, but maybe it was better, so I could avoid the entire problem all together. I could stop worrying for once. 

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Waking up with a jolt, I could feel someone's arms touching me. Flinching, I rolled away and curled up in my half-awake state. "George, it's just me" I knew that it was Leo, but what was he doing, here in my dorm? There was no way that he should have been in here, even in the hallways of this wing of the school.  

"Leo, what are you doing?" I watched from my spot at the end of my bed, against the wall, as he pulled out my suitcase, which was still half packed. He reached for everything else that I had just pushed under my bed, before he was moving for the other bag of clothes, dumping it into my open suitcase. I just watched on, not stopping him at all.

"We need to leave. Nikolas is here to get us" and with that, I helped him grab everything, before he did something I never would have thought. He climbed out the window, into the rain, before motioning me to grab the bags and pass them through. So, I did just that. 

When all the bags were passed through, I hastily ran around my dorm, finding a piece of paper before writing something on it to the girls that had become something more to me than just the girls in the same dorm as me, every single day. I wrote a goodbye, because I knew there was no way that I could ever form the words to do so.

Throwing my broken and sore body through the window, Leo and I grabbed the bags, before we were trudging through the mud to get somewhere. The boarding school was on the edge of woods, so when a gun shot rang through the place, everybody knew. I ducked, shaking with familiariarity.

I pushed on, seeing two familiar faces, but not the way they should be. One was covered in blood, while the other one seemed to be grinning; grinning like this was all just a game, which maybe it was to him, but to me, we were people being hurt. Hurt people, hurt other people. 

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thoughts? xx