Saint Ambrose Academy: Unlikelies

22

ANGELO

"The rehabber will be here again tomorrow morning, she's helping her learn to do the basic stuff with her vision impairment, but I think she may need to see a therapist too. It's over stepping for me to say that I know but she's experiencing a very big change to her life, and I don't think she has the support necessary to cope."
I think back to the scene I witnessed last night.

I had gone out to help Enzo settle home after being discharged and when I returned I found her in the library. The girls an incredibly quick learner, she's getting around less clumsily, and I'd say the rehab is helping. But as I watched her from the doorway, I saw how defeated she looked. She sat on the floor with a book in her hand and slammed the book shut. I had been about to make a lame joke about the book not deserving her wrath when I seen her face, the same facial expression from when she was in her dorm. It was only then that I seen there was tons of books around her. She just kept frantically picking up books, skimming through them, and getting more and more worked up. She brought her knees to her chest and grabbed her hair at the roots and just kept saying no over and over again. Not sure what to do, I went to get a cold water bottle to try to ground her. When I came back Matteo was in the room with her. I'm about to yell at him for being near her when I see he's trying to comfort her.
"Nova! What's wrong?" Initially she panics and the tears pour down harder upon hearing his voice. He sighed and got down on the floor slowly and pulled her close to his chest, at first she fought the invasion of her space pounding against his chest and I'm about to intervene. But he just holds her and strokes her hair and eventually grips onto his shirt the rest of her going limp and cried in his arms. The bruises are healing, and so are the cuts and other visible injuries but she's utterly hysterical in this moment, and it's almost more heartbreaking to see than before.
"Shhh, I'm so sorry, I am so sorry Nova. Shhh whatever it is we'll figure it out." She cried til she got sick from working herself up. When she'd finally exhausted all her tears she passed out in his arms. I walked in and take her off his hands, he's about to defend himself when I put my finger to my lips shushing him, so as not to wake her. When I get her to the couch in the study, I pull a blanket over her, as she must get cold easily since she's a bit underweight. I make a mental note to check on her eating, but then go to talk to Matteo. He isn't here there, he's gone back to his room and locked the door. He's started a medication that helps deal with ptsd and rage black outs, and it's only been a few days but I think this may actually work out...

I'm in the kitchen now, talking to Matteo, but he's looking down, shaking his head.
When he looks back up I see the tears, "I wish I could take it all back Ang, I'd have left her alone from day one, she was so easy to take it out on though. She couldn't fight back; it was never a fair fight, but despite that she always had this light to her. I saw it, and I wanted it for myself, but when she ditched me for the college guys at the party last year, it turned into an obsession. It started to bother me that I couldn't snuff the light out in her, father having snuffed out any light on me long ago, I grew jealous and more angry and obsessed. It bothered me that she wouldn't just stay down. There's something seriously wrong with me Angelo..." his whole body is shaking when we hear the front door open, and startle.
"Tell me I didn't raise a pansy crying his eyes out in the kitchen like a little bitch," my father was home much earlier than expected and I tense thinking about how much he might've heard. Matteo's spine goes rigid and stiff and his face goes blank, I follow his cue and await my father.
"You're home early father..." He glares at me, grinding his teeth and I see the veins popping in his neck. We are screwed, I only hope Nova doesn't come down here, and see this.
"What did you do? What's got you crying like a little bitch in my kitchen?" Matteo flinches and doesn't answer and I can see him fighting his rage. Not wanting my father to push him to undo all the progress he's started making, I move in front of him, the roles of our childhood reversed. He used to protect me, but the worse the beatings got the angrier he got and eventually he scared me and bullied me around knowing I feared him. Now he needs me to be the one to take the hit and I won't hesitate.
"Father, respectfully we have a guest this is not the time or place..." he doesn't like my intervening and pushes me out of the way my head hits the counter. I try to curl up when his foot makes contact with my stomach to protect my vital organs, but he just kicks me on the back instead. Eventually I black out but I can hear my father screaming at Matteo, yet he doesn't reply. I hear the blows and still nothing from him, I fight to stay conscious and lose the battle.
~
I come to about thirty minutes later in the guest room and Matteo is sat on the floor with a first aid kit. He looks as bad as Nova did when we brought her to the private practice. He's pounding on the door and making threats but the doors locked and eventually my father gets a phone call and recedes, not finding it worth forcing the door open. I wait a little bit before relaxing my breath, when I hear his car pull out the driveway.
I look around and notice Nova shaking like a leaf on the floor in the closet. She has her hands over her ears and just keeps mumbling and keeps her eyes shut tightly. I start to crawl over there on my hands and knees to stay level with her, and not spook her but I stop when I pick up what she's mumbling. I look over at Matteo who hears it too and is just throwing his head back against the wall with tears coming down his cheeks.
"Daddy please, no I'm sorry daddy I won't do it again I promise, please daddy." She's mumbling pleads to her dad. She just keeps repeating it over and over.
I sit down on my heels and rake my hand over my face, needing to collect myself. I stop in front of Matt and ask what happened. I whisper even though she's too trapped in her own head to pay attention to me.
"Matty, what happened after I passed out, how did we get here??"
He takes a big sigh and shakes his head, I can see him fighting back the pain.
"Nova came downstairs, and saw father in one of his episodes, I had to stop him from lashing out at her. I told her to run upstairs while I distracted him, but she refused and she pulled you into the closest room, it just happened to be the downstairs guest room. Father went to go get his 'instruments' to teach me a lesson and I figured that she'd stay put because that's what a sane person would do after all that; but she ran back out of the room...for me. She's got to be crazy, she isn't familiar enough with the environment to be putting herself in a position to navigate it in high stress scenarios. Somehow she managed to helped me stumble to the room then sat me on the floor before she ran back out a final time, to look for a first aid kit. I didn't think she'd make it back in time, because it was in the cupboard in the kitchen but she came back with it and locked the door behind her."
"What set this off?" I ask gesturing to Nova who's buried her head in her arms and just keeps whispering how sorry she is.
"She was scared at first yes but I think she was more worried about us than scared. She sat down in-front of you and cleaned the cut on your head, then moved onto me and started to help me. Her hands were shaking and she was already crying, clumsily grabbing the wrong things, and dropping the right ones; she was starting to panic. I touched her hand to try and tell her she didn't need to treat my wounds but that's when father started pounding on the door. He was yelling threats, they were pretty bad and it must've hit a nerve in her, it's like a switch went off in her head, and she looked so scared no she looked terrified. He got louder and started pounding on the door harder and she scrambled to the closet." I'm surprised at how much I'd missed, I reach up and touch the cut on my forehead. It's got gauze and medical tape on it.