A New hope

Chapter 36-Birthday

Ciana- 

It's been two weeks since I discovered what my family is. Over these weeks I have had a numerous number of conversations with everyone. My brothers, Zias, Zios, and cousins have all enlightened me about what it is like to belong in a mafia family. I even talked to a sheepish Elle over facetime. To my shock, Elle is the third child of the Swedish mafia Don and Donna. I understand why she kept it a secret, but it still hurts.

My wounds have gotten much better under Tullio's care. My head wounds have completely healed, I can walk on my leg for the whole day with only minimal aches, and my back is in the process of healing. I frankly don't know why Tullio hasn't gotten his doctorate yet, he clearly has more than enough knowledge and skill. I sigh sitting in the vanity in my bathroom, finally finished with curling my hair. I normally leave my hair alone but today is a special occasion. I jump as the door to my bedroom gets slammed open, "HAPPY BIRTHDAY SOREL.." Lucio pauses, not seeing me in bed, "sorella?"

I snort from my bathroom, catching his attention. He turns towards me, "ahhh there you are". He then breaks off into song and dance, singing happy birthday in a horribly out of tune voice. I look towards him unimpressed, but I can't stop the grin that makes its way to my face. He finishes what I can only compare to a peacock bird mating dance by ruffling my hair. I gasp, whacking his hand away from me, "HEY! I just finished it". I turn towards my mirror, desperately fixing my hair back into the ringlets.

"Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go wake the birthday boy," he struts out of my room, leaving the door wide open. I hear him start doing the same thing to Cassio, being interrupted by his groans and annoyed yells of 'let me sleep'. Excitement fills me, this will be the first birthday I have ever truly celebrated, and I get to share it with my twin. I never had a birthday celebration in America, nor did I even know that I had a twin to celebrate with.

-

I wear a white long sleeve top underneath a floral mid-thigh length, blue and white dress. My hair falls in loose ringlets down to my lower back around my makeup brushed face. My mother's jewelry adorns my neck, hands, wrists, and ears. When Cassio finally gets out of bed I give a gentle hug, wishing him a happy birthday. He does the same. pulling back, I can see that he did end up wearing the outfit I wished for him to wear. His white top is the male version of mine yet short sleeve, and he's wearing a more casual pair of tan dress pants. "Stai bene gemello," (looking good twin) I tell him. He just rolls his eyes but takes my arm in his and walks us towards the main wing.

To everyone's shock, I have actually been flourishing in my Italian lessons with Alessio and Cassio. With one-on-one work and people to practice with I have been able to learn a decent amount in a short amount of time. I am now able to hold a decent conversation and have learned a good amount of random vocabulary. My family has been incredibly supportive of me learning the language, helping me by repeating words and sentences in both languages and always offering to practice with me.

"Happy birthday!" "Buon Compleanno!" "Hey, look, it's the birthday twins," "Happy birthday!" Both Cassio and I step back at the sheer volume of the main dining room, well wishes aimed towards us both the second we step in. Lucio even starts trying to opera sing a version of happy birthday, though he's quickly thwacked in the head by Kareem, Son of Maria and Hassan, older brother of Zayn.

Cassio and I are sitting next to each other at the head of the table where Nonno usually sits. plates heaping with food are presented to us. After we are both done eating, we are ushered into the main family room, finding two massive stacks of presents. I gawk at the sheer number of presents in the two equal stacks, turning towards Cassio. I see he has the same expression. Gio scratches the back of his neck from beside us, "we might have gone a little bit too all out this year".