Guarded

Chapter 18

Something's definitely up. Definitely. There's been an energy shift in the house and I didn't just mean the cold shoulder Luca was giving me though that was equally disturbing.

I felt like everyone was keeping a secret from me. My parents; Julia; Fonso and everyone else were hiding something from me I could feel it. Last week I heard my parents having an actual conversation. They usually just sat in the same room and grunted in each other's general direction.

If dad had anything to say to her he would ask Clarissa, who was practically his personal maid, to tell her. If my mother had any thing to say to him, she would tell him as he worked and he of course would ignore her. So what exactly were they suddenly so chatty about and why did the whispers stop when I walked into the room?

"What's the big secret?" I whined at Julia as she dusted around my large room.

"There's no secret! Will you stop harassing me. You're getting under my feet and I need to finish cleaning" she scolded.

"Fine. I'll just get someone else to tell me" I threatened hoping it might get her to spill.

"There's nothing to tell. Even if there was, who would you ask? Fonso wouldn't tell you. Clarissa wouldn't speak to you. Alberto works one day a week. All the bodyguards, Daviss, Porter, Barbosa, Neyota and all the others aren't even allowed to speak to you" she said reaching up to dust the bookshelf.

"Speaking of Lu- Barbosa, where is he? I haven't seen him this week" I said trying to sound nonchalant. At first after his tantrum that day, he sulked whenever he got stuck with me. I would ask him what his problem was and he'd just say 'nothing' or groan. Then he stopped coming to work and Neyota drove me where I had to go. I didn't like that, it was too quiet.

"Poor thing is sick. I brought him some of the soup that Fonso made the other day" she said sympathetically.

"When will he be back?"

"Pass me the trash bags dear" she said as if I hadn't spoken.

"Julia!" I whined again.

"If you're going to follow me around you might as well help. Why are you so interested in him anyway?"

"I'm not, I'm just worried"

"Well don't be. He says he'll be back by next week. There's no point getting anything out of him though and you should know that"

"Yes I know. But Fonso will tell me if I ask" I said running out of the room and starting my long decent down the stairs to the kitchen.

"Don't run in the house Tori. You'll trip" I heard her yell after me.

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It's a short one guys sooooorrrreeeey but yh. 300 people have interacted with my book guys! Like ik only 6 have read it and only 1 person read it all the way through but I'm still proud :)