How To Run

01

“Valentina, are you in there... I’m going to find you… you can’t hide forever… I’ll let you have ice cream” Don’t cave in, don’t cave in. “I bet you’re behind that door again” I let out a small gasp, just what I didn’t want to happen. The door quickly swung open and I ran as fast as I could down the hall ways in the opposite direction I came from. “Come back here” things had now been changed from me running to me being chased through the long halls and down different stairways until I took a wrong corner and ended up at a dead end, breathless from running so fast. “I told you I’d find you” I spun around to look up at an old, grey hair, wrinkly lady dressed in a traditional maids outfit who soon lifted me up from the ground and started carrying me to another room, “That’s not fair Mrs Jennifer” I whined, “You’re supposed to count to 30, you only counted to 20” She laughed as she sat me down on the counter and turned to the freezer where I hope she was getting the good ice cream, “Oh but I did count to 30, you just didn’t hear the last 10” She lied, I know she only counted to 20. “Well I don’t believe you” since she wasn’t facing me yet, I poked my tongue out at her crossing my fingers and hoping to die she didn’t see me out of the corner of her eye. “Do you believe me now?” She asked turning to face me, in her hand, the good ice cream, now I know she didn’t see me or she wouldn’t be giving me that. “I never doubted you for a second Mrs Jennifer” I smartly replied reaching out for the ice cream, it was so close. “That’s what I thought” She walked over and got my spoon out of the draw then picked up the ice cream before scooping some up and telling me to ‘open wide’ and giving me the heaven that is ice cream. “And I know you didn’t poke your tongue out at me did you” My eyes went wide in shock, “No” My tiny 6 year old body creaked as she fed me another spoon full of ice cream while laughing, Ok she heard me.

Valentina, that’s me. Valentina Lattia Marie Verino. Long name. Long, traditional, family name. I hate it.

I stand in the white kitchen, what bench top, white cupboards and white tiles. White everywhere.  The only things that aren’t white are the handles, the tap and the oven, the whole area is empty as it always is when the cooks go home. Walking over to the freezer I look for some ice cream, 10 years after that day and I still love ice cream, it’s about the only thing that hasn’t changed. As usual, there’s only the no fat, all natural, GM free ice cream that tastes like card board. It’s times like this when I remember things that Mrs Jennifer did, like buy the good, full fat, chocolate chip ice cream that we would hide from mother, sometimes she’d find it and yell at me for eating such ‘garbage’, father would just sit and nod his head agreeing with her just so she doesn’t lash out at him as well.

 I didn’t fully understand back then, I still don’t now but I get it a lot more than I used to. Things are different now. Mrs Jennifer used to make it easier, she passed away a few years ago and this place gets less and less bearable as each day goes by. She used to help, once I realised how terrible and manipulative this place is, she helps a lot. Well she did.

My hopefulness is drowned when I see that despite my desperations, there is no good ice cream, there isn’t any at all actually, there hasn’t been any for a while. Ever the card board stuff which at this very moment and threw the past few weeks I would have been happy to eat. I think she knows that, maybe that why it’s gone.

The moon light shines through the open window showing me the starry night. There are so many places in the world that I could go to, just a simple aeroplane trip and id be there. Anywhere. Everything I’ve always wanted, it’s all under the same sky as I am everything’s so close yet so far away. Imagine what it’s like to live out there, to be free and have no one know who you are.

Maybe I should explain myself. My father, Vance, is a rather, powerful man and maybe a little dangerous. Okay a lot dangerous. He is the leader of the biggest gang is Australia and by biggest I mean most powerful and feared. My ‘mother’ just comes and goes as time goes by. I don’t really know what she does but I really don’t think it’s good. I have four older brothers, Jake, Luke, Seb and Hunter.  There not really brothers to me, except for Seb, Jake, Luke and Hunter are sort of just there, just like I am to them. Seb’s different, he’s my best friend and I tell him everything, he doesn’t tell me everything in return because he can’t. They are all in the ‘family business’ which basically means they are in the gang and I’m not because I’m not old enough. Father said we have to be 18. Seb’s 19, Hunter and Luke are twins, there 21 and Jake is the eldest, he’s 23. Then there’s little me. I’m 16, the mistake of the family.

I know how many 16 year olds think there a mistake and aren’t loved by their family. But for me, it’s true. There’s only meant to be four children in the gang leader’s family, there all meant to be boys and they all have to be two years apart. Clearly I’m a mistake, there’s three years in between me and Seb. The years between us wouldn’t matter that much if it weren’t for the biggest down fall of all, I’m female. It sounds sexist but father says there is no room for females in such a dangerous world. Gang members can marry but ‘they must never bring a female into the gang business, it is not a place for a lady’ he would say to my brothers.

Other gang members are allowed to have female children but because father wanted one of his children to one day take over the gang so he refused to have a female child. I’m only alive because my parents were told I would be a male, but when I was born it was surprise, surprise. Ever since that day I’ve been treated differently, not in a good or protective way. Mother is obsessed with making me the ‘perfect girl’.

She makes me die my hair a golden blonde colour although it’s naturally chocolate brown, I have to straighten it from its natural waves she makes me wear icy blue contacts to cover my naturally green ones. I have to be tall, skinny, pretty. I’m tall because it’s in my genes, I’m skinny because I’m never to eat anything unhealthy, I’m ‘pretty’ because of all the makeup I have to wear. The sad part is I’ll never get to leave this world, even if one day I move out, I’ll still be under the gangs control, I always will be.