Better The Devil You Know

I am Running on Spite & Fury

Aurora stared out of the windows into the busy London streets. The sofa she was lying on wasn't comfy. Her cast was itching.

'So tell me again. What went through your head when you were attacked?'

Aurora sighed. This new girl didn't get it. 'I don't know. I was just trying to get the guy off me.'

'And what did you think when you woke up?'

'I wished I wouldn't wake up.'

'Why was that?'

'Because I was on my own. Again.'

'And why don't you want to be alone?'

'I don't know, you're the professional, you tell me! Because I've been fucked over to many times?! Because I've been treated shit my whole life and I feel the need for peoples validation!?'

'And that was all you felt?'

'Yes. No. I didn't know what happened.'

'You didn't remember?'

'Yes! I remembered! That's the whole problem! I just didn't know if anyone else had been hurt.'

'Anyone else as in...'

'Nathan! My husband! My family! If I'd been attacked, who's to say they hadn't been!'

'But I thought you said you hated your husband.'

'I do! God I do. But I'm not a monster.'

'And he's in Italy right now?'

'Yes.'

'Is that good or bad?'

'The business is bad, but him being away is good.'

'And why's that?'

'So I can still be mad at him.'

'And why do you have to be mad at him?'

'So that shit like this doesn't happen again! So I'm not in here with another cast on in a years time!'

'But, Aurora, Nathan didn't hurt you.'

'But he didn't NOT hurt me. He didn't find me, he didn't protect me.'

'How could he have protected you? You're married to the Mafia Don, Aurora. You know, somewhere deep inside, he couldn't have saved you from this. It was a freak incident. Those men where the only men that have ever got inside this building without Nathan's knowledge. And I was here afterwards, and the entire organisation stopped to look for you.'

'But he stopped.' Aurora's voice broke. 'He gave up. He gave up on me, when I trusted him.'

'But you gave up on him too.'

🖤

Pulling up outside the front door, Valentina helped Aurora back into her wheelchair. The pair wheeled around the back entrance to go through the back door into the kitchen.

Angelina and Izzy were sat at the table, notebooks and textbooks all around them.

'We got Nandos.' Aurora announced.

It had taken her three vocal lessons to begin talking properly again. For a while she sounded like a dying cat, but now she sounded normal, just talking less.

'How was it?' Angie asked, earning a light slap across the head from her mother.

'You don't ask people how their therapy sessions went!' She cried.

Aurora looked down to the floor. She knew she had been a big baby for the past couple of months, but she hated how everyone was walking on egg shells around her. Like she was a bomb about to go off.

'Any news?' she asked hopefully.

The boys had been away for two weeks and, although she would never admit it, Aurora missed them terribly. If anything happened to Nathan...

Aurora wouldn't care because she hated the son of a bitch anyway.

🖤

It had been a month since the boys left. There had been little news since, contact being too risky.

The girls were watching Friends in the cinema room, when Sarah walked in, smiling.

'Ladies! I have good news! The Sicilian Mafia threat is no more! They surrendered and a treaty has been signed! They're coming home!'

Everyone stood up, apart from Aurora, who couldn't. They were all hugging and cheering and noone noticed when she wheeled out of the room.

Going into the bar, she stretched and grabbed the nearest bottle. Taking a swig, she leant her head back. Putting the bottle down, Aurora placed her elbows on the table, her hands together against her face. Closing her eyes she looked up.

'Thank you, thank you, thank you,' she whispered, tears beginning to pour down her face.