Outburst

Chapter 18 - Loreta Irving

It was a relieved to hear that my hand was only sprained, not broken. I never knew Una knew this kind of stuff. She massaged my hand, and gave it some oil-like medication. It was really painful—I even had to bite my pillow to prevent me to scream again. But moments later, the pain was slowly reduced. She wrapped my hand with white bandage.

"You can still write with your other hand, right?" She asked.

"But I play basketball with both hands."

"Then it means you have to take a break until it heals."

I nodded in disappointment. I played only if Chad and his friends asked me to, though. "Thank you, Una."

She smiled as she tidied up the medication on my bed. She probably noticed my sorrowful face, so she started speaking again. "Miss... I've told you to just let him release his anger."

I closed my eyes while sighing heavily. "He dragged in my parents, I just..."

Una stroked my back. "I'm sorry about this. But if you just gave him what he wanted, this wouldn't have happened."

She was right. I was so stupid for stopping him. Now that it happened to me, I could confirm both Roman and Una's stories about Uncle Luke's angry outburst. It was hard to believe that my uncle, who was cold and almost never talked unless it was necessary, could do such thing. I still could feel the pain as he twisted my wrist strongly, like he let all his power gathered in his palm and fingers. The more I thought about it, the more pain I felt wiggling in my hand.

After Una left, someone else knocked my door. When it was Grant who opened it, I almost released about the same rage as my uncle did.

"What do you want?"

"I just want to check how you're doing."

"Not good."

Grant prevented me to close the door. He exhaled as he said, "It was terrible incident, I know. He's still not saying anything, but I know he's regretting what he had done. He didn't mean it to happen, you know that."

I looked at Grant with my unusual keen stare. "Regardless of he did it intentionally or not—he almost broke my hand," I replied. "And you just stood there watching."

I could see his face filled with remorse.

"I didn't do anything because it was the only way to stop him," he spoke after a short pause.

"But you lied!" I spat. "If you said that you knew about me meeting Roman, he wouldn't have been that angry—" My breath panted as my voice trembled and lowered, "—because he's never mad at you."

A handful of jealousy sparked in my heart after the sentence. If I could rewind back what happened in the last 30 minutes and summarized it, it would be just like this: my uncle was really, really angry to his only niece. And if I could relive the pep talk we had just days ago, the summary was very clear: my uncle knew that his assistant lied about the night I was collapsed, but he didn't seem to give single damn about it.

"Please leave me alone," I said while holding my tears.

"But, Callie—"

I finally slammed my door in front of him.

***

The next day, I slept through my alarm and woke up at 8 am. I got up quickly—the sudden action twitched my hand and I groaned. Just when I was about to rush to my bathroom, Tracy opened my door. In her hand was a tray with a plate of toast and a glass of chocolate milk on it.

"Oh, I'm sorry, Miss. I should've knocked. I thought you were still sleeping," she said.

"No, it's—it's fine," I paused to see the clock, and it really was 8 am. "Oh, God, I really am late! They must've left already!"