La Mafia González

16 - Valeria Does the Unthinkable

Disclaimer: Everything in this story is a work of fiction. The scenarios are fictional, along with the characters and places.

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Valeria

I have never felt like this before. This feeling of fearlessness and confidence never washed over me in the past. I have always been a shy girl. A girl who is afraid of her mother because she physically and emotionally abuses her, and it's valid. It's very hard for a person who is being abused to speak up and get out of that toxic circle.

But I have had enough.

I have lived in fear all my life, not speaking up when I should have. Looking back at my life, I wish I spoke up and freed myself and my father from my mother's evilness. If I had only the courage to defy her and rescue ourselves, my father would have been alive right not.

"Valeria?" A voice pulls me out of my tornado of thoughts.

"Yes?" I look up at Lorenzo, who has a concerned look on his face.

"Are you sure?"

I come back to my senses and realize what he is asking me. I hesitantly nod, not looking at him or anyone.

"Anyways, it's better for everyone to rest today. How about we talk more about it, Valeria?" Mrs. Gonzalez suggest and I immediately nod because I don't want to talk about it anymore. I am too scared and unsure of anything. Yes, I want to punish my mother, but do I have the courage to kill someone? I want her to spend the rest of her life in prison, but what if the courts were too merciful?

I go to my room but not before taking everything to the kitchen. I decided to clean everything tomorrow because I have no energy to do anything now.

I close the door behind me and sigh heavily. I look around the dimmed room and think of what to do. I don't want to sleep even though that is the best thing I could do to stop thinking, but I just can't sleep. I am an over thinker, which makes it harder for me to sleep.

I decide to take a quick shower hoping it would make me feel better, but it doesn't do anything. I sit on my bed and take out my book from the drawer that I have been meaning to read again for a long time but found no time to.

Great Expectations by Charles Dickens.

An old classic but one of my favorites. One of the best quotes in my opinion is Miss Havisham's words, "Break their hearts my pride and hope, break their hearts and have no mercy."

I think this is one of the most powerful quotes out there, as selfish and unbelievable as it sounds.

After reading a couple of pages, I decide to call it a day and sleep. I still have to wake up early for work, even though Valentina told me to take a few days off. But work is going to be good for me, at least it will distract me from everything that is going on.

The next morning, I made breakfast. Mrs. Gonzalez again invited me to join, but I declined. As much as I love how much she cares about me, I don't want to get used to this. I have this feeling that one day I will leave this place, or worse, they would fire me or something. They act like I am one of their family members, which scares me a lot. I never had a stable and loving family to understand where they are coming from. Sometimes I feel weird when they treat me well, even though I appreciate it a lot, and other times, I am so happy they treat me as their equal.

I leave my room and bump into Max, who's running in the hallway. He barks at me and stands in front of me with his tongue out.

He wants to play.

"Let's go, buddy." I walk downstairs with Max trailing behind me. He eventually beat me and ran in front of me to the backyard.

We start to play, I run, he runs, until I got tired and sat on the bench. He doesn't leave me, however. He jumps on the bench and sits beside me.