Heart Of Our Home [On Hold]

IX

After a lot of fighting the siblings decided which car Mila would go in. Alessandro, Francesco, Gio, Luca and Mila went in one car, while the others went in another. They walked to the car slowly, talking about anything and everything.

"So are you happy to be going in the same car as your favourite brother?" Gio teased trying to rile up his other brothers, which happened to work successfully.

"I'm not going in her car, so I don't know what you're talking about." Vincenzo exclaimed as he shrugged his shoulders. Luca feigned a heart attack, clutching his left hand over the right side of his chest.

"That isn't where your heart is, smarty pants." Mila rolled her eyes, earning a stern look from Alessandro.

"You dumbáss and you say you're the smartest in your class." Francesco pointed out to his stupîd brother.

"Oi! Language, we have innocent ears here." Vincenzo stated, as he raised his eyebrow in a threatening manner.

"Listen to him, don't make me take my vegetables. I will if I have to." Lorenzo smirked, knowing full and well that his threat was successful. Alessandro was going to finish their petty squabble, but his dad beat him to it.

"Alright. Break it up kids, we have to get going or else we'll eat dinner tomorrow." Riccardo informed his kids, silently daring one of them to disobey. They all nodded firmly. "Honey, we are going to try out a French restaurant today, as a celebration of the boys' win and your return." Riccardo smiled softly, Mila returned the gesture as tears welled up in her eyes. This was the most amount of affection anyone had given her in the past few years, she took the time to savour these simple memories and capture them into her memory bank.

She blinked back the tears and ran to the car.

"Right. Let's go, at last." Alessandro mumbled the last part and they were off.

They were chatting amongst themselves and Mila looked out the window, observing the silent, night sky. It was mesmerising: the stars were misplaced around the sky, trees swayed along with the cool breeze, the moon lit up the blank sky and people walked around the neighbourhood. She admired the beauty of nature and its effects on her. Mila wanted to walk around the neighbourhood and ease her mind, she mentally noted it down in her head.

"So, Mila, how's life been in America?" Luca asked, bringing Mila out of her mystical world. This simple question piqued everyone's interest and Mila was now the centre of attention.

"Well, I mean life was eh with our so-called mother and it's not like I could call her that anyway, she was never really a mother anyway. Mummy issues, I guess?" Mila attempted to make a joke but it came out as more of a dry joke as a lone tear slipped out of her eye. No one in the car laughed at Mila's attempted joke, still too caught up with her words. Francesco and Gio's eyes darkened as fury swirled in their eyes. Alessandro stiffened at the confirmation of his theory, he knew something was going on form all of the talks but he shrugged it off not wanting his nightmares to become a reality. Luca inched closer to Mila and wrapped his arms around her giving her a side hug.

"What happened?" Alessandro commanded as he gripped the steering wheel tighter. With no other option left, Mila started telling them her biography, of course he had to add some jokes but that just irritated her brothers so she refrained herself from doing so. She told them about everything: the condition of the room, her stepfather, her mothers' late night drives and many other sore subjects.

She kept her chin up the whole time while a few tears unwillingly left her eyes. She craved her mothers' affection but it was something she had to move on from, knowing it would never be a reality. Dreams give hopes, hopes are made of useless words, her biggest life lesson was words are like the wolf in disguise. Hopes are cruel and deceiving.