Metanoia

Chapter 8

The window creaks open as a tiny hand lifts it up, we all remain silent, unsure of what to do. "Get up," The little voice grunts as if she's carrying something extremely heavy.

"Come on fatty," She giggles, pushing something through the window.

It takes me a minute to recognise that it is a large wet dog.

I take a second to stare at it to try and gage whether it's a threat or not and by the look on it's face it was doing the same.

It scans the room before proceeding to growl, displaying it's teeth at us.

A leg is swung through the window as she climbs into the room, a pair of scruffy converse landing on the wooden floor.

"Hey what's wron-" She asks, smiling at the dog before looking up.

Our eyes meet and she clamps her mouth shut.

Understandably, seeing eight large men in her room startles her. I watch as she slowly grabs the dog's collar and starts making tiny backwards steps towards the window. "Hey it's okay, we would just like to talk to you," I say as softly as my deep voice will allow.

She says nothing, standing completely still.

I take a second to take in her appearance, her hair and dress are drenched, her arms and legs are covered in healing bruises and she's shaking. Whether it's from the cold or how terrified of us she is I don't know. I look over to my brothers who are all thinking the same thing.

She's now staring at the ground, refusing to make eye contact. "I'm Lorenzo, do you remember me?" I ask, knowing that she doesn't. She wouldn't be so scared of me if she remembered how much I love her. She looks up and shakes her head.

I make the boys go around and introduce themselves as well as their ages as she nervously looks around the room. There's no emotion other than fear plastered on her face until she locks eyes with Angelo, she adorably furrows her eyebrows and her face morphs into one of confusion, then recognition. She turns back to me and points at a confused Angelo. "You remember him?" I question in disbelief

How is that possible? How can she remember one of us but not the rest? I was going to ask another question but she began moving. She cautiously made her way to her dresser, leaving a trail of rain water behind her and reaches under it, pulling out a wooden box covered in painted flowers.

She sits cross legged on the floor, pulling out numerous random items from this box with a look of determination. We all watch in curiosity as she pulls out the two pictures in the box, discarding one on the floor before standing up and handing the second one to me.

It takes me a few seconds to register what I'm looking at. It's a picture of Darcy and Angelo hugging each other in front of a huge birthday cake, their names written on it in icing. I stare at the picture, remembering the day clearly. Darcy and Angelo's birthdays are only five days apart so they begged father for a shared party which he obviously allowed.

Darcy loved this picture because she was dressed like a princess, with a huge dress and sparkly tiara so she brought it with her everywhere, showing it to anyone that would give her the time of day. I smile recalling the memory.

It made sense that she recognised Angelo, he was the most memorable out of all of us with his light brown hair and the huge birthmark on his arm which was visible in the picture and now, as he sat on Darcy's bed.

"Well come on! let us see," Luca huffed, pretending to be annoyed that we were hogging the photo. I pass the photo to Angelo, as the boys leaned over his shoulder to get a look. "Awh you were so cute," He gushes at Darcy before looking down at the picture again, "But clearly not as cute as me."

This earns a scoff from Romeo who clearly disagrees. "You were a fuggly baby," He deadpans, looking Angelo up and down. "You still are."

Angelo clutched his heart, feigning hurt which caused Darcy to send a pointed look Romeo's way, offended on Angelo's behalf. Which causes him to burst out laughing.

Before the boys could start bickering Arlo interjects, bending slightly to make Darcy's eye level. "Darcy do you remember why you were having a birthday party with Angelo?" She looks as if she's thinking before shaking her head no.

"Well its because we're your brothers Tesoro."