Metanoia (n.) the journey of changing one's mind, heart, self or way of life.
Part one
Darcy Russo a nine year old girl living in a run down orphanage on the outskirts of Athens, Greece has had to fend for herself for the majority of her life. Bei...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
It's been three days since I told Lorenzo everything.
At first it was weird, after our drive I woke up in my bed after an awful nightmare. I waited a few hours before going down for breakfast but when I got to the kitchen everyone was acting weirdly. It only took me a couple minutes to realise that Lorenzo must of told them everything.
They continued to walk on egg shells around me that whole day but things soon returned to normal. Lorenzo was right, I do feel better now that it's all out in the open and the secret is no longer weighing down on me alone.
Today at breakfast Angelo nonchalantly mentioned that it's Dante birthday today. They were all confused why I was upset that they didn't tell me, claiming that 'he wouldn't care' if we did nothing for his birthday. I didn't even get to wish him a happy birthday before he left for work.
Growing up in the orphanage, I know how it feels for nobody to even acknowledge your birthday and I won't allow that for Dante.
The boys only go to school three days out of the week and today is one of those days which is annoying because I could have really used their help in deciding what to get Dante.
Lorenzo and Arlo work from home most days to look after me but whatever they do has been keeping them very occupied lately, I've been mostly left to my own devices over the past two days.
Not wanting to disturb their work, I silently slip out of the house with Bear following. I hop on my bike and head towards my first stop, the place me and Dante walk Bear every morning. I want to paint him a card with the serene landscape on the front.
I have to cycle much slower than I did with Luca so Bear can keep up but we eventually make it. I sit down on a wooden bench and start and restart my painting over and over again, wanting it to be perfect for Dante.
"Wow that's really good," A voice rings over my shoulder, effectively making me jump out of my skin. I turn and make eye contact with a girl with long dark hair and deep brown eyes. "Sorry, didn't mean to scare you," She chuckles, "I'm Jordan," she says while sitting down next to me.
"I'm Darcy," I reply, trying to sound as confident as possible. I'm much more comfortable talking to people I know can't harm me, Jordan is just as small as me so I doubt she could do much damage.
We talk for an hour and I find out that she goes to the same school Romeo went to when he was younger. She showed me this thing called 'henna' and drew some pretty patterns on my hands before she told me she had to get back home. I don't have my phone on me so she wrote her number down in my notepad and we parted ways.
Satisfied that I had made the perfect card for Dante, me and Bear headed off to our next stop. It takes me two hours to get to town, having to go extra slow for Bear who is somehow just as energetic as when we left. I swear this dog never get's tired.
I lock my bike against a pole and head to the market I spotted when I was out with Luca. People are yelling and shouting over one another, causing me to become very quickly overwhelmed.
