Eli Borrelli

30: It's quiet uptown

I had the mint box squeezed tight in my hand as I silently cried and begged myself, to stop it. 

"Eli?" Antonio asked.

I didn't hear when he came in, but he was there now. I couldn't say anything, else. I didn't want him to find me.

Yes, I did.

"Eli?!" Antonio yelled as he saw me on the floor of my bathroom crying my eyes out.

"Please take it," I cried out handing him the box.

He took it confusion written all around his face before he turned back to me.

"Eli, what's wrong?" he asked getting down on the floor in front of me.

"It's all wrong," I cried shaking my head.

I was wrong.

Antonio grabbed me in a tight hug, squeezing my bones as he did so. He put his hand on my hair keeping me in place as I cried into his shoulder, leaving wet marks, from my tears.

"It's okay. It's gonna be okay," he kept on repeating clearly unsure of what to do.

Antonio POV.

"Is everything okay?" Gabriele said from the door.

"Come here!" I called quickly, wanting someone who knew what they were doing to comfort Eli.

Gabriele soon walked into the bathroom and froze as he saw Eli in my arms crying.

"You do this better, than me. Take her, I'll go get an ice pack," I said quickly, as Gabriele lowered himself to our level.

After I saw, that Gabriele had Eli tightly in his arms as he sushed in their ear and rubbed their back, I rushed out of the room and into the kitchen.

I grabbed a bunch of ice cubes from the dispenser and put them in a small plastic bag, before running back up.

"Eli, I got you some ice," I said as I sat back down.

Matteo, Lorenzo, and Alessandro were at work, and Diego was in the art room, so it was just me and Gabriele, which wasn't the best duo for this type of thing. I was really shitty when it came to emotions. I usually just downed them down with alcohol and cigarettes, or just got angry. Gabriele was a bit better with feelings understanding and expressing feelings, but he didn't know what to do when other people were feeling things

Eli took the ice from the bag and squeezed two in their hands. I was really worried, that they'd get frostbite or something, but a lot of doctors said, that Eli's method was fine.

Slowly, the ice cubes started melting in their hand, and they moved them up and down their arms. That was the first time I saw their scars.

they took off their hoodie, so they were only in a t-shirt. Their arms were littered with scars. Some of them were thin white lines, while others were huge red or purple patches. They were everywhere. On each side of their arms, in different ways, drawing the saddest map in the world. Some of the scars looked like letters and words, but I couldn't look at them for too long. It made me really angry. 

Someone in this world made my little sibling feel so bad, they did that to themselves. I wanted nothing more than to find them, cut off their balls, push them down their throats, rip off their legs so they couldn't run away, hang them upside down until they almost died, and then rip open their chest and dig their beating heart out of their body.