I'm sorry in advance.

TW







Massimo's POV

When I woke up, Jules was still fast asleep, right where I had left her. Which was lying on top of me.

After she dozed off while I was doing her hair, I was able to get it up into two pigtails, and then plait each one. Seeing as that was just about the only thing I knew how to do. I added a little bit of purple washaway hairspray, and let it be.

I smiled lightly to myself as I looked at Jules. She was still the same, in more ways than she knows. The look she gives when she thinks you've done something stupid, the way that she cocks her head to the side when she doesn't understand something. The way that she scrunched up her nose when she's concentrating on something.

But there was so much that had changed about her also. The way that she no longer likes to be touched. How, at times, she hugs herself around her ribcage, as though she's protecting something. How she always seems to be on high alert.

I've tried to write that off as her just being in a strange place, with people that she wasn't truly comfortable around. I'm not going to lie, that hurts, but no one can expect her to come in here and immediately feel at home with people she hasn't seen in almost a decade.

I just can't help but have a bad feeling about something. Like she keeps up a constant wall between us and herself. As though she's hiding something.

My attention was brought back to the little on top of me when she let out a small little whine, shifted the best she could, shifted again, then got really still.

That's when she started fighting.

It's like she couldn't breath, you heard her gasping for breath, coughing a deep, painful cough. Her arms and legs started violently thrashing, as though she wanted to get away from something, all while she made that awful wheezing sound.

I wrapped my arms tight around her, binding her to me as I took my legs and trapped hers, so that she couldn't hurt anyone, herself.

She continued to thrash around, and I called for dad who came running into the room with Grandpa and Nonna.

Justin, who had unfortunately been on the other end of the couch and had received one of Juliana's vicious kicks to the head, was up and looking around, dazed as ever.

All the commotion had woken up Elijah, who saw Jules in distress and immediately went into doctor mode, telling Justin to get out of the room, and got everyone besides me to back away.

"When did this start?" Elijah asked me as he checked Juliana's pulse. With her thrashing, dad had to come help hold her still so Elijah could get an honest reading.

"It just started. Happened out of nowhere, she turned over, and all of a sudden, this." I explained and Elijah nodded.

"Sit her up, now. She can't breathe. There could be fluid in her lungs." Elijah leaned over and helped me to flip Juliana rightside up, and lean her against me in a sitting position. It wasn't hard seeing as she had stopped thrashing after about a minute.

I held her upright for a minute and her entire body tensed, horrible wet coughs wracking her body before she went completely limp.

"We need to get her to Med-Bay before anything else can happen. Try to carry her in an upright position, I'm going to see how soon Sanya can get here." Elijah said, and I realised I hadn't even looked at the time yet. If Sanya wasn't here then it must still be early. She normally starts and ends her shifts at 10.

I didn't hesitate to pick Juliana up, dad helping me arrange her arms to hang over my shoulders as I held her up from under her thighs with an arm around her back for safety.

We all practically started running when we heard Juliana's breathing stutter again, and then the wheezing started up, not as bad as before, but bad enough that it had all of us booking it.

I ignored Justin who was peeking around the corner of the living room, trying to see what was going on. I knew that mom was probably taking care of him right now.

Once we got to Med-Bay Elijah had me place her on a bed and then rather rudely told me to get out.

"No, I'm not fucking leaving her. I trust you with my life, fratellino, don't doubt that, but I need to see that she's okay. She has to be okay." I'm spiralling, I'm sure of it. It doesn't happen much, only when things start happening that are completely out of my control.

And this? This was well beyond my control. At the end of the day there was nothing I could do to help her, so I allowed myself to be dragged from the room and sat in a chair in Elijah's office where we waited.

And waited.

And waited.

Juliana's POV

Some people say that drowning is the worst way to go. That the burning of no air before you inevitably give in, allowing the water to rush into your lungs, as the light slowly dims, and you are forced into nothingness with no say in the matter, nothing you can do to help yourself.

But I disagree.

Because drowning only hurts when you fight it. I think, the worst way you can possibly go, is at the hands of another. At the hands of someone you trust, someone you love, who is supposed to love you back. The one person no one would expect, will be the one person that ends it all.

(8 years ago)

I sat huddled on the floor, holding my knees tightly to my chest. I had been dragged into his bathroom and unceremoniously dumped on the floor without a moment's notice.

I'm not sure what I did to make him angry this time, I had only just gotten home from grade pred (reception/kindergarten/prep, depending on where you're from) when he barged into my room.

I jumped when he came back into the room, slamming and locking the door behind him.

He was still angry, more than angry actually. Is there such a thing? Because if there is, it's him.

I clutched my knees tighter as I saw the towels he held in his grasp.

He didn't mean to wash me, did he? I thought I was too grown for that. And he certainly isn't to wash himself with me in the room.

"Cosa fai, P-" (TRANSLATION: What are you doing?)

"Shut up." He snapped at me and I flinched. He had gotten touchy lately. Only I don't think I like these touches. These touches hurt. They brought the colourful things that marked my skin, the things he called ugly, and told me to hide away so that I wasn't shameful to the family.

Weak, he called me. He said he would continue to give me them until they ceased to show. Then I wouldn't be weak, or shameful.

I don't want to be weak and shameful, both sound like awful things. But I don't like the way the marks make me feel, or the touches that bring them. But the thought made him almost as happy as the action did, so I will let him.

I watched in confusion as he dropped the towels on the counter, he pulled off his own jumper making me flush and look at the wall on the other side of the room.

What? It's disrespectful to look at others' bodies, especially without permission.

This did mean that I missed him coming over to me until his hands were already on me. He didn't bother lifting me up, he simply grabbed my arm and started dragging me across the bathroom floor.

The friction from the floor dislodged my trousers from my legs. My skin burned and made a long drawn out squeaking noise as it was dragged.

I was thankful when he stopped dragging me, and instead turned to mess with the shower.

"Penso che dovremmo tutti prenderci un secondo e calmarci. Che ne dici di fare dei respiri profondi? Nella con la farfalla," I said as I inhaled. "fuori con le falene." I said as I exhaled, just as I was taught. (TRANSLATION: How about we all take a second and calm down> How about some deep breaths? In with the butterflies. Out with the moths.)

He whipped around and looked at me with a look I swore could kill me.

"How many times have I told you to stop speaking that stupid language? Speak english you idiot. You live in New York now. People here don't speak Italian. Stop trying to be different." He yelled at me.

I didn't fully understand what he said, as no one was here to translate for me and he refused to speak a language I understood.

I simply nodded and looked down at the floor, since agreeing with him and looking away always seemed to be the best choice.

He just grunted and grabbed me. I felt really light for a second before I realised that I was falling. When I slammed into the tub, all the air was taken out of my body, and I cried out at the pain in my back.

"Shut up, you're fine." he snapped before he started the shower.

Again confused, I sat up, only to have my shoulder pushed to the ground. He grabbed my throat and I prepared myself for him to squeeze and halt my breathing, but it never came.

I peaked my eyes open, and saw him looking at me ruefully.

He then started strangling me, and my throat made a noise. Next thing I knew, water was everywhere. It was up my nose, pooling in my mouth, eyes, ears, some of it was trickling through my nose, into my lungs and burning like crazy.

He loosened his hold enough to where I could still get air into my lungs with a bit of struggle, and stupidly Immediately took a breath of air and water.

This truly caused me to choke as I started coughing, struggling to get away. I scratched, clawed, hit kicked, squirmed, but nothing worked because he had me completely pinned down using his own body.

Right as I truly started thinking he was going to kill me, he redirected the water to hit the shower floor right next to my head. I turned over the best I could, spluttering and coughing, my body and mind in shock at what had just happened.

Right as I started to catch my breath, he started again.

He pinned me down, held onto my throat just tightly enough to keep me in place, and began spraying the stupid, never ending-water into my face.

This time when he stopped, I actually did throw up. I threw up three rice crispy cakes I had packed for my lunch, and the juice box I had traded one of my cheese sticks for.

This didn't deter him from once again starting, and it was an endless cycle of stopping when I thought I was about to die, giving me maybe a minute to recover, and starting again.

Until suddenly, while I was still coughing and sobbing, trying to get a few moments of precious air before he started again, when he got up, walked out of the bathroom, only he didn't close the door, so I knew he would be coming back.

I took the chance to get up, I slipped on the stupid watery tub, but managed to climb out and scramble over to the toilet where I threw up more water that I had swallowed.

I leaned my head against the toilet, sobbing.

What had I done to deserve this? Why was it me? What had I ever done to anybody? I tried to be nice, including those who were sitting alone, and be everyone's friend. I was respectful and I did as I was told.

It's not fair.

When I heard footsteps enter the bathroom I let out a startled sob as I curled up into a ball, my knees and forehead pressed to the floor while my arms wrapped around myself.

If he couldn't see me he couldn't hurt me.

I jumped when a hand touched my back.

"No! Per favore, non lo farò più." I sobbed. "Non lo farò più, per favore. Mi dispiace..." I whispered, letting out a small sigh like huff that signalled the end of my tears. I didn't have the energy to cry anymore. I couldn't cry, couldn't fight, I couldn't do anything anymore.

I was broken.



~~~~~~~~~~~~~

For any of you who don't know, what he did to her is called Waterboarding. It is an old torture method, that used to be used in the armed forces. (Though it's been pointed out to me that it would be considered a war crime if used in today's time.)

Also, I hope that this is a good compromise to the longer chapters I promised to start updating.

Let me know what ya'll thought.