Julianna's POV



"Juliana!" I hear Justin's voice call out, as it has been for a while.

"What, Justin?" I yell when I feel he is finally within close enough range.

"There you are." Justin sounds slightly out of breath as he plops down next to me. I'm currently laying down next to a small stream in the woods surrounding our house.

"We've been looking for you. You said you were going to take a nap, but you just disappeared." Justin picked up a rock and threw it into the water. It landed with a splash, making a small pool of fish disperse.

"I did take a nap. Then I came out here. There is no sleep to be had with Lorenzo's kids around." I complain, moving to throw my arm over my eyes to shield them from the sun.

It's still summer here, which sucks, because I am not a heat girly. Give me winter. I'll even settle for fall.

"Elijah was mad, but they checked the camera's and saw that you were fine." He continued talking, picking up another rock and throwing it. This time, he missed the stream altogether.

"What do you want, Ju?" I ask, annoyed.

"Dad explained what happened yesterday. You don't seem very little anymore." I pursed my lips together. Of course that's what this was about.

"Well, neither do you." I comment, looking at his black Nirvana band tee and shorts. He just sighs, looking down. Instantly I feel bad. I'm not sure why, but Justin just seems really disappointed right now.

"Look, I'm sorry if I'm being snappy. Waking up in bed with your uncle and finding out that you're missing two days worth of memories isn't exactly pleasant. Add a house full of new people and well... I just got overwhelmed." Justin perked up a little bit at the apology, and then he smirks.

"Well it sounds bad when you say it like that." I reach over and slap his leg, and he retaliates by popping my forehead.

We lay there for a little while longer, listening to the water and the birds. I have to swat away multiple insects, and by the sounds of it, so did Justin.

"Are you ready to go back yet?" He huffs.

"No." I say, but sit up regardless. We have to go back sometime, and Justin seemed to understand that. He got up, grabbed my hand, and started leading me back in what I assume is the direction of the house.

Safe to say, if Justin hadn't come and got me, I probably would have been fucked. The way he went seemed almost completely different to the way I came, but none-the-less we got out of the forest alive, which is what I was concerned about.

"You know," He turned to face me with an ornery look in his eye. "If you didn't want to go inside just yet, we could always play for a little bit." He suggested, turning towards the huge playset they had in their backyard.

I say playset, but it was more like a playvillage. It was multiple levels, (like, three) had slides on both sides, climbing walls, a miniature zipline, swings, bridges and small climbing tubes connecting different sections. And not a whole lot of it was open area. Over half of the section was closed in, with little windows for light. It did make me wonder just what could have been in there.

"I don't know." I knew that I shouldn't. Girls shouldn't act so immature, I was too old to be playing around like a little kid. But there was still some small part of me that was begging to just play. Even for a little bit.

"Well, it's okay if you don't. If you'd rather go inside and meet all of Lorenzo's kids. That's fine too." He had the audacity to look like he still thought I was going to choose to go back inside after that.

I huffed, stomping over to the little door to enter the bottom level of the playset. And immediately turned right the fuck around.

"What the hell was that?!" I asked Justin, who hadn't moved. He was shaking with laughter, his arms crossed in a way that I had seen Massimo do pretty often.

"That," he pointed to the door I just entered. "Was the maze." He said, and gave him a 'really' look.

"Since when are mazes pitch black?" I snap, and he grabs my wrist, pulling me around the side of the play area. He takes me to a small rope wall which leads to the second floor.

The rope is hot and brittle, so I'm glad when I've made it to the top. I pull myself over, feeling the wood dig into my bare knee.

"Let's go to the third floor." Justin calls over his shoulder, already rushing across the swinging ropes you have to cross to get to the ladder that will lead you up higher.

I get to the third one before I fall. I yelp, drawing Justin's attention back to me as I trip over the fourth rope and land face down on the ground.

'What the fuck.' I think bitterly, pushing up onto my knees as Justin laughs his head off.

"It's not funny." I whine as I start the slow crawl through the foam pit. I hate the feel of the multi-colored foam squares, they were rough in texture, yet squishy. Which made it incredibly hard to climb through them. I flipped Justin off when he complains about me taking too long.

When I finally reach the wooden platform at the end of the pit of death, Justin gets impatient and hauls me up, causing me to scrape my knee.

"Watch it." I huff as I shove away from him. Justin glares at me but pulls me along none-the-less. I should claw his knee and see how he feels about it.

Justin leads us up the red painted metal ladder. I once again struggled to find my footing a little bit at the top, but in my defense, they had out bars right in front of you, yet the ladder stopped at the beginning of the platform, so it took maneuvering.

"Which slide do you want to go down?" He asks me and I give him a 'what the fuck' look.

"You mean you dragged my ass all the way up here, only so we could go back down?" I ask, and he nods his head enthusiastically.

I groan, flopping onto the ground. Justin looks annoyed at me. "The third floor is slides and ziplines, the second floor is the challenges, and the first floor is the maze." He explains and I nod.

"How about you go down your favorite slide first? Show me how to do it." I suggest. He nods happily in agreement, and I can tell he's slipping. He skips over to a slide along the side wall, and I see that it's an inclosed slide. It starts off with two loops, and then goes straight down.

I can hear him whooping as he goes down. The second his feet hit the ground he takes off running towards the back of the playset. It takes him little more than a minute to get back up to me.

"Your turn!" He exclaims brightly, and I smile.

"How about you show me another one?" I ask and he nods his head again happily. He goes to the slide adjacent to me, this one just goes straight downwards. This process repeats again for all the different slides and ziplines that were on this floor, and when he was done he had forgotten all about his want for me to go down as well.

I was really going to miss this.

Justin sits next to me, panting as he catches his breath from his latest run. "You should really try that, it's fun." I hum, letting my head fall back as I stare up at the wooden ceiling. I noticed that it had stars drawn on it.

"You having fun up there?" My head snaps over in the direction of the house to see Aunt Stephanie standing in the doorway.

"Don't stay out too much longer, lunch will be ready soon." She goes back inside, and Justin and I continue to sit in silence.

"We should do this again sometime." He says, and I nod.

"Yeah, maybe before I leave. Or maybe I can come back soon." I agree and Justin looks at me in confusion.

"What do you mean 'come back?'" He asks.

"You don't know?" He shakes his head and I let out a breath.

"I'm leaving in three days." I say slowly, and he sits still, staring at me as he processes this information.

"What? No, you can't leave." Is all he manages to splutter out.

"Justin, I have to. I have to go home. I was supposed to be here for a month. It's been three and half weeks." Justin looks down, but he doesn't say anything.

"Come on." He stands up, and walks over to one of the slides. I have no choice but to follow him as he speeds to the house.

We're eating lunch outside. All of us are sitting around on the couches, including Uncle Lorenzo's kids, who I can't remember the name of. I know Zeke. I like Zeke, I feel comfortable with him. From what I can tell he's one of the oldest.

I'm sitting on the couch between him and Massimo, not really paying attention to what was being talked about. I feel like I'm in a daze. Everything is happening so fast. Has it really almost been four weeks? Am I really about to have to leave?

Do I want to leave?

"You have a lot going on in that little head of yours, don't you?" I startle slightly when Zeke says this, and I look up to see him watching me.

"Staring is creepy." I whisper to him.

"You calling me a creep?" He asks, a teasing smile gracing his lips.

"Were you staring at me?" He doesn't reply, just knocks his shoulder into mine, bumping me into Massimo. Massimo glances down at me before wrapping his arm around me. He hugs me to his side before returning to his conversation in Italian with one of Lorenzo's kids.

I hear snippets of their conversation, not purposely, but he's literally talking in my ear.

"tre giorna... -non sicura... -macchine fotografiche..." (T- Three days... Not safe... Cameras...)

Not being able to hear the entire conversation is making my head hurt, so I stop trying to listen. I instead look across from me and see Justin messing around with Hunter, and an older girl. I saw people talking, and eating. Laughing, having a good time.

I want to sleep.

Sleep was all I could think about. I was tired. So, incredibly tired. Which made absolutely no sense. I've slept a lot since coming back from the hospital, I haven't done much today. Hell, even trying to get through the play set had gotten me winded. That wasn't normal for me.

I don't even realize when I fall asleep, I'm just aware of when I'm being woken up by Massimo asking if I want to change into a swimsuit.

"No, I'm good." I yawn, leaning back and laying down in Zeke's empty spot. I squeezed my eyes tight, trying to wake myself up. My brain did not want to cooperate, instead I started dozing back off.

I jumped when a hand rubbed my leg, jerking back. I sat up, eyes open in a split second to see both Massimo, the guy he was talking to earlier, and Zeke looking at me strangely.

"I'm gonna go find Justin." I say, feeling awkward with them staring at me.

I make my way across the yard, towards the large inground pool that they have. I see that Justin is already in the pool, so I opt to go sit on one of the lounge chairs.

"Hello, Juliana." I move my hand off my eyes, using it as a shield from the sun. It's still hot out, but there's a bit of a breeze, making it almost bearable to not be in the shade. It's one of Uncle Lorenzo's children. The girl who was playing with Justin earlier, to be exact.

"Hi?" I ask, clearing my throat when my voice comes out almost unintelligible.

"I'm Mickayla. I'm one of your many cousins." She says and I smile up at her.

"Can I help you with anything?" I'm not sure why she came up to me to begin with, and it doesn't register in my brain that she might have just wanted to talk.

"Not really." She lets out a breath. "Just nice to not be surrounded by men all the time, ya know?" I hum in agreement. Mickayla seems nice. She laughs a lot, smiles all the time. Only part of it feels genuine.

"Must be nice, having a twin. A girl, at least. I can't stand mine. I bet you two are really close, huh?" She fraizes it as a question, though it feels more like an accusation. And not a good one at that.

"I mean, yeah. I guess." My voice comes out a little squeaky, and her eyes narrow for half a second. It was so brief, but I caught it.

"Well why do you say it like that?" She laughs. "You must miss her. Right? Being out here alone must be pretty hard on you." She insists before I can reply. I shift slightly in my seat, feeling uncomfortable.

"Yeah, I mean, she's my sister. I miss all of my siblings." I say, feeling as though I need to defend myself.

"You don't seem so sure of yourself." She comments, and it suddenly clicks that I'm being interrogated.

"Well you're sort of snapping accusations at me left and right. It's hard to feel too sure about anything right now." It just slips out, before I can stop it.

"Calm down there. I'm not accusing you of anything, silly. Don't get so defensive, I was just trying to get to know you." Her smile slips slightly, and I feel the urge to apologize.

I open my mouth, but close it just as quickly. What would I even apologize for? It's not like I did anything wrong. At least, I don't think I did. Maybe I did get a little defensive, though.

"Mackayla, leave the poor girl alone. She looks knackered." A boy walked around me, not looking too much older than Mackayla, and I couldn't help but mentally thank him for getting me out of that awkward silence.

"I wasn't doing anything, A." She laughs, pushing his hand away when he tries to swat her head. "Speaking of twins, this is my twin, Micelio." Micelio was the same boy that Massimo was talking to.

Well, boy is one word for it. He really doesn't look much younger than Elijah, who's 26.

"Hi, Julie. I'm your cousin Micelio, but I go by Lio. I'm 24. Just a whole decade older than you." He smiles at me, holding out his hand which I took with amusement.

The whole introduction just felt wrong, but I got a much better vibe from him than I did Mackayla.

"I'm Julie." I say, and then flush in embarrassment when I realize that he already knew that. His smile just widens, and he shoves his twin over so that he could sit down closest to my line of vision.

"Do you do any sports?" He asks me, while offering me a chip that I decline.

"No, not really." I say, but I hesitated, making him give me a pointed look.

"Come on," He swallows, spitting chip crumbs everywhere. "Don't start lying to me now."

"I'm not sure if it'd count cause I'm sort of in off season right now, but I can figure skate." I say, and he looks at me with surprise.

"Oh really? That's cool. Don't they have like, levels, or something like that?" He asks.

"Divisions." I correct, my attention being drawn when I hear screaming. I turn just in time to see Hunter being thrown in the pool by Uncle Lorenzo and Massimo.

"What division are you in?" Lio asks me, drawing my attention back to him.

"Uh, it's a little more complex than that. There's singles, pairs, synchronized, and free-skating. ISI, SIU. It kind of depends, I guess?" He nods, stuffing another chip in his mouth.

"Is that why you don't eat?" I splutter when he asks this, and Mackayla punches his shoulder.

"You can't say that, dumbass." She scolds, and Micelio glares at her while rubbing his arm.

"Well I'm just saying! It's pretty common for people involved in competitive fine arts to have eating disorders. It just happens!" He defends, and Mackayla rolls her eyes.

"I'm sorry about him," she says to me. "He's just noticed that your diet isn't the best, and he can't control his mouth." Micelio has the decency to send me a guilty look, and I let that comment go.

"He's not wrong though. It's more common than a lot of people would like to admit." I agree, but I don't answer. Yes, I've had an eating disorder before. I may not have realized it at the time, but I did. And the reason I'm not answering the rest of his statement is because it's none of his business, and it's not something I particularly feel like sharing at the moment.

"He still shouldn't have said it. Especially not like that." Mackayla is still glaring at her brother, and he's gone back to his chips by now.

I take a look back over at the pool. Most everyone is in there by now. If not to escape the heat.

Justin is playing on the water slide, Elijah is doing some fancy dives off the highboard. Hunter is congregating with Uncle Lorenzo's other kid.

Uncle Lorenzo and Massimo are in a pretty deep looking conversation. Uncle Stefano seems to be saying some not so kid friendly things to his wife, based off of her deep blush.

Nonna is crocheting something, and Grandpa is sitting at one of the small round tables protected by the shade. He has a book next to him that he hasn't touched. He seems content just observing everybody else having fun.

I make the mistake of catching his eye for half a second, but Lio crunching up his chip bag gives me a reason to look away.

"I'm going for a dip. It's too hot for this." Micelio complains. He tosses his empty bag before doing an odd sort of belly flop into the pool. He belly flopped, but on his side. It was weird, don't ask.

This unfortunately leaves me with Mickayla, the interrogator.

"So, do you like it here? Or are you glad you're leaving?" She asks, spreading out on her chair to match me.

"I mean, I like it here. It's nice having someone else around my age. Other than Jamie, of course." I tack onto the end when I remember how bad she had been grilling me about her earlier.

She looks like she's about to reply to that, but then her phone beeps, and she gets a hard look over her eyes.

"I'm going inside." She says shortly, before standing and leaving me to lay in peace.

I don't even attempt to stay awake this time. I rolled onto my side, pulling my knees up to my chest and wrapping my arms around myself. I dozed off under the hot Italian sun, pool party music, and the sounds of people laughing.



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Hey Ya'll. I'm sorry about the late update, life got a little busy for a moment there. I hope you guys enjoyed the chapter. If you have any suggestions please let me know.