5

Chapter 5

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Sorry to put an ending on such a long chapter, but I really enjoyed writing this :) Thank you so much for reading.

Lila woke up to find herself lying on her bed in an unfamiliar bedroom. Her head hurt slightly as she tried remembering what happened the night before. She remembered she had gone with Victor to see their aunt and uncle. She remembered her aunt crying, telling Victor and her about her miscarriage which had caused her to lose all of her weight. She had cried for hours and refused to speak to anyone for the rest of the afternoon. Finally, she'd agreed to go to sleep and then she had fallen fast asleep.

"Mom? Dad?" Lila called out hesitantly, carefully opening the door of her bedroom. As expected, both of her parents were still sleeping, lying in the middle of their beds.

It seemed that yesterday had indeed happened. Her stomach twisted nervously as she recalled her Aunt Vera's words. They were right. She still wasn't good enough. She wondered where she had gotten such a ridiculous idea of being able to rely solely on people to help her with her life; however, she had to admit it did make sense to assume the worst in other people. After all, she hadn't told anyone what had happened at Victor's house until today. It didn't seem fair to expect Victor to know about a secret which she had kept for quite some time now.

After making her way downstairs to the kitchen she realized there was someone else in the house. The young Latina peeked through the door leading into the backyard cautiously. Victor was sitting in a lawn chair, staring out at the lake.

She stepped forward and whispered, "Hey, Victor... You're back early."

He spun in his chair and looked at his little sister, "Yeah, well my flight was delayed until tomorrow. I guess it was easier for my coach to move me in here without worrying about someone seeing me on the plane."

He stood up and walked over to his sister. He placed his arms around her shoulders before looking down at her sadly, "Don't worry Lila, I understand now. My behavior towards you these past few days has been awful and I should have known that it couldn't go on forever and you deserve better."

He kissed her forehead and gently pushed her back toward the kitchen. He turned and walked back to his chair. As he sat down he pulled out his phone and checked his email, which was a pretty common occurrence lately. Once he had finished with that he stood up again and made his way toward the front door and picked up his backpack.

He grabbed the doorknob as he paused momentarily, "Lila, can I ask you something?"

She nodded and waited for him to continue, "Did you tell dad and Mia everything?"

She shook her head, "No.. I didn't tell anyone except you, Victor. Even I had my doubts at first, but I feel like they could help. They're great people, so if they say anything they will believe them. Besides, I think everyone needs someone to lean on sometimes. Like I know I definitely needed yours and dad's support. Now I also want mine and Mia's. It's weird but maybe you were right about me and Mia having a connection or something.. It makes me hope that one day you two will become close friends too. But I hope you don't mind me calling you that right now. You don't have to call me that unless you want too but I figured that I should use it if I want to talk to you about anything."

Victor smiled at his sister, "Of course I don't mind Lila. Your relationship with Mia may change things between us