Stay (3 page)

“You can’t do this!” He covered me in the towel then carried me effortlessly to the bed.

“You … You need release,” I stammered, trying to explain. “If you don’t want me, why did you take me?”

His eyes went wide at my question as he released me. “You are just a girl. Of course I don’t want you.”

“But … but … my father,” I stuttered as he stalked fiercely around the room without a second glance back at my naked body.

Going to the dresser, he tossed clothes at me before turning to face me.

“He’s no longer around.”

“Yeah, but you … you…” Fear rose inside me.

“I’m not him. I’ll never put my hands on you like that. He never should have, either.” His voice was calm and slightly gravely like he had smoked one too many cigarettes.

Did the stranger smoke? I didn’t know. Why did these random questions fill my mind? I needed to say something, do something, or he would leave me all alone again.

“Why did you save me?” I whispered.
Why did you kill my family?
I wondered, but I didn’t dare ask.

“Your eyes saved you, but that didn’t come from me.” His answer was simple yet complicated, and I didn’t know what to make of it.

What in my eyes?
I wanted to ask.

He turned away from me as if he couldn’t bear to look at me, and I realized I had clothes in my hands, but I wasn’t getting dressed.

Relief filled me as it settled in. He wasn’t going to touch me. There was no need to fear that from him.

I scrambled to dress as my new revelation hit me in the gut.
He is not going to touch me,
I thought to myself again. I didn’t know if I wanted to dance in pure joy or cry in fear as I wondered what he wanted with me in return. Could it be worse than what I had left behind?

He stomped into the bathroom where I heard the clattering of him working with the pipes. He then returned, carrying the showerhead and faucet back out with him.

“When you can behave appropriately, you can have these back. Settle in, sunshine. Your life begins now.”

Chapter Three

Somehow, with the knowledge that my stranger wouldn’t be touching me, I found an inner peace, even in my captivity.

Two days later, after my dinner, the stranger went into the bathroom where I heard him banging and clanging while I sat and wondered what he was doing. A few minutes later, the sound of water filling the tub came from the room and then more clanging when my stranger emerged, faucet in hand.

“Go and bathe. The water is warm but not scalding as you seemed to attempt to harm yourself with previously.” Each word was laced in a rasp, reminding me of the hardened life this man must have led.

“I wasn’t thinking straight. I panicked. It … it … just happened. Then I couldn’t make myself get out. I don’t know. I just got stuck,” I whispered, looking up at him under hooded eyelids. I hadn’t meant to hurt myself.

“If you’re going to move on in life, we can’t have you panicked.” He stated this to me so nonchalantly I was left stunned.

“Move on with my life?”

“Well, kiddo, you have to go to school, or I gotta get you some books to homeschool you. It’s a great big world out there, and it’s going to be yours for the taking.”

“But … but … you…” Fear gripped me. Could I really say it out loud? I needed to. I needed to know why. “You killed my parents. You brought me here, and you’ve kept me. Surely, you aren’t going to send me to school.” I almost said
duh, that would be stupid
, but I didn’t because I wasn’t sure I should have even pointed out that sending me to school was a failure in his master plan.

He smiled at me and something in his smile hit me like a punch to the gut. That night, I smiled. While my flesh and blood—my father—bled out around me, I smiled to the stranger. Guilt crept up inside me.

His face was unreadable. I couldn’t sense or see any emotion from him as he replied, “Fallyn, how are you so certain it was I who killed your family? How are you so certain they are indeed dead? What do you really know other than you are in a beautiful, little girl’s room?”

I didn’t think; I reacted.

Jumping up, I walked to him. “Well … well,” I began to stammer. Thinking it over, I didn’t know who had killed them. It had been dark, the man covered. He hadn’t spoken, and he hadn’t looked back. “There was blood. My mother screamed. My father … he…” I gasped as the fear gripped me, and the memories overwhelmed me.

The man had been covered by the veil of night. I didn’t know if he was one and the same as the stranger before me. He hadn’t spoken that night, only led me out of my home and into his van. I had fallen asleep, and when I woke up, I was here in this room. He had never said a single word. Neither had I.

How did I know they were dead? I didn’t know for sure, but I was pretty certain, at least for my father. How did I know the man standing in front of me didn’t kill them? I didn’t. However, I also didn’t know if he had. How did I know anything?

The room spun, and I wanted to cry out in frustration.

“Why do you have me?”

His face softened as his eyes seemed to drift to some faraway place in his mind. “I once had a daughter. She wasn’t much older than you when she was taken from me.” He looked around the room as if the memories were passing through his mind.

“So you had someone take me?” I choked back tears, afraid of his answer.

“No, I acquired you and have an opportunity to give you a new life.” His calm demeanor resonated within me, soothing my nerves. “The life which she lost, you now gain.”

An opportunity at a new life. That appealed to my young mind.

As he looked into my eyes, I felt like he was searching for some unspoken answer, but I wasn’t sure what exactly he was finding. It was all too much for me to process.

My father and mother might not have been kind, loving, or attentive. They might have been neglectful in only being around when I was there to service something for either of them. For my father, it was his desires. For my mother, it was all for appearances. At the end of every very long day with them, they were still my family. Although I didn’t mourn their losses in the depths of my soul since they hadn’t showed me love, they were still what I knew, all that I knew. Now, I had a chance for a new life. Dare I hope for new possibilities?

Fear clamped down like a vice, and my heart sounded like thunder in my ears as it beat wildly in my chest. I wrapped my arms around my waist as the panic filled me.

“Breathe, Nicola. Breathe, angel.”

Nicola, my middle name, the name my father’s father had given me. Nicholi James Valencia had been my happiness. He would sneak me candy at family gatherings and always kept me close when my mother would try to pull me away, most likely to scold me for some mistake or another.

Papa Valencia was the only grandparent I had ever known, and he held my only happy memories. While everyone had called me Fallyn, Papa had called me Nicola, his little one. My father had always rolled his eyes in annoyance, and my mother would later whine to my father that his affection for me had always disgusted her.

Funny that Papa never gave me more than a hug, yet my mother was disgusted by his affections for me. In spite of that, she had watched as her own husband, my own father, would touch me in the dark places where no one should.

“Breathe, Nicola. Breathe, angel.” The words came again along with thoughts of my papa soothing me in the here and now.

The memories of my mother and father easily tramped down my fear of the unknown. Yes, I believed an opportunity at a new life with the stranger in front of me would be better than whatever the future had once held with my parents.

In school, teachers would tell us we could be anything we put our minds to. In this moment, I had a chance to truly become someone else. Anyone had to have it better than I did; at least, I could hope. Just like with my father, I could count my time until I was able to be on my own. So far, my life here had been an improvement from my past.

“Go and take a bath. If you can find a way to settle in, you can have the faucets back and shower as you wish. However, until I can be certain you won’t try to harm yourself again, I can’t take the risk.” Without another word, he walked out of the room, leaving me to enter the bathroom. I didn’t even get the opportunity to reaffirm that I wasn’t intentionally trying to hurt myself. I really had been lost in thought.

I looked at the tub, perplexed. The man had left maybe an inch of water in the basin. What was I supposed to do with that?

Harm yourself.
His words came back to me. He had left me with enough water to get clean, sort of. Washing my hair was going to be a chore. For every action, there was a reaction, a lesson learned yet again.

“Nicola. Mio caro Nicola, il mio piccolo me, la luce giorni bui di un vecchio.”
Papa’s voice rang in my head. He would always mutter in Old Italian; ‘
My dear Nicola, my little me, you light an old man’s dark days
.’ His great-grandfather came over from Genoa before he was born, but his parents taught him to speak his native language. Papa taught my father, and he shared with me what he could.

My father had never taught me, saying we were American and didn’t need to hold on to the history. Only during my visits with Papa had I learned anything about our Italian roots. My father had wanted to shut out his father, but working together, it had been hard for him to avoid his father. He had often complained to my mother.

Papa refused to call me Fallyn, saying my mother had corrupted my father into becoming an all-American who forgot his heritage and, more so, forgot his family. I still didn’t understand the big deal, but I guessed I never would.

Papa died when I was nine, and no one had spoken of him after that. Since his death, Father had gotten worse to live with, and without Papa Valencia, I’d had no escape until the night the stranger had saved me.

As I climbed into the tub, I let the day wash over me: the stranger calling me Nicola and all the memories that came with it, the way the stranger was protecting me even from myself as I was trusting him when I wasn’t sure I should have been.

He didn’t kill my parents. He wasn’t the one that night. So, how had I gotten here? Why was I still here? What would happen tomorrow or the next day or the next?

My mind was spinning with more questions than answers as the panic built inside me again.

“Breathe, Nicola, breathe,” I whispered to myself, finding the resolve to push on. I had survived my father; I would get through this, too.

Chapter Four

Using an old book of Angelina’s, I had tracked my time since I realized I was losing it. Three weeks. It had taken me three weeks to get the stranger to give me my shower back. I wasn’t sure how much time I had lost before that. At least, with losing the faucets, I had a starting point to track my time. Still, it had been a difficult time bathing in such low levels of water.

Not only was I given the gift of my faucets back, but he also gave me books. More importantly, he gave me school books. The only problem was they were for seventh grade. Having just completed fifth grade, I needed sixth grade books, not preparation for the next level guides.

When he delivered my dinner, I mustered my courage.

“Stay,” the word came out in a whisper, regardless of my attempt to sound strong.

His features stilled as if he was shocked by my request. His hand came up to his chest as he raised an eyebrow, as though silently questioning if I was speaking to him.

Well, I wasn’t sure there was anyone else for me to speak to.

Would it always be this awkward between us? This was my opportunity, as he called it, at a new life, and I couldn’t figure out what I was supposed to be doing.

He sat in the chair at the end of the bed once again and watched me.

“Sir, you gave me books.”

He nodded as he brought his hands together in a steeple with his elbows resting on his knees.

I had been raised around adults. At all times, I was to behave well and fit in with the socialites my parents brought around. I tensed as I tried to explain my problem.

“Well, I … umm … I am going into sixth grade, sir, not seventh.”

“Ah, I see. My daughter Angelina completed her last week of sixth grade before”—he stilled, and something menacing passed in his features—“before she was taken from me. You are here now, and although not quite her age, you are close enough. I told you, young one, this is an opportunity for a new life for you.”

Confusion filled me and confliction built as I tried to sort out what he was saying to me. “I don’t follow, sir.”

“Your new life is my dear Angelina’s old one. Should you find it to behave appropriately, you can attend school. Not the same one as her, of course, because the teachers would know, but you can attend the private school I have found for you as Angelina. For this year, we will homeschool, and possibly in the future we can transition you to private school.”

“So you are now my father?” I questioned, trying to follow his direction.

“In public, yes, I must be.” His face turned grim and cold. “Otherwise, you must stay here as you have been for two months.”

Two months, I registered it in my mind so I could go back and add up the time to know what the date was. He continued on as I mentally counted days.

“I’m trying to give you a new life, not keep you confined. Rules must be followed, and secrets must be kept between us.”

“How are you supposed to be my father when I don’t even know your name? I hardly see how this can work,” I stated and immediately wished I could take it back. If he questioned this being successful, what would happen to me?

“My name is Giancarlo Diamante,” he stated without hesitation, as if this was all so easy.

I simply nodded as the weight of this revelation hit me. Why did this man trust me? I didn’t even trust me not to slip up. What if the secret came out? My parents might or might not have been dead. Okay, I was pretty sure my father was, but I didn’t know anything of my mother. Were there people looking for me? How could I pull off becoming Angelina? My head throbbed. I felt like I was on information overload.