Someone Else

Chapter 25

"Matt! You're finally back!" I exclaimed. "I'm sorry, I was waiting up for you and decided to take a walk. I thought I saw a snake and I started running and tripped.

My stitches broke and I called for help. They brought me in and called the doctor and she removed my stitches and fixed me up really well. They were afraid you'd think it was their fault."

He frowned but didn't say anything yet.

"I've been so lonely, so I threatened them to talk to me or else I'd let you think it was their fault. It's just my fault, so please leave them out of it." I said, putting Dono down.

I hugged Matt and he immediately wrapped his arms around me. "I'm sorry, Princess. If I hadn't been gone so long this would not have happened." He admitted.

That's something all of us could agree on.

"Do you want them to talk to you?" He asked, caressing my hair.

I nod. "If you are going to keep acting like a child, someone has to entertain me."

Matt chuckles. "Alright. From now on they'll be allowed to talk to you." He said. "And I won't go for so long again."

I put my hands behind me and motion for the doctor to go home.

"Okay. Can we go to sleep now?" I asked.

"Okay, princess."

I turn to Enzio. "Look after Dono. If I come back to him upset or hurt, I'll beat kick you on the balls so hard your papa will feel it." I said.

Dono barks at me and I smile. "Play with them for a while, okay baby? I'll be back soon. Dono, sit."

He sits and stays while Matt and I go to bed.

___________________________________

"Before I left, I took one of their coms to make sure you were safe." He said quietly just as I started to drift off.

I quickly get out of the bed and walk out of the room, completely humiliated.

He follows me. "Principessa, I'm sorry."

"Don't talk about it, just forget you even heard anything." I snapped, walking to the garden. Can the earth just open up and swallow me now? I would be eternally grateful while I'm burning in hell.

"You do make me happy!" He said loudly, making me pause. "You make me so happy that I'm scared. I'm scared that one day you will realize that I am not good for s**t and you will find someone better!"

I sniff and sit down in the dirt. He takes this as a good sign and he sits down across from me. He hates sitting on the ground, he should suffer.

"Princess, I love you. I love you most in this world." He said quietly.

"What was that? I can't hear you." I said, pursing my lips. I'm glad to hear the words, but I won't settle for his bullshit whispering.

He takes a deep breath. "I love you most in this world!" He literally screamed at the top of his lungs. He's got some big lungs, holy crap. His voice echos through the forest and I'm 100% sure every guard heard it.

"Now make me promises you can't keep." I said vulnerably. I've always been a hopeless romantic, I love to hear promises of everlasting love.

"First let me apologize properly." He said, taking my hands. "Princess, I had no idea how you felt. I'm sorry for putting you through all of that pain. If I had known, I would've killed myself before I continued to treat you like that." He stops briefly to wipe my tears away. "I wish you had told me before, about your depression, I would have done everything differently. Because you deserve better. I'm so sorry, I love you."

So his reasoning is that I acted too happy and unbothered? That's why he didn't try to be better to me?

"I never told you the first time." I said instead of calling him out. Hey, you win some, you lose some.

"I understand now, that you love me unconditionally, like how I love you. And I understand that you're just as broken inside as I am. You need to know that I do trust you, only you. You could never fail me in any way, even if you tried, amor. With you, I'm always happy. You could hit me, shoot me and kill me and I would happily accept all of it. And from now on, I'll show you how much I trust and love you. These promises, I will keep until my death."

"Baka, don't talk about death."

He frowns. "What does that mean? It sounds familiar." Oh, right. He watched Horimiya with me.

"Come on, Amare." I said, pulling him up with me.

"Where did you learn that word?" He asked, surprised to hear me say it.

I laugh. "Just hurry it up."

+ + +

"I have to show you something." Matt said, taking his shirt off.

I gasp at the sight of his back. I've seen him shirtless twice before, but he never turned away from me, now I understand why.

His back is covered with scars from what looks like a belt.

"Matt, how did you get these?" I asked, touching them lightly. The skin is rough, these were scarred over many times...

"When we were children, my brother was jealous that our parents doted on me more," He started.

My stomach lurches and I feel like I'm going to be sick.

"Gio would punish me and said if they knew I was weak, they would disown me."

I hug him front behind, pressing my cheek against his back. He relaxes and covers my hands with his. I can't bring myself to speak, if I did then I'd cry.

"He killed my dog, by shooting her with a gun. Then he made me clean it up."

Gio? The same Gio who I showed to sketches to? The same Gio who had my dream house built? My body trembles with hurt. How could they be the same person?

"Amor, he changed when we got older. He stopped and came clean to our parents who sent him away for many years. When he came back, he was kind to me. But I still hated him. I hated him until the day he died."

Until? "What about now?" I asked, my voice cracking.

"He had changed, he had become good. I didn't admit it until now but... I do miss him."

I'm glad. I'm glad that the Gio I got to know was not all fake. I'm glad that I cared for him, this good version of him.

"Oh, Matt, I'm sorry you had to carry this pain for so long. There's something I have to tell you too and I don't know how to say it..."

I gulp and let go to he can face me.

"What is it, princess?" He asked worriedly.

"You can't laugh at me or send me to a nuthouse or anything like that." I said nervously. Am you really going to tell him?

He nods and smiles reassuringly.

Okay. Okay, I'm doing this.

"Four years ago... No, not four years ago, I need to start from the beginning." I correct myself, sitting on the bed. "My parents weren't good parents, though I'm sure they thought they did everything right. I was abused, both physically and mentally, for as long as I can remember. But those parents weren't Richard and Jilly Shackler."

His eyebrows furrow. "You were adopted?" I f*****g wish.

"Matt, I'm completely fluent in Vietnamese. I can accurately describe all of the big cities in Vietnam, I can tell you exact addresses and exactly what you would find there. I know how to ride a motorcycle, how to change the tires and how to change the oil." I told him.

"I don't understand, I know you aren't lying but... How?"

I squeeze my hands into fists to stop them from shaking.

"One day that had started completely normally, I got up and hopped on my motorcycle and drove myself to school. I was seventeen at that time." I continued. "The road was crowded, way too crowded, I was late so I sped. The school was far away from the apartment I lived in with my family, then. A few feet from the gate of my school, a truck crashed into me head on. Unfortunately for me, I had already unbuckled my helmet... I died that day."

"Princess, you're not making any sense."

I know. God, I know. None of it made a lick of sense. "The next day, I died and she died at the same time. But when I woke up...I woke up as her- as Amelia Shackler, a dumb sixteen year old rich girl who died at the exact same time by falling in the bathroom. A girl who I could have looked like me if I had gotten surgery. But Amelia is much shorter."

He's silent for a long time. He searches my face for any indication that I'm lying or joking but there aren't any.

"Liam, my ex, he knew me in my old life. I found him and told him and proved to him that I was that seventeen year old Vietnamese girl." Tears start falling and my voice shakes. "The day after that, my consciousness was able to...access Amelia's memories, all of them. I knew her, I became her- or maybe she became me? Whatever. This body started changing to look more like my old one. I was still me but now I had a slightly different face and a completely different life. A better life! And... No one knows but Liam. My name, the one I was given when I was born, is Ngọc Kiều, which can be translated into Beautiful Gem. But Amelia didn't wake up in my body, so I'm actually dead."

He still hasn't said a word and I feel like I'm breaking on the inside. I need him to believe me. I need him...

A lot of time passes, I can't tell how much, until he finally speaks. "I don't know how to take this in." He admitted. "Part of me thinks your making it up, but everything else is telling you're telling the truth."

At least he didn't call me a parasite, that is good.

"How can I make you believe? I can prove it. You take out your phone and choose a district in Ho Chi Minh City. I will tell you an address in that district and describe the building to you and you can check to see if I'm right. No one could possibly do that, right? Only someone who's lived there for a long time."

"Amor, you don't have to prove it to me. I love you because of you, not because of the way you look." He said, pressing his hand on my cheek. "I believe you, I do. And I am glad you didn't die in that crash. I know how much strength it took you to tell me this, it sure beats my secret."

I laugh and sob at the same time, my body shaking but this time with relief. "Okay, because I have something else to tell you."

He nods, fully prepared for it.

"I really really really really want to you to stop being mean to Dono, it makes me really really really really really really really sad."

He burst out laughing and gathers me in his arms. "Dono is my new favorite dog, okay?"

I don't reply, I just hold him tighter.

"Amor, I know you said you wanted me to- and I want to so f*****g much but your wounds aren't healed yet and it'll probably rupture again if we-"

"Don't ruin the moment!" I shrieked, my face burning with embarrassment and pent up s****l frustration.