Mattia

"How are you feeling today, Mattia?" Dr. Leighton asked.

"I'll be doing a lot better when I can walk on my own again."

"You'll get there. Your progress has been great so far." He comforted me.

"In time for our wedding?" Gia inquired. "It's in about four months."

Dr. Leighton pressed his eyebrows together, his left hand was on his hip, his right hand covered his mouth.

"That's not something I can guarantee," he shook his head. "Like I've said, you need to give your body time to heal. You need to be patient, don't let anyone or anything rush you. That'll only make you stress." He directed his words at me.

By Gia's facial expression I could tell that she felt attacked by what he had said.

"Okay, let's get started," Leighton clapped his hands. "I want to start with a few basic exercises that we've already dealt with and after that," he tapped the parallel bars. "We'll continue with this again."

I nodded in agreement. He placed the walking frame in front of me and held it steady as I pulled myself up. I had to stand still for a few seconds before I was able to take three steps.

"Fuck." My legs gave out sooner than I had hoped. Some sessions I would take five steps before I needed to rest, other days I would do three at maximum. "Damn it."

"Easy, easy. You'll get there, alright." Dr. Leighton squatted down and took my left leg in his hands. I looked up at Gia who was standing with her arms folded in front of her. She hated this place, could I blame her? Because I did too.

"Deep breaths." He said as he bent my knee. "Okay, straight. Good, hold it. Hold, hold. Now, bent." I followed his instructions. "One more time."

My leg hurt and started to tremble, but I trusted Leighton which is why I continued pushing.

"Very good. Let's see the other one." His focus switched to my other leg. By the time we were done with this part it felt like I could not move my legs anymore. They were dead tired and hurt like hell.

"Okay, take a few seconds to rest."

"No, I'm good. Let's continue." I said. He helped me up, only letting go when I was standing in between the parallel bars and holding up my own weight. My right leg was far weaker than the left one. Every time my weight was put on this leg I bit down on my teeth to deal with the unexplainable pain. However, it can not be compared to the uncomfortable neck brace I had to wear for such a long time.

I took deep breaths and carefully placed one foot in front of the other. Whenever the painful sensation became too much I would halt and lightly push myself up. My arms were not as strong as they used to be, but I managed.

"Almost there, Mattia. Come on." Leighton was pumped up. To motivate me he would randomly clap his hands in between every other step I took.

I was half way to the other side when I could not move any further. My arms were burning and my legs were about to give out. "I'm done. I'm done."

He placed the wheelchair behind me and pushed me to the other end until we were no longer between the bars. "You did good. Almost ten steps. Major progress."

"Yeah." My lips curved into a smile. I was genuinely happy and proud that I managed to do this. I turned to Gia, hoping that she was sharing a smile of her own but as I should have expected she was not impressed.

"I'll see you next week. And congrats on the engagement. You make a lovely couple." He smiled at both of us.

"We're having a small get together on Saturday. We'd love to have you there if you can. I'll send you the details." From the corners of my eyes I could see that she was not happy about the invite.

"Thank you, I'm looking forward to it." Leighton said before he wished us a good day.

"Why did you invite him?" She snarled when we were both seated in the car.

"Because he's my doctor and has helped me through a lot."I stated in a calm voice.

"So? Georgia is my maid and has been working for my family since I was two. Doesn't mean that I'm going to invite her! It's their job, Mattia. They get paid and that's the end of it." She clicked her tongue.

"Baby—"

"Don't," she took her hand away from mine. "Are you going to invite Lorna next?"

"Lorna is like family to me."

A sarcastic laugh left her mouth. "Right, and we know how much you like to bond with family, right?" The fake smile turned into a deep frown.

I swallowed the nasty comment that hung at the tip of my tongue. Three days, that is how much I got to be content with my decision to ask her to marry me. The instant feeling of regret loaded faster than malware.

"Christoph, straight home." Suddenly, my mood to take her ring shopping had disappeared.

"What about my ring?" Her attitude worsened.

"You should've thought about that before putting me in a bad mood."

"I'm not standing next to you when you're announcing our engagement without having a ring."

"I don't care much for the party so even if you cancel it, it's fine by me."

Her jaw clenched. I expected nothing other than her voice to be at a deafening volume as she shouted her colorful words, but to my surprise she suppressed her emotions due to Christoph's presence.

-------------------------------------//

Emmanuelle

I had just taken a very much needed bath when my bedroom door swung open.

"The hell, Mari." I almost jumped when she barged into my room. I had not changed as yet and my towel was loosely wrapped around my body.

"Relax. It's not like we don't have the same parts." Gia rolled her eyes when I held my towel to secure it.

"Whatever is going on, can it wait until I'm dressed?"

"This is an emergency, otherwise I wouldn't be in here." Marissa held her hands up in front of her. She was slowly but surely turning into another Gia. Perhaps an even worse version.

"What is so important that it can't wait for like two minutes?"

"We have a party to plan which I had told you about days ago. It's your fault for not taking it seriously. Now, we have two and half day to get our shit ready. Gia and I have already ordered our outfits, you still need yours." Marissa gave her absolutely ridiculous statement for almost breaking down my bedroom door.

With the ability to do her job accordingly as well her interest in the most random yet fascinating things, it was hard to accept that fashion and parties were her top personality traits until she would do dramatic stuff like this one.

Being spoiled and most importantly, pure cockiness were a few of her other personality traits that she shared with Dimitri and Marco as if it played a crucial part in the aesthetic of their generational wealth.

"A party?" I took a deep breath. "Okay, we can have this conversation when I'm fully dressed. So, both of you," I showed them to the door."Out."

"Fine, if you don't want to color coordinate with us and look like a poor hobo, that's on you." Marissa walked out. I stood next to the door, waiting for Gia to exit my room as well. At this exact same moment Marco happened to walk by my room. She gave me a nasty look and grabbed my towel after which she ran out the door.

"GIA!" My heart almost escaped my rib cage. I pushed the door shut but not fast enough to prevent myself from getting exposed. Her loud, annoying laughs were hard to block out.

The feeling of embarrassment was slowly killing me. I wrapped the towel around my body again and sat on the floor for a while. As comfort I was desperately creating scenarios involving Marco and myself.

Maybe he won't bring it up... What if he does? At least I shaved. God.

I buried my face in the palm of my hands.

What must he be thinking?

By the time I had built up my courage to face Marco again it was passed dinner time. The others had settled down in the downstairs living room for movie night which had become a weekend routine. I hardly ever joined them, mostly because I did not want to be near Dimitri and his girlfriend.

Gia shot me a wink when we briefly made eye contact. She made sure to give Dimitri a kiss on the neck as she did this.

Though I was bothered I did my best to ignore her. I went to the kitchen, fixed myself a plate of the leftover food Tia had cooked, grabbed a bottle of water to wash it down and was ready to head back upstairs for a movie night of my own. I was finally able to see the perks of the hardly used upstairs living room. I made myself comfortable on the soft sofa and pulled the thick, fluffy blanket over my legs.

"Room for one more?"

I coughed when I swallowed my food a bit too fast after I unexpectedly saw Marco standing at the end of the sofa. I answered the question with a nod, my eyes however— they were eager to explore. I blame the body fit, gray shirt and white sweatpants he was wearing.

"Am I not dressed correctly for the occasion or something?" He asked when he noticed me looking at him the way I did. 

I pressed my lips together, "You can go change if you want to, cause one deep breath and you would probably burst out of that tight shirt like Hulk." My nerves demanded that I spoke in a slower pace.

He chuckled, his head slightly tilted to the back as if he was looking at the ceiling. "Should I," he curled his fingers under the end of his shirt and slightly pulled it up, revealing the band of his boxers and a bit of skin.

"After I'm done eating." I waved with my hand, pretending to be disgusted. As soon as I had put my food on the table a pillow was thrown my way. "MARCO."

"We're missing half of the movie, stop interrupting me." He said in his business voice as he flopped down next to me and increased the volume.

"Me?" I wanted to defend myself but he immediately threw a loud "Ssshhh" in my face. I kept my mouth shut in an attempt to conceal my laughter.

Why are things always funnier when you're not suppose to laugh...

The movie was intense and truly captivated us.

When was the last time I felt this at peace?... I wondered to myself.

"Nuelle,"

I looked over to his side to see that he had slouched down. He was looking up at me through his thick eyelashes which made me wonder why I was not blessed with those.

"Are you good?"

"No, cause I'm trying to watch the movie." Seriousness was evident on my face before a small smile broke out.

"I'm serious though."

I gulped, "No. But, I'll be a bit better if you pretend like you didn't just see me naked." It felt like there was something stuck down my throat.

"Okay." The corners of his lips curled up.

Without breaking the intense eye contact Marco inched closer to me and put his arm around my shoulder so that I could rest my head on it. I did not think anything of it and moved closer to him too. This was Marco I was leaning on— someone who could be an absolute dick if he wanted to. Yet, for some odd reason I felt safe and comfortable enough that I did not get up to go to my room when I felt sleepy.

Some time during the night I must have shifted my position because I was laying on his chest when I woke up. I moved away from him as fast as I could without disturbing him when the instant fear kicked in that Marissa, Anthony or Tia might see us together like this.