Chapter 74

"As always, but we won't be back till late, so I made you some soup to heat up. Your friend can have some too if he wants. D'you like soup, Roman? I can always cook something else if you don't."

"Soup's fine." I assured. Soup's fine but my brain wasn't.

"Good!" Jia happily clapped her hands together. "We'll be back late." She walked over and pulled Sienna into a hug, kissing the side of her head, "But please don't stay up to late, and call me if you need anything. I mean it."

"I know, I will." Sienna assured.

"I know, but last time you set the microwave on fire trying to heat up some pasta and —"

"I will, mom. Don't worry." Sienna groaned, cutting her off.

"Okay! Okay!" Jia held her hands up in defence. "You know about to use a microwave, don't you, Roman?"

"Mom?!" 

"Um, yes ma'am." I awkwardly replied feeling Sienna's complete embarrassment.

"Good, good." She smiled, knowing she's completed her mission to embarrass her daughter like any mom would. "You just have fun with your... friend." She winked and nudged Sienna's side before grabbing her things and walking out. She seemed like a wonderful woman. I didn't know why Sienna wanted to hide her. Everyone would know she's adopted. But why did that matter?

I was about to turn and say something, what I was about to say I had no clue, but Sienna ran up the stairs behind us before I could.

"Sienna!" I called after her. She stalked down the hall and then to the left where a narrow, white door was. Her bedroom.

It was slightly smaller than mine, except the wooden floors darker and creaked even further wherever I stepped. The walls were plain white, dotted around was a wardrobe, desk, and vanity. I noticed the pictures frames containing photos of her and her parents, her and Rya, solo ones of her at different school dances, I tried to ignore the one with her and Adam at Junior Prom as it rested on her window seal. However, the pictures weren't what I was looking at the most.

It was books.

Tons and tons of books. Shelves of them, classics, romance, fantasy, mystery. So many of them. Sienna liked the read. No. Sienna didn't just like the read. Sienna was a full-blown book nerd.

I remembered the time she quoted 1984 and brushed it off so easily. She's read it. And by the look of it on her bedside, she's read it a lot.

I didn't know what to do with myself as I stood just over her doorway. I had never been in a girl's room before, other than my sister's before she left, but that wasn't what I was worried about. I was never too worried when I was with Sienna. The thing I was worried about was why. Why did she keep all of this? Why did she hide her life from everyone else?

I watched as she rushed over to a bucket in the corner of the room, drops of water falling into it from the ceiling.

"Sorry." She quickly apologised. "The storm caused a leak and... well yeah." She cringed back at it before looking back at me, as if she was waiting for me to say something.

"You're adopted." Was all I could say. Well done, Roman. Just stating the fucking obvious.

"Erm... yeah." She looked uncomfortable. The last thing I wanted to do was make her uncomfortable.

So many questions circled my mind, I didn't know which one to ask first.

"How?" was all I could say. She wasn't getting the message. "The clothes and the designer stuff... how?"

She gulped, afraid of what she might say next. I didn't care what she said next, I just wanted to know.

"Rya." She answered. "Every birthday and Christmas she buys me all these expensive things." She looked down at herself. Her clothes were dripping with riches. Rya did this for her. Rya knew. Of course, Rya knew, she's her best friend. "And the thrift shop." She answered again. That made sense. I wondered why Sienna would go into a thrift shop having so much money, but she didn't. That was also a lie.

"Sienna..." I took a step forward and she took one back. She was afraid. Did I make her afraid? A rush of worry went through me as I looked at her. I could tell she was trying to figure out what I made of all of this. In reality, I didn't give a shit. She was still Sienna. The sarcastic, funny, adorable, stunning Sienna.

"I-I want to talk." She stuttered. I refused to take my eyes off her as she took a deep breath. "And... And I want you to listen."

I stepped further into the room, my heart beating out of my chest. I knew Sienna – at least, I thought I did. I was scared that whatever she was about to say would change the way I see her. Yet, in some strange way, I knew that no matter what she said, I could never hate her. I didn't understand it myself, but Sienna was always going to be Sienna, and she was always going to be the person I trusted most in this world.

"My biological mom was Italian." She began and the word 'was' stuck out to me. "She moved to Brazil after college to work." she took a deep breath, holding herself together as she spoke. "She got sick. Really sick, and the only treatment available was in Russia – Moscow. That's where she met my biological dad." Russian. She was Italian and Russian. She never told anyone she was Russian, and I couldn't help but wonder why, but I waited for her to continue. "She... She got better and then they got married a-and then they had me." Sienna was born in Russia – Moscow and I found it one of the most interesting pieces of information ever. I couldn't explain why but it was something new. Something I knew not many people knew about her. Something she trusted me enough to tell.

She took a pause and swallowed down whatever emotion that was about to come up. "He left. He just... left her. He left me. And... and that's all I know about him." That was why she didn't tell people she was Russian. She didn't want to be associate with a man that left her. A man that was so cowardice he couldn't take on the role of a husband or a father. Someone who's meant to be there throughout anything. I felt my blood boil. How could someone leave people like that? It made me sick.

"She went back to Brazil to work again but..." I heard the crack in her voice. I felt like the worst person in the world making her tell me this. I so wanted to walk up to her and tell her that it was okay, hug her and tell her she didn't have to, and I was about to if it wasn't for the determination that overcame her expression as she continued. "The sickness came back and she didn't have to money to go and get treatment, so she gave me up. I was barely one when she put me in an orphanage and then... and then she... she just died."

It wasn't a story of hate — story of unlove. It was a story of pure tragedy. A story of a woman who was treated horribly by life and the man she deemed to love. A story of sacrifice. And Sienna was that sacrifice.

"How did..." stop talking and hug her. Stop talking.

"My mom's family immigrated to the US when she was a baby. They moved back to China when she was older, but she decided to stay for college. That was where she met my dad. They had your typical college romance, got married in their Senior Year and then saved up to travel the world. Their last stop was South American, mainly Brazil. My mom told me that they went to the orphanage to donate some toys and then saw me. She told me that from the moment they saw me, they knew that I... that I belonged with them." Her eyes glossed over as she chuckled lightly but all I wanted to do was hold her. I had never wanted to hold someone so bad in my life, it physically hurt.

"They ended up adopting me and taking me with them to America." She finished. She looked down at her shoes and I noticed her wipe her cheeks. She was trying not to cry and I hated the fact she felt like she had to be strong with this. Sienna was strong as it was, stubborn even, but it felt as if she was trying to be okay when all that she wanted was to crumble. I wanted to her crumble, I wanted her to cry – fuck, I wanted her to scream. Scream at all the hurt and hate she had behind her. I wanted her to crumble because, selfishly, I wanted to pick up the pieces. I wanted to care for her. I wanted to be there for her like she was for me.

"I don't have anything of her left." She whispered quietly in the smallest voice I'd ever heard. She then walked towards her vanity and pulled out a drawer. Rummaging through it, she found a letter and held it up. "All but this." She then glanced down at it. "It's a letter she wrote to me when she gave me up, but it's written in Portuguese because she probably thought I would stay in Brazil. I... I tried to Google Translate it but none of it made sense and I can't afford a professional translator because for some reason they're stupidly expensive. The only thing I can make out is 'borboleta' which is something she used to call me. It means –"

"Butterfly." I subconsciously said. She looked up at me in surprise.

"You speak Portuguese?" the sliver of hope in her voice made my heart break in two.

"I speak Spanish." I spoke multiple languages. My favourite ones were French and Mandarin, but I could speak much more. It was easy for a Portuguese speaker to understand Spanish but not so much the other way around. I only knew a little Portuguese.

"Does that mean you can...?" There it was again. Hope. Pure hope.

"I only speak a little." I confessed and I watched the hope drain from her face. No. "But I can try." I hastily confessed. Show that hope, Sienna. Show it because I want to try and make it better.

"Really?"

"Really." Even if I couldn't, I'd learn to.

"Thank... Thank you." Her voice went small as the tiniest of smiles delicately lifted the corners of her lips.

Hold her. Give her a hug. Hold her.

She walked to the other side of the room before I could. I felt the pull, it was like magnetism, but more questions circled round my brain and it wasn't a case of curiosity, it was a case of wanted to understand her.

"Why do you lie?" I found myself asking as gently as possible. She turned to meet my gaze.

She hesitated before she said, "It's not that I want to." She fiddled with her fingers. "Not anymore." Not anymore. Why was that?

"Sienna..." I took a step forward. "Whatever you say, I'm never going to judge." I knew what judgement was like from everyone's speculations about me in school. Despite that, I never once believed that Sienna would judge me when I told her about the boxing or about Skye. I was afraid she felt like I would judge her and the pure thought of it made me so mad at myself.

 "Well, that's what you do, isn't it? You assume. You have since day one."