Page 70 of Mila: The Godfather

It only lasted a second because, before I knew it, his face turned soft like before. “How about we ride your new bike back home.” He taps my hat once, and my heart beats faster at the same time as my grin takes over my entire face. I think I’ve never, in my nineteen years on this earth, smiled as big as I do here.

“What about the car?”

“Kelly will handle it.” He shrugs like he could care less about his very expensive and very over-the-top sports car.

And that’s how I end up sitting on the handlebars while Riagan rides us all the way home.

I laugh out loud and smile through the entire bicycle ride, and I wonder if it would be too much for me to ask that this moment last for a long time.

This moment.

This feeling.

This…man.

Riagan

Friend.

That fucking word.

If only she knew that calling me friend felt like she was shoving a knife in my chest.

Mila’s Bucket List

1. Help a stranger find happiness.

2. Get a meaningful tattoo.

3. Open a bakery.

4. Create a masterpiece.

5. Learn how to ride a bicycle.

6.Visit a magical place.

7. Make a difference in someone’s life.

8. Help my sisters find their way back to each other.

9. Kiss under a willow tree.

10. Find my voice in this loud world.

11. Fall in love.

Yacht & Laughs

MILA

“Would you love me even when I show you all of me?” – M

I don’t remember much about the first five years of my life. Some memories are a blur when I try to recollect them. I once read an article that explains how one tends to block out the memories that cause you the most pain and trauma yet the memory of the night someone almost drowned me is still fresh in my brain.

I still don’t know who it was. Maybe it was my father. Or maybe it was my mother on one of her ’off days’, which meant she was drunk out of her mind. Perhaps, it was one of the maids or one of the men who worked for my father who tried to get rid of me following orders. I still don’t know. All I do know is that one second, I’m quietly playing with the bubbles in the bath water, and the next thing I know my head’s underwater as I struggle to breathe.

One.

---