Like A Violin

"Fine. Whatever," he mutters in annoyance, not lowering his perfect eyebrow as he sprawls in the chair, staring at anything but me with an arrogant, nonchalant air.

"So?" I prompt him after a few seconds, but he just shrugs his shoulders and stays silent. "You're not going to say anything?"

"I have nothing to say," he mumbles, rolling his eyes.

Such a brat, and the girls say he's dangerous. He might roll his eyes at me until I die but other than that I don't see how he's dangerous at all.

"Well, since I'm going to be the new Fabiola for a while, we should start communicating openly with the basics and all," I start to say with a fake confident smile on my lips. Judas just stares at me in silence until I start to feel anxious. His eyes are heavy and intense, "We didn't get off to a good start, did we? Let's try again. Nice to meet you, Judas, I'm Alessia.”

"Jude,” he corrects, sounding annoyed.

"Judas fits you way better," I say with a mocking smile I try to hide, but he squints at me, "You need to be nicer and then I'll call you Jude."

"Trust me. I am being nice," he says with no hint of a smile on his face. I sigh and I relax in my seat, place my elbows on the desk and lean my face in my hands.

"Let's not just waste our time here, okay? All you have to do it's open up a little. Talk about what is it that you have in your mind. Or even… why do you have to be here daily and mandatorily?"

"Because Dan hates me, that's why,” he mutters angrily and takes a deep breath, "Look, don't take it personally. I don't like talking to strangers, especially not to someone who wants to get secrets out of me, stuff that I can't go around telling just anyone.”

"I understand, I really do," I say with a smile, “I wouldn't like to tell things to a stranger who seems to be very nosy either, but you do have to talk to me about that stuff, you can't come here every day and just answer my questions with less than five words.”

"Why?"

"Why what?"

"Why do I have to talk to you about these things?" he asks, rolling his eyes in annoyance, like words are hard for him.

"Because I will be your counselor or whatever. My obligation is to help you, and I can't help you if you don't give me anything to do it with," I explain, getting nothing but an angry look from him, “Look, if you're worried that I'm going to say something to someone, you can forget about it. I can't do that, it's illegal. I signed a confidentiality agreement, which means I can go to jail if I talk to anyone about what you tell me here.”

Judas lets out a laugh, but it sounds weird. It was more like a sad, empty sound or something.

"And you would never do anything illegal, would you?" He scoffs and laughs again. As if he has his own inside joke that amuses him but doesn’t make him happy, "Do you know how long it took me to tell something stupid like my brothers' names to Fabiola?"

I shake my head without taking my eyes off his face.

"Like two years, and I’m always here daily," he says, sounding tired, “Don't expect much from me.”

"Well, who knows. I'm very good at this sort of thing, I bet I can get something more important out of you in a lot less time," I assure him, and before he starts to speak again I raise my hand to shut him up, “Whatever is going on in your life, no matter how complicated, I will try to understand you. And even if you don't tell me anything, I have your file here and I can read it whenever I want.”

"Good luck with that," he scoffs, laughing in that empty way again, “My file says nothing but my name and my classes, Fabiola doesn't have permission to have my information in there, but she knows everything.”

"Are you serious?" I ask, extremely interested all of a sudden so pick up that damn file to see if what he said is true.

Judas is right. That file has nothing in it but his stupid papers for school, his schedule and unimportant stuff. Nothing like Carrie's or Abraham's, which was a lot of private stuff.

So what the hell is he hiding, what could possibly be so bad that it can't even be there?

✖️ ✖️ ✖️ ✖️

We leave all of our shopping bags on the couch in the girls' room and I lay down on Yamin's bed, resting after three full hours of shopping.

I wasn't so tolerant of shopping before today, I would usually get depressed after ten minutes of looking at stuff I couldn’t afford, but this time my dad gave me a brand new credit card to buy a phone and as much as clothes as I wanted because he didn't let me pack all of my when we came here.

"I forgot to ask you," Nedime says, rolling over on her bed to at look me, "How did it go with the lunatics at school?"

"It was fine, actually," I reply, “Carrie is sweet, Abraham didn't show up and… I don't know if you guys knew this, but Judas has to go. And he’s not very happy about that."

"Jude, really?" Yamin contemplates. I nod, "So what traumas does he have besides the obvious? I mean it's not exactly a secret how weird he is. Tell us all about it."

"First of all, it would be absolutely not okay to divulge his private stuff, but I can’t do it even if I wanted to because he didn’t tell me anything. I was lucky to get a long, complete sentence out of him, and it was only when he told me he wasn't going to tell me anything."

"That's so typical of him, pretending to be interesting," Nedime mutters with a scoff, "I understand, but… he takes all of this to heart."

"All of this?" I ask, not following. The girls just wave their hands in the air at the same time as if my question was unimportant.

"Whatever, just tell us something interesting then. Are you ready to jump on the Jude Hate Train with us? Because in that case, we could formulate some kind of plan to..."

"Mmm, no. I don't hate him," I interrupt her. "I hated how uncooperative he was, but I don't hate him, I don't have a reason to. Whatever is wrong with him must be huge so l'd like to help him if I can.”

"Help him?" Nedime repeats, mockingly, “Let him rot in his misery. Trust me, he deserves it.”

"Okay, that's a little too much. Tell me why the hell you hate poor Judas so much or stop being so mean to him," I demand, sitting on the bed and crossing my arms on my chest.

They girls at each other and seem to have a silent conversation for a couple of seconds, but then they agree.

"We're going to tell you just because we love you, but it's something we really don't like to talk about. And something that must stay a secret forever,” Nedime starts, building so much anticipation that I can’t help but to get excited for the drama, “Freshman year, only three months into school, he played with us like…”

"He was dating both of us at the same time and played us stupid for like a whole month," Yamin explains with hatred and her eyes and I stay there with my mouth open for a few seconds. Then I laugh.

"How? You two don't ever separate. How was that possible?"

"Our dad told us to stay the fuck away from the Sinclair boys or there would be 'hell to pay'. And you know our dad is never serious, but he was incredibly serious about that," Yamin starts. "So when Jude started paying attention to me… I kept it a secret."

"Me too," Nedime adds. “But then I realized why my dad was so serious about the Sinclair family. They are… weird and dangerous. All of them. So I kept the secret even harder."

"Exactly. Me too. And we can't even say he was good to us or something, Jude's always been Jude and he's not going to change.”

"What do you mean Jude has always been Jude? What's he like? He didn't talk to you guys either?"

"No, Jude isn't someone who talks a lot," Yamin says with a shake of her head, "All we did was make out, and well... I'm not complaining about that."

"It's just the way he is, he doesn't talk to anyone but his brothers or his friends," Nedi continues, “He has severe anger issues. He goes ballistic over anything. Last year he put a guy in the hospital just because the kid inadvertently bumped into him in a hallway."

"Oh," I said, unable to say anything else. "And why is that?"

“We don't know." Yamin answers a little too fast, looking up at Nedime for a second in a weird way, “But that is not even the worst about him. We’re not exaggerating, you should really stay away from him. He's not good company.”

I try to get them to tell me more, but they don’t. It’s like they’re covering for him, but that’s weird because why would they?

I get home thanks to the twins' driver and I can't deny that I feel like the rich girl I've never been and I love it. I'm carrying a lot of bags full of brand new clothes and getting out of a fancy car. I've never experienced something like this before and it feels exciting, but I don’t want to get used to it.

I feel like maybe we’re rich now but with my dad I don’t have anything assured, we could run away tomorrow to the deepest and poorest part of the world for all I know.

"I'm here!" I yell as I walk into the house, but no one answers, "Hello! Is anyone here?"

"Hello, Miss Alessia," Linda yells from the kitchen, "I'm making dinner."

I drop the bags on the larger couch and look around for what I bought for her. Linda is a beautiful young woman who has been cooking and cleaning for us. I don't understand why my father needs her here, but I like her anyway. She's nice and her food is always delicious.

"Hi, Linda," I greet walking into the kitchen, distracting her a bit from the four pans she’s tending to, "I went shopping with my friends and brought you a gift. I hope you like it."

"What? A gift? Miss, you shouldn't have..." she shakes her head and lowers the flame on the stove, wiping her hands before turning to me looking embarrassed.

"I know, but I saw this dress and thought of your pink purse... don't you think it goes perfectly with it?" I ask, lifting the dress towards her. It's knee-length but clinging to the body and patterned in different shades of pink. Linda drops her mouth open and stretches out her hands, "And please don't call me Miss. Just Alessia is fine."

"Thank you so much," she says with a big smile, "I love it, Alessia."

"I'm glad you like it... where's my dad, by the way? I bought something for him too.”

"He's in his office, he has guests over. They're having dinner here."

"Oh, that explains all that food," I point to the pile of pans and plates arranged around the kitchen, "Well, I'll go see him. See you in a bit."

I bought my dad a few shirts. Colorful, fun shirts. They’re not his style at all but they are cute and I hope it breaks his routine of wearing boring, black suits all the time. I know our whole family is dead, but he doesn't have to make it so depressing by dressing like he’s mourning every day.

I walk to his office in the basement slowly. I never come down here because it looks like a medieval dungeon and it freaks me out. So I basically run to his door and I knock on the door desperately.

"Come in," my father says from inside and I don't hesitate for a second. I step inside quickly, closing the door behind me.

When I turn around, I see my dad's guests. There are about ten men and one pretty woman, and they’re all staring at me.

"Um, hello," I greet, smiling at all of them one by one. I start with the woman, then the older man next to her, and then the other men, younger... and handsome. Most of them look in their twenties or younger. And then I rest my gaze on the last guy... who’s glaring at me with contempt and surprise, "Hi, Judas."

{ Judas }

Oh, shit. The crazy girl is the boss's daughter. The crazy, meddling, annoying girl is the boss's daughter. The crazy, stuck up, annoying, hot girl is the boss's daughter. And she just greeted me directly, letting everyone know that she already knows me. Sebasatian's eyes move to me immediately.

"Hello, Miss Ferreira," I mutter under my breath. To be honest, I don't even remember whether or not she told me her name while she was bothering me in Fabiola's office, but I obviously know what her name is now. Mister Ferreira stands up and gives his daughter a hug.

"Sinclair family, this is Alessia, my daughter," he introduces her. The girl raises a hand and waves it towards my family with a big smile. My mom stands up, unable to contain her excitement to meet Princess Ferreira and goes over to hug the girl with all her might.

"Do you already know my son Judas?" she asks her, sounding excited. I don't know why my mom is so excited about Alessia. I think she's just excited to be able to spend time with another woman for once. And since I'm now supposed to be her bestie, babysitter, bodyguard and also patient, the girl is going to be spending a lot of time at my house and with my mom.

"Yes, I met him at school,” she answers, sounding just as exciting.

I can already savor my days with this crazy woman. If she's this annoyingly happy all the time, I’ll go insane for real. I hate happy people. And if she even thinks of trying to get information out of me by being this damn unbearable I'm really going to hate her.

I growl in annoyance and get up from my seat stiffly to hug her too, like everyone else.