Special mass release for the novel's launch, 20/20.
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MIA
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"Oh? Oh! Is that it?" They both gasped.
I nodded, "It's also weird how you're all fine with me, which it's okay for my siblings who date yours, but it is weird. Aside from that, I have no problem at all with this. But you better not expect me to call you papa, you will remain as my zio, got it?"
"That's more than enough for me, mia cara," he exclaimed smiling. "I was thinking that you could began hating me just because I'm marrying her."
What? "Dio santo, you all have a horrible idea of me."
"You don't really collaborate on that, Mia," Maria chuckled and got up. "Now that we managed to tone down Mia's hostility, how about we play karaoke on the living room? It's been ages since we last did that."
I laid back on the couch and opened the book, in silent scream of ain't-noway-I'm-being-part-of-this-stupid-shit, but I didn't really read anything. The couch is between the living room with the TV and the dinning room, and my head is turned to the living room while my feet is to the dining room. There's a coffee table at my side too.
"Mia, you should come with us," Leo tried.
"I'll pass."
"Leave her, Leo, an uptight little girl like her, doesn't know how to enjoy herself. Let's just go on our own. Let's do the trios matches first, the solos, always dedicating it to someone, as we always did," Misha exclaimed as he side-glared me with contempt and mockery.
Clenching my jaw, I closed the hardcover book with too much strength and they turned to me, then I stood up, "What did you just say about me?"
He arched an scrutinizing brow, "Exactly what you just heart, Zoe Maud."
Putting my heeled slippers on, I went to them, "Fuck you. I'm playing."
They all gasped, even him, though his gasp was mocking, "Are you?"
I glared at him, "What did you all forget why I stopped playing this shit with you? I always won everything, and none of you, as the spoiled losers you were, could handle being beat by the youngest in the famiglias. You all made a fuss to our parents, saying you hated playing with me, that I made the games a nightmare. I heard it all, so, not to be a burden, I stopped playing altogether so you could finally enjoy it, and without me you did. It was always the same thing no matter the game, so, I just avoided it playing any of them and used my spare time to study instead."
By how they all blushed, they didn't see to remember that.
"I have no memory of such. When was that?" Pieter gasped, blushing hard.
I blinked, "December 24th. 13 years ago. I was 7 years old."
Julia let our a squeak, "What? How do you remember that?"
"I have photographic memory," I said matter-of-factly. "I remember every single thing that ever happened to me. Every fight, every word, every scornful look, every judgement, everything. Just as I remember everything I've ever read in my life, as well as everything I did, said, wrote, and every little moment of my life. Every talk I overheard, every song lyrics and rhythm and beat. Everything I studied and every lesson I had," I rolled my shoulders. "Dates are the least of it."
"What?" Maria's eyes widened. "But you act indifferent."
"Right choice of word, Anya," I winked at her. "I act. It helps. Papa told me when I was 5 that if I acted indifferent, things wouldn't hurt me as much as it used to, and that it would take away the power people think they have when they try to offend and put someone down. He told me that confidence and indifference were a powerful combo that would be good for someone like me."
Pushing through them, I bend down over the laptop at the side of the TV, and even though I didn't knew the password, I quickly cracked it down, then began to enter the IP to gain access to everything. Then I connected the three pen drives at the side, packed with songs on it, and as I linked it to the TV, already connected to the speakers at the side, I opened the karaoke program that opens the lyrics, also connected to the thirteen mics at the side. All in less than a minute. Straightening my back, I picked the red mic for myself.
"Having a memory like mine is quite the curse if you ask me. Sure, it's great and useful, especially when studying it, but it makes hard to not give importance to what people say. I don't have the ability to forget and be over with it like you all do, I kind of envy you for that. Everything is too vivid to me, even my dreams and nightmares, they are all too real, as if I was really there. And it takes quite the tool to keep it together and stay rational near someone who talked shit behind my back, which pretty much all of you did," I chuckled. "I had to force myself not to care, that why I became how I am now. It's not heartless indifference, it was needed. Papa taught me how."
Testing the mics, I put them back and kept only mine on my hand. There are only 13, without me they are 13. It's speaks a lot by itself. They lives was all without me, their games too. I don't even know why I'm surprised.
"I'll give you your mic back when I'm done playing. Whoever owns the red mic either way," I rolled my shoulders. "It's all ready. Since it's been a while since I last played, I'll pick the two people who will go with me, the songs they will sing, and I'll go first, is that fine?"
They stared from the laptop to the TV to the mics to me. Blinking.
"How did you do that shit so fast?" Bram gasped. "It takes me ages."
Oh? "You do know what someone skilled in Cybersecurity can do, yeah?" "Not really," Natasha chuckled blushing. "Just that it's tech related." Dio santo. "Do you know what a hacker is, Natasha?" They all stared at me, though only Misha, Leo, and Luigi didn't seem surprised by it.
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- itsokayimokay 🖤🖤