The conversation with Will has me thinking the whole day. About many, many things. I do think about him and these fluttering feelings, but I realise my minds is mostly consumed by my family. Or what I have left of family.

Minds are a wonderful thing and the extents they go to protect us is truly marvellous. They block, filter and provide the exact things we can deal with at the moment. All this going on is maybe too much for me. Scratch the maybe, it is definitely too much for me. If I tried to process it all, then I would collapse. I have to live with the constant threat and the fear of seeing my end when I get discovered, a fear I didn't even fathom I could ever experience.

However, a thing I've overlooked, or maybe suppressed would be a more accurate verb, is my family.

The few times I mentioned contacting my family, the answer was the same: it's dangerous. Laura must be monitoring them, waiting for me to make that mistake. I accepted that, maybe I shouldn't have. While I deal with all this truth and conspiracy, all they know is that I'm dead. Despite how distant we are, how I barely consider my mother as my mother but just like someone who gave birth to me, she must still be hurting. And I'm not doing anything to stop that, to help her.

Wouldn't be more merciful to tell her... to tell them I'm alive, I'm just hiding? Trying to stay safe?

There's a thing that not everyone knows or have accepted, but it's a universal truth: money can do anything. You don't need to make the perfect crime, you just need the money to buy every person's ethics to cover up for you. You just need the right connections.

Out of all the things that get out in the public, there are five, eight, ten times more things that will never be undisclosed because money covers them up.

Money and connections bought the people at the morgue who made another girl pass for me. Money bought the police to close the case. Money and connections are keeping Laura as the CEO. She surely is making deals with the other shareholders, bribing them all so they won't kick her out.

Money is power.

Money is keeping me here and my family under the illusion that I am dead.

The world is such an ugly and messed up place... and my mother, the only direct family I have left, thinks she's lost her only daughter.

"Nora," I call when she's trimming my hair after lunch. "¿No puedo llamar a mi mamá?" I ask in Spanish if I can call my mum. For some reason, speaking in my first language, with a shaky voice, makes me sound like I was five all over again.

"Blanca," she sighs. "¿Por qué preguntas algo de lo que ya sabes la respuesta?" she replies in Spanish for me: Why do you ask for something you already know the answer for? then switches to English. "If she knows, then it's sure Laura will find out, too."

"But Laura knows I'm alive! She staged my dead and brought that body to pretend to be me," I exclaim, turning to glare at my best friend, my hair falling from her fingers. "Telling my mum that won't make a difference."

Nora sighs while I only feel more frustrated with the situation. "The more people know you're hiding, the more dangerous."

"I won't tell her where I am!" I protest, my voice raising so loud it hurts my throat. "Just that I'm alive, that I'm all right."

My voice breaks at the end of that sentence as I feel tears welling up in my eyes, making them sting. I blink quickly, trying to get rid of such annoying feeling.

"Calls get tracked. Are you going to go somewhere else to make that call? You think she's not bugged? Don't you think she won't coming running to find you? You think she won't call Laura to tell her you're alive? What will Laura do if your mum calls her with that news?"

My lungs burn because I'm not breathing, I'm holding my breath like a little kid throwing a tantrum, trying to make her parents freak out because she's trying to suffocate herself.

"The moment your mum knows, she'll do the impossible to find justice. To find out who brought that body to be you, who's behind."

"I'll tell her it's Laura!" I complain, my head spinning already.

"And Laura will have to silence her, and you know she can do that easily, without getting her hands dirty." Nora sighs again, her expression becoming pitiful and tired, but her condescending look is making me burn inside with boiling anger. "You have no proofs to make her believe it was Laura behind, you cannot call her and explain to her everything what's happening because if she knows, then she is in as much danger as you are."

Tears fall, but they don't taste salty, they are bitter with frustration and desperation. I can't stop them, one after the other, the roll down my cheeks, my nose, and make it hard for me to breathe. I'm so angry because I know she's right, but I want to call Mum, I want to tell her I'm okay, she doesn't need to mourn for me.

How do I fight Laura when she is my legal guardian, when she is entitled to represent me until I turn twenty-one? When she has the money, the power and the charisma to charm everyone and make them believe she is innocent?

"Can't you call her? Can't someone else tell her I'm alive? It doesn't have to be me," I beg, really pitifully.

Nora holds my face in her hands, lowering so we are eye-level and I know she's sorry, she doesn't have to say it, I can read in her expression what she wants to say.

"Mianhae, Blanca." she apologises in Korean, tearing up as she stares at me. "She's safer not knowing."

"And what do I do in the meantime?" I breathe out. "What do I do not to feel like this useless piece of shit?"

Annoying, frustrating, painful, staring at Nora knowing I can't do anything is like that. I can't help my family, I can't even help myself or stand up for myself, and this is breaking me all over again. And I don't know what to do with these feelings, I don't know what to do with anything in my life right now.

I take every distraction, I let it consume me but at times reality comes crushing down, and it knocks me down. I'm just overcome with this sense of powerlessness.

I escape her hands, because I can't stand her pity and worry right now. My legs move on their own, not listening to orders, not reporting anything. They move, one foot in front of the other, and repeat. Taking me away from Nora, as if like that I could escape the reality of what my life is. I walk, and walk as tears keep streaming down my face. I try to wipe them away, but more follow and it's just useless. My nose keeps running and I also feel disgusted with myself.

Why is crying such a wet and disgusting thing?

Everything is blurry in my head, or maybe everything is just too much and I can't deal with it anymore. I want to scream and forget it all. I want to stop feeling guilty and helpless. But I can't even run away, suddenly I'm standing in front of a fence that marks the limits of the property. I didn't even know there was a fence around, telling us up to where we could get. And I'm trapped.

I sink in a crouch, laughing hysterically instead of crying at this point, because I'm trapped. I really am. I'm in Laura's hands, hiding like a little rat, not daring to get out because it's dangerous, because I might die. Because the people I love might also get hurt.

"Are you okay?" a faint voice stirs my mind, making me stop laughing.

Am I even laughing by now? My throat hurts, burns and I think I've been at this for hours, but I'm not sure when I became numb.

I turn to my right to see Will, crouching down next to me, looking at me with worried eyes.

"Oh, I'm fantastic. Don't you see I'm laughing?"

"You're not laughing... you're just standing there, like a confused zombie, which is really creepy," he corrects me and my expression falls. So I really stopped laughing at some point. When? I don't even know. "Did something happen?"

A small smile tugs at the corners of my mouth, but it's a broken one. "I fought with Nora," I whine.

"You two fought?" he repeats, his eyebrows so arched that I think they'll reach his hairline. "So that's possible. I thought you were just at a different level and never fought."

"We have disagreements too, we're just humans," I scuff, rolling my eyes. "We fight, but we also make up."

"And why did you fight?" he inquires, softly touching my shoulder to make me stand up, leaning my back on the fence. He stands next to me, very close and for some reason I find comfort in his proximity, in his warmth.

"Because I want to call my mum, but it's dangerous. I'm not allowed to tell her that I'm alive." I look up at him, once again feeling tears pooling at the corner of my eyes, threatening to slide down. "I know she's right, but I feel like I'm torturing my mum by staying quiet."

Will looks at me as he presses his lips together, his expression is troubled, as if he couldn't guess what to say to make it better, to comfort me. My hand moves without my consent, grabbing his jacket, squeezing the fabric as I pull him a bit closer.

"I don't know what to say," he confesses and a strangled chuckle escapes me. I didn't expect he'd know, like I didn't expect the apologetic tone in his own voice.

He pulls me then against his chest, his arms wrapping around me in a tight, oh so tight hug that for a brief second, just a heartbeat, feels like it's pulling my pieces back together. So I hold on to him tighter, crying in his shoulder shamelessly. I actually sob.

"It's like a nightmare," he whispers, stroking my hair. "It's horrible and all you want is for it to end."

"Why isn't it ending?"

"Because it's not over yet," he replies and I want to smack him for being so obvious. "But that's not what matters. Princess, all nightmares end and when you wake up you still feel shaky and scared, but they fade away. You and your mum will wake up from this nightmare and after time, all these bitter feelings will fade away."

"It doesn't help to deal with them now," I complain, pulling a bit back, just enough to look him in the eyes. "How do I get rid of these feelings that squeeze my heart?"

"You can't get rid of feelings," he smiles. "You have to learn to overcome them instead of letting them tear your apart."

"Easier said than done," I mumble, looking down but he grabs my chin and makes me look at him again, one arm still around my waist.

"Nothing in life is easy, Princess. Don't you know that?" His eyes are challenging, bordering teasing. "But nothing is impossible either. You keep being strong, like you've been doing until now. Your mum will be fine and everything will be worth it once the truth is out. This won't be noting more than a sour memory among many others you've had and will have."

"How do you know?"

"I just do," he smiles brightly, his hand slowly sliding to cup my cheek instead. "So stand strong. If you feel too tired, lean on me."

My own smile is weak as I stare at him, grateful and moved. I turn my face in his hand and place a kiss on his palm before I lean in, my forehead on his shoulder, my arms around his waist, keeping me close to him.

"You always find me at my worst," I muse, still hugging him, feeling his hand rubbing my back.

"That's okay. You get to understand and know better people when they are at their worst." I feel him kissing the top of my head, so tenderly, so lovingly. "I want to know all of you, Princess."

❅ ❅ ❅

Two weeks MIA! But here's the new chapter. I have been in the wilderness, come to town just briefly to work-related things. I am still in the wild, but I hope I can update on Mondays and Fridays, still. Thank you for being patient, I can't reply to comments yet, though :(

Bel, xx

~next update, hopefully on Monday~