Lightly grazing my fingertips on Lola's scar on her side, I look up and stare into her dark brown eyes, "You amaze me."

She shakes her head and breaks eye contact and stares into the distance, "Why?" she asks as her voice breaks and she wipes her cheeks with the back of her hands.

Moving my body so that I'm leaning against my car, I pull her into my lap as she drops her head on my chest.

"You amaze me because of how strong you are, you're here today because you're strong, you told me about you're past because you're a warrior," I say running my fingers through her silky long brown hair.

She sighs deeply and puts her face in my neck, "Can you take me back to my place? We could talk on my couch inside of the cement floor."

"Yeah, of course, my ass is numb."

She laughed and punched my shoulder, while I helped her stand on her feet.

"My lady," I say in a British accent as I hold open the car door for her to enter. "Why thank you, kind sir," She replies as she attempts to do a British accent, but fails horribly.

"What was that? Your accent sounded like a British cereal smoker," I tease her and do up my seat belt, as she does hers.

"Shut up, I just told you about my traumatic life story," She mumbles and crosses her arms playfully against her chest.

"Fair enough."

With that, I speed off onto the highway and go well above the speed limit, which leads Lola screeching at me that she's "too amazing to die" the whole ride to her place.

***

"So tell me about yourself, you know about me, but I know nothing about you," Lola says as the two of us are sitting outside on her balcony overlooking the lively city that is LA.

"What do you want to know?" I reply sipping my ice-cold beer.

"Who was the most toxic person you've known?" She asks turning her body on her chair to face me.

Shit, out of all the questions she had to ask me, this was it?

I'm not as strong as her.

I can't talk about my past without wanting to punch whatever is at my reach.

I sigh, as I stare off into the distance of the city and see hundreds of people laughing, talking and some even pushing people, trying to get by with frowns on their faces.

"My younger brother," I mumble.

"Why you're brother?" She pushes for me to continue.

"You want me too poor my heart out to you as you did to me?"

"I would appreciate it," She whispers maintaining eye contact with me.

"I'll try for you."

"For me," She whispers taking my hand in hers, and giving it a quick squeeze.

Swallowing tightly I begin my sob story, "My brother had everything going for him, he was smart, he was loving, great friends, and to top it all off he had a well-paying job. My parents were never in the picture because they decided that having kids stopped them from living their lives, so they dropped us off at our Grandparent' house, and once in a while sent us some money for our birthday. When I turned eighteen my Grandma died from breast cancer, and my Grandpa died a month later in his sleep, they said he died from a broken heart."

I trail of thinking about how amazing they were to me and my runaway brother.

"Since they passed away I was my brother's legal garden since he wasn't eighteen yet," I run my hands through my air with a low chuckle that had no humour in it. "I thought he changed when he told me he had a girlfriend that I never got the chance to meet, they were together for a long time, I knew he was keeping his dangerous lifestyle from her because whenever I brought up the topic he would always get defensive."

"One night he never came back, after weeks of me calling him with getting no answers each time, I learned that he moved out. Still to this day, I don't know where he moved too, and frankly, I don't care."

"One night he came back to the house and was screaming at me with bloodshot eyes I knew were from drugs, and told me he was going to kill her, he wanted her to feel pain, I tried my hardest to stop him, but he pushed me down the basement staircase and locked the door. One of my buddies knew something was wrong so he came looking for me at the house, he heard my yells through the thick walls and took me to the hospital because I broke my leg from the fall. After getting admitted out of the hospital I found out my brother was nowhere to be found, but his girlfriend was in the hospital with life-threatening conditions." I finish after swallowing the vomit that was rising in my throat.

"My brother almost killed his girlfriend, he's a psychopath."

"Are you still friends with the friend that helped you," Lola asks gently.

Oh yes, I am alright...

I let out a breathy laugh, and glance at her with a smile, "Christian was the one who helped me that night."

Damn Dante has a ruff past too huh?

It's going to start getting intense, ladies and gentlemen

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