Rebellion

"I hate you!"

Riccardo wasn't the first person Fiona spoke those words to. She had said them to her parents many, many times. They were always so hard on her, they wanted perfection, for her to be their perfect little angel. It was mostly her father, Ugo. He had this strange, almost unnatural desire to see her succeed in life, and he had always been the one that had made the decisions... taken her to all the private schools, never even allowed her to make friends. He always told her that all he was doing was giving her a good education, but by doing so he was trapping her, confining her... just like she was now.

And she hated them both for it. She loved them, too... but oh, how she hated them. They got into arguments all the time, and of course her parents always had their way. She kept feeling more and more repressed, she was never allowed to do anything for herself or make her own decisions. And one day, a year ago, they just pushed her over the edge. She had run crying to her room after they told her that she was not allowed to see anybody outside of school. She wanted to have friends, wanted to have her own life... but they were making it impossible. So she devised a way to get back at them, to hurt them.

She was going to a christian school at the time. There was one boy there, Jonathan... she knew he'd had his eye on her for a long time. He was always being nice to her, watching her when he thought her back was turned... Fiona wasn't stupid, she knew she was gifted with good looks, a great body, and although she'd never even dreamed of doing such a thing before, she knew how to use it to her advantage. The little angel she had been her entire life was swallowed up in the heat of the moment, and she was experiencing these very unchristian thoughts for the first time. Her parents, strict Catholics, considered premarital sex a terrible sin. They both worked in the daytime, and came home about an hour after she got back from school. Fiona wasn't a mean person, wasn't manipulative or cunning... but her fury drove her to it.

She invited Jonathan over to her house after school one day, and of course he readily accepted. They talked about school for a while, but inevitably the conversation turned to their relationship. She made sure to keep him hanging for a while, but eventually they began kissing, then taking off clothes... she was willing to give up something as valuable as her virginity just to get back at her parents, and looking back, it was probably the stupidest thing she'd ever done. She'd never done anything this drastic or manipulative in her life, and she felt like a horrible person for it. When her parents walked in the door, they were right in the middle of it.

Needless to say, what followed was catastrophic. Jonathan was beaten out the door, forced to leave without his clothes. Ugo was raving, screaming at the top of his lungs about how she had ruined her future, and Ayla just standing by the door, crying. And after that... they stopped. They stopped talking to her, they stopped restricting her, they just stopped everything, as if they didn't care anymore. Fiona should have felt great, should have taken advantage of it... but she just felt worse. She knew she had let them down, and now there was no way to turn back. She hadn't realized just how much she'd hurt them until it was too late... and once her anger at them was gone, all she was left with was sadness.

They had enlisted her in a new college, helped her get set up... but from that point on, it was as if they wanted nothing to do with her. She began going to college, but she was depressed. She couldn't live with the knowledge of what she'd done... But then, that day her father had called her. He had sounded so excited, so happy... he wouldn't tell her where they were going, he just said that he'd be picking her up in an hour. He told her that they were going to see where he grew up, something which he'd always been evasive about in the past.

For that time, it was as if nothing had ever happened. They talked and laughed, and Fiona was feeling a lot better. The road they were traveling on wound through a dense forest, and Fiona wasn't quite sure where they were headed as twilight came upon them, then the darkness of night... and that's when she noticed the other car. Its engine roaring loudly, it sped up until it was beside them... and then it rammed them. Fiona screamed, watching as the car careened off the road and straight into a large pile of logs. She watched as her own father was killed... and then that face...

The face of the man who was here now. The face that looked like her father's... yet it was deformed, twisted. She didn't want to forgive him for what he'd done to her, didn't want anything to do with him... but unconsciously, she was actually beginning to get used to his company. She was warming up to him, and it just infuriated her even more. Why did this have to happen? Why was she here? And why was she starting to tolerate the man that had single-handedly ruined her entire life? It didn't make any sense. At least she had Hewie here. The big White Shepherd was sitting at Riccardo's feet, looking up hopefully as the man tried desperately to open a can of diced pineapple. It was truly a funny sight, and she would have laughed if she had it in her. Hewie had already gotten used to Riccardo being around, even though he absolutely hated the dog.

Fiona strode over to him, sighing, not quite sure why she was doing this. She took the can and the knife from him, and Riccardo just stared at her. She managed to open it with relative ease, dragging the edge of the knife around the outside of the lid.

"There. It isn't hard, you know," she said, grinning before she could catch herself and handing it back to him.

Riccardo looked furious, but he saw the hint of a smile cross her face and immediately lightened up. "Well, I just need practice. Now... do you want some breakfast?"

Fiona nodded, taking the can from him and that scoop-shaped thing that he'd used as a spoon. This was the first thing she'd had to eat since arriving, the first thing she hadn't rejected. Fiona was still angry at the man, still trying to give him the cold shoulder... but she found that her defenses were weakening. There was just something about him...

"Thank you," she said softly, unsure whether he'd heard her or not.