Chapter 5
(A week later)
Dani didn't want to wake up. For the past week she had been bed ridden on Dom and Mia's order to have her ribs heal. This meant that she didn't have to go to school. Missing school was a glorious thing. She didn't want to face her friends with questions. But she did miss one person. Marc Persona. He was 18 and a senior at West High. Very popular amongst the crowd. He played baseball and was the captain of the team as well as being one of the best students and one of the richest. And he was the boyfriend of Dani. Maybe it was worth going back to school. She would get to see him again.
"Dani you up?" Came the familiar wake up voice of Dom outside her door.
"Yeah I'm up, you can enter." Things had been a little rough between her and the team, especially Dom and Mia. She wasn't used to them. She was 13 when she last saw all of them and that was only for a couple hours on her birthday. Now being sixteen it was different. She was practically a young adult. And the team still saw her as a little one. They didn't know how to treat her. And it felt as if Dom and Mia still saw her as the 9 year old they once knew. But she was trying to make it better, no matter what she still loved them. They were her real family, the one that loved her for who she was and not how anyone wanted her to be. And at 16 yrs old that meant a lot.
"You ready for your first day back to school?" He came in. Dani just shrugged her shoulders. "You want me to take you?"
"Yeah sure, seeing as I don't have a car anymore. That would be okay I guess." She smiled.
"Okay, get dressed and come down for breakfast." He kissed her on the forehead and exited the room.
That was the funny part about the house. Dani wasn't used to everyone being there when she got up. Of course before then the team didn't live there. Now they did. It was weird to come down stairs and find them all talking and chattering, especially that early in the morning.
"Good morning sunshine," Mia said as her baby sister came into the room.
"Morning." She smiled and sat down to eat.
"How you feeling today?" Brian asked.
"Pretty good, everything is almost healed." She said taking a bite out of her toast. The bruises on her face were almost nonexistent to the point where putting make up on covered them up. She hated wearing make-up but she also knew the marks on her face would make people stare at her harder.
"You ready Bambino?" Dom asked as Dani nodded and got her things. She kissed her sister and said goodbye to everyone else. Got her things and went out the door with Dom.
The car ride to school was silent. Dani stared out the window in wonderment of nerves of going back to school as Dom stared at the road wandering what was on his little sisters mind. But it wasn't a long ride and before she knew it, Dom pulled up in front of school. Everyone stared at the supped up Dodge Charger that pulled in front of the school. The windows were tinted and no one knew until Dani opened the door who would come out of there.
"Here you are Bambino. What time do I need to pick you up?" Dom looked at her.
"You don't have to; I'll have a ride back. I'll see you at the shop say about 3?" She smiled at her brother.
"Okay, no problem. You have a good day okay?" He smiled back at her.
"Okay," She said stepping out of the car. The car she hated, the one she hadn't gotten the guts to tell Dom about the nightmares of her father dying in it that were brought back from seeing it. Why couldn't he use the Audi, the Euro, the cobra, the jetta? He had to use the charger. Dani smiled at her brother and then closed the door.
"Well, well, well. If it isn't the trailer trash we thought we had thrown out yesterday." Kayla Mcprerry. Ex of Marc and still mad that a poor foster child like herself had taken him away from her.
"Well if it isn't the hoe I saw on the street corner last night." Dani smiled at her come back. She wasn't afraid of Kayla.
"So word is you live with your brother and sister now." Marci, best friend of Kayla's, remarked.
"And this is any of your business because?" Dani rolled her eyes.
"Who says Marc is going to like your Italian ass anymore now that you live on the other side of the track?" Kayla was getting proud of herself.
"And who says he gives a shit? Hell, I don't even know why I am wasting my time talking to you." She said walking past them up the concrete steps to the high school.
"By the way Dani, love those purple marks on your face. Did you fall down and go boom?" Kayla laughed.
Dani ignored her. As she had for the past seven years. She didn't care what everyone else thought. But deep down she prayed that Marc would still accept her. Though she wanted to trust him with her life, she didn't know how all of everything had affected him. She had never told him she had been abused. And the fact that she didn't want him to see her in the hospital when he stopped by, she hoped he knew it was because of the embarrassment of her bruises and him seeing her like that rather then her not wanting him there at all.
Dani walked into the office and talked to Mrs. Snow who gave her everything she had to make up and told her that the teachers wrote a note saying to take her time and not rush. Dani always liked the secretary. When she would go into the office for getting into trouble she always smiled at her and shook her head as in saying "so what happened this time".
She thanked her and then walked out into the hall. Right there in the doorway, he was standing there. They stared at one another for a while. "Please, please smile or something" She said to herself.
"Hey you," Marc finally grinned.
Dani smiled back. They embraced and then started walking down the hall together.
"Marc," she said.
"Yes?"
"Please don't be mad at me about the hospital and not getting a hold of you for the past week. It has been hectic, I moved back in with my brother and sister, I was in the hospital, I was healing, I've been trying to make things normal back at home……" she babbled.
"Whoa, babe. Slow down." Mark laid a hand on her shoulder. "Everything is fine. You have no explaining to do. Look I gotta get to class. We'll talk more at lunch okay?"
Dani nodded at that and Marc kissed her on the lips before leaving. Whoa, what a relief she thought. Things are going to be okay now. She could finally breathe.
It felt as though lunch would never come around. Classes were a bore as usual. The teachers were all nice and greeted Dani with friendly smiles and welcome back's. Yep it was great to be back in school, not. The truth was she hated school. But she knew she had to do it. That was at least one thing her brother would kill her for and be disappointed in if she didn't finish high school.
The lunchroom was crowded, but it didn't take long for her to find Marc. He sat with the usual baseball crowd and the rich boys, because he himself was one, and the rich girls, who in the high school were the popular ones.
"Hey you," Marc quickly kissed her as she sat down beside him.
"Hey," Dani greeted back with a smile. The whole table greeted her and welcomed her back. Wow, nothing did change. She was impressed.
"So Dani, I heard that Charger out front belonged to you this morning." Eric, Marc's best friend, said.
"It's my brother's. I don't have a car anymore so he drove me here this morning." She smiled.
"You need a ride home?" It wasn't exactly a question it was a reassurance from Marc. And he was happy when she nodded.
"So that is where you get the racing blood in you." One of the other kids said.
"Well it doesn't look like she is racing anywhere without her beamer." Kayla joined in. Kayla was a street racer herself. In fact she had a lot of Letty's personality, but Letty wasn't bitch to everyone like Kayla was.
"I'll get a car," Dani looked at her. "And this time it won't be the rich bastards paying for it." She continued referring to the Cohan's.
"Easy there Dani," Marc whispered in her ear. "Don't let her get to you."
"Oh stop it Marc, I'm only speaking the truth. I mean how is a girl from the opposite side of the tracks going to keep up with me? Or any of us? From what I have heard, her brother and his little team doesn't race illegally anymore. Ever since they almost killed the Tran cousins and stole many of things they aren't too popular with the rest of the racing crowd now and days. Now how is Dominic Torretto going to handle his baby sister going into the streets with some invisible car racing against me and Chris?" Chris, the other Tran cousin. Johnny's younger brother who just graduated high school the year before. The boy who Dani never got a long with in the first place because their brother's hated one another. And now even worse because Brian and Dom almost killed Johnny and his cousin.
Dani got up at that moment and walked out of the lunchroom. Marc followed after her. She hated hearing her family be dragged down in front of everyone, especially when it made them all uncomfortable to hear about her family's wrongs. They never thought she would go back to them. So it wasn't a big deal. And now she could see that it was a matter considering she was living with them now and it was brought up. Some of Marc's friends hung out with the Tran's. Dani had to see Chris everyday almost before he graduated. The Tran's only lived 2 or 3 houses down from her foster parents'. She couldn't take this. No one was going to see her the same again. And the worst part of it was that it was stupid. Why should anyone care who her family was? She wouldn't trade Dom or Mia or the team, for that fact, for anything in the world. She had to get out of there.
"Nice going Kayla," Eric gave her a dirty look.
"Kayla's got a point." Barry one of Marc other friends said.
"What? You can't be serious." Eric looked at them who held their heads down. "Why does it matter if the girl lives in a shack? Dani is the same person we have known for years, and now just because she is back with her brother and sister it is a bad thing?"
"Her brother and their little team almost killed the Tran cousin's." Kayla argued. She had a thing for Chris.
"Well the Tran's almost killed one of them, from what I recall. Just for a stupid car." Eric announced.
"The Torettos are thieves!" Barry said.
"And you all aren't? You steal your parent's money all the time just by being spoiled. You wreck your cars and get brand new ones the next day, get off easy with the cops, can get away with anything, and that isn't steeling? Or is that just having the money? Jesus. I need to look again at you all and realize that I'm not going to be here next year, and personally not give a fuck about what you think." He got up and walked out of the lunchroom as well.
"He's got a point," Derrick, the wannabe rich kid, who was rich but a lackey said.
"Shut up Derrick," Kayla looked meanly at him and he obeyed.
"Dani! Hey wait up!" Marc called after her as she started walking out the front doors of the school.
"What?" She finally turned around.
"Have you actually let them drag you down? The wonderful girl I knew would never let anyone do so. Or did your foster parents beating the hell out of you take your pride away?" He knew he shouldn't have said it but it slipped.
"How dare you! That isn't any of your business!" She screamed back.
"Being your boyfriend for a year and me not knowing that for the last 3 months you had been abused is a problem. Why couldn't you have the trust in me?"
"I don't trust anyone!" She returned. "I'm still trying to trust my own brother and sister. How could I trust you? You don't know what it has been like going from foster home to foster home, getting sent to people after people. Not knowing if one day you'll ever get to see your family again. And then moving into a home with people who beat you and are mean to you just because they can be and you end up in the hospital because you put a small scratch in his Lexus while washing it. YOU-DON'T-KNOW!" She finished her speech crying. "And then just when you think it is going okay someone pushes you down just because of where your family comes from."
"You're right I don't know." He wanted to hold her so bad, but he was afraid she would push him away. "But I'm willing to try to understand. I want to meet your family. I have nothing wrong with anything. I don't care where you came from. I don't care about your family's bad past. All I care about is you." He stepped forward and held his hand out to her. She looked at it confused. It meant that he wanted her to trust him. To rely on him, and that was a big step forward. But they had made it this far, could she go a step farther? "Go for it." A voice told her.
Marc was glad to feel her little hand in his. He knew what a big step this was. And holding her while she cried and knowing it was him soothing her pain made him feel even better.
(A week later)
Dani didn't want to wake up. For the past week she had been bed ridden on Dom and Mia's order to have her ribs heal. This meant that she didn't have to go to school. Missing school was a glorious thing. She didn't want to face her friends with questions. But she did miss one person. Marc Persona. He was 18 and a senior at West High. Very popular amongst the crowd. He played baseball and was the captain of the team as well as being one of the best students and one of the richest. And he was the boyfriend of Dani. Maybe it was worth going back to school. She would get to see him again.
"Dani you up?" Came the familiar wake up voice of Dom outside her door.
"Yeah I'm up, you can enter." Things had been a little rough between her and the team, especially Dom and Mia. She wasn't used to them. She was 13 when she last saw all of them and that was only for a couple hours on her birthday. Now being sixteen it was different. She was practically a young adult. And the team still saw her as a little one. They didn't know how to treat her. And it felt as if Dom and Mia still saw her as the 9 year old they once knew. But she was trying to make it better, no matter what she still loved them. They were her real family, the one that loved her for who she was and not how anyone wanted her to be. And at 16 yrs old that meant a lot.
"You ready for your first day back to school?" He came in. Dani just shrugged her shoulders. "You want me to take you?"
"Yeah sure, seeing as I don't have a car anymore. That would be okay I guess." She smiled.
"Okay, get dressed and come down for breakfast." He kissed her on the forehead and exited the room.
That was the funny part about the house. Dani wasn't used to everyone being there when she got up. Of course before then the team didn't live there. Now they did. It was weird to come down stairs and find them all talking and chattering, especially that early in the morning.
"Good morning sunshine," Mia said as her baby sister came into the room.
"Morning." She smiled and sat down to eat.
"How you feeling today?" Brian asked.
"Pretty good, everything is almost healed." She said taking a bite out of her toast. The bruises on her face were almost nonexistent to the point where putting make up on covered them up. She hated wearing make-up but she also knew the marks on her face would make people stare at her harder.
"You ready Bambino?" Dom asked as Dani nodded and got her things. She kissed her sister and said goodbye to everyone else. Got her things and went out the door with Dom.
The car ride to school was silent. Dani stared out the window in wonderment of nerves of going back to school as Dom stared at the road wandering what was on his little sisters mind. But it wasn't a long ride and before she knew it, Dom pulled up in front of school. Everyone stared at the supped up Dodge Charger that pulled in front of the school. The windows were tinted and no one knew until Dani opened the door who would come out of there.
"Here you are Bambino. What time do I need to pick you up?" Dom looked at her.
"You don't have to; I'll have a ride back. I'll see you at the shop say about 3?" She smiled at her brother.
"Okay, no problem. You have a good day okay?" He smiled back at her.
"Okay," She said stepping out of the car. The car she hated, the one she hadn't gotten the guts to tell Dom about the nightmares of her father dying in it that were brought back from seeing it. Why couldn't he use the Audi, the Euro, the cobra, the jetta? He had to use the charger. Dani smiled at her brother and then closed the door.
"Well, well, well. If it isn't the trailer trash we thought we had thrown out yesterday." Kayla Mcprerry. Ex of Marc and still mad that a poor foster child like herself had taken him away from her.
"Well if it isn't the hoe I saw on the street corner last night." Dani smiled at her come back. She wasn't afraid of Kayla.
"So word is you live with your brother and sister now." Marci, best friend of Kayla's, remarked.
"And this is any of your business because?" Dani rolled her eyes.
"Who says Marc is going to like your Italian ass anymore now that you live on the other side of the track?" Kayla was getting proud of herself.
"And who says he gives a shit? Hell, I don't even know why I am wasting my time talking to you." She said walking past them up the concrete steps to the high school.
"By the way Dani, love those purple marks on your face. Did you fall down and go boom?" Kayla laughed.
Dani ignored her. As she had for the past seven years. She didn't care what everyone else thought. But deep down she prayed that Marc would still accept her. Though she wanted to trust him with her life, she didn't know how all of everything had affected him. She had never told him she had been abused. And the fact that she didn't want him to see her in the hospital when he stopped by, she hoped he knew it was because of the embarrassment of her bruises and him seeing her like that rather then her not wanting him there at all.
Dani walked into the office and talked to Mrs. Snow who gave her everything she had to make up and told her that the teachers wrote a note saying to take her time and not rush. Dani always liked the secretary. When she would go into the office for getting into trouble she always smiled at her and shook her head as in saying "so what happened this time".
She thanked her and then walked out into the hall. Right there in the doorway, he was standing there. They stared at one another for a while. "Please, please smile or something" She said to herself.
"Hey you," Marc finally grinned.
Dani smiled back. They embraced and then started walking down the hall together.
"Marc," she said.
"Yes?"
"Please don't be mad at me about the hospital and not getting a hold of you for the past week. It has been hectic, I moved back in with my brother and sister, I was in the hospital, I was healing, I've been trying to make things normal back at home……" she babbled.
"Whoa, babe. Slow down." Mark laid a hand on her shoulder. "Everything is fine. You have no explaining to do. Look I gotta get to class. We'll talk more at lunch okay?"
Dani nodded at that and Marc kissed her on the lips before leaving. Whoa, what a relief she thought. Things are going to be okay now. She could finally breathe.
It felt as though lunch would never come around. Classes were a bore as usual. The teachers were all nice and greeted Dani with friendly smiles and welcome back's. Yep it was great to be back in school, not. The truth was she hated school. But she knew she had to do it. That was at least one thing her brother would kill her for and be disappointed in if she didn't finish high school.
The lunchroom was crowded, but it didn't take long for her to find Marc. He sat with the usual baseball crowd and the rich boys, because he himself was one, and the rich girls, who in the high school were the popular ones.
"Hey you," Marc quickly kissed her as she sat down beside him.
"Hey," Dani greeted back with a smile. The whole table greeted her and welcomed her back. Wow, nothing did change. She was impressed.
"So Dani, I heard that Charger out front belonged to you this morning." Eric, Marc's best friend, said.
"It's my brother's. I don't have a car anymore so he drove me here this morning." She smiled.
"You need a ride home?" It wasn't exactly a question it was a reassurance from Marc. And he was happy when she nodded.
"So that is where you get the racing blood in you." One of the other kids said.
"Well it doesn't look like she is racing anywhere without her beamer." Kayla joined in. Kayla was a street racer herself. In fact she had a lot of Letty's personality, but Letty wasn't bitch to everyone like Kayla was.
"I'll get a car," Dani looked at her. "And this time it won't be the rich bastards paying for it." She continued referring to the Cohan's.
"Easy there Dani," Marc whispered in her ear. "Don't let her get to you."
"Oh stop it Marc, I'm only speaking the truth. I mean how is a girl from the opposite side of the tracks going to keep up with me? Or any of us? From what I have heard, her brother and his little team doesn't race illegally anymore. Ever since they almost killed the Tran cousins and stole many of things they aren't too popular with the rest of the racing crowd now and days. Now how is Dominic Torretto going to handle his baby sister going into the streets with some invisible car racing against me and Chris?" Chris, the other Tran cousin. Johnny's younger brother who just graduated high school the year before. The boy who Dani never got a long with in the first place because their brother's hated one another. And now even worse because Brian and Dom almost killed Johnny and his cousin.
Dani got up at that moment and walked out of the lunchroom. Marc followed after her. She hated hearing her family be dragged down in front of everyone, especially when it made them all uncomfortable to hear about her family's wrongs. They never thought she would go back to them. So it wasn't a big deal. And now she could see that it was a matter considering she was living with them now and it was brought up. Some of Marc's friends hung out with the Tran's. Dani had to see Chris everyday almost before he graduated. The Tran's only lived 2 or 3 houses down from her foster parents'. She couldn't take this. No one was going to see her the same again. And the worst part of it was that it was stupid. Why should anyone care who her family was? She wouldn't trade Dom or Mia or the team, for that fact, for anything in the world. She had to get out of there.
"Nice going Kayla," Eric gave her a dirty look.
"Kayla's got a point." Barry one of Marc other friends said.
"What? You can't be serious." Eric looked at them who held their heads down. "Why does it matter if the girl lives in a shack? Dani is the same person we have known for years, and now just because she is back with her brother and sister it is a bad thing?"
"Her brother and their little team almost killed the Tran cousin's." Kayla argued. She had a thing for Chris.
"Well the Tran's almost killed one of them, from what I recall. Just for a stupid car." Eric announced.
"The Torettos are thieves!" Barry said.
"And you all aren't? You steal your parent's money all the time just by being spoiled. You wreck your cars and get brand new ones the next day, get off easy with the cops, can get away with anything, and that isn't steeling? Or is that just having the money? Jesus. I need to look again at you all and realize that I'm not going to be here next year, and personally not give a fuck about what you think." He got up and walked out of the lunchroom as well.
"He's got a point," Derrick, the wannabe rich kid, who was rich but a lackey said.
"Shut up Derrick," Kayla looked meanly at him and he obeyed.
"Dani! Hey wait up!" Marc called after her as she started walking out the front doors of the school.
"What?" She finally turned around.
"Have you actually let them drag you down? The wonderful girl I knew would never let anyone do so. Or did your foster parents beating the hell out of you take your pride away?" He knew he shouldn't have said it but it slipped.
"How dare you! That isn't any of your business!" She screamed back.
"Being your boyfriend for a year and me not knowing that for the last 3 months you had been abused is a problem. Why couldn't you have the trust in me?"
"I don't trust anyone!" She returned. "I'm still trying to trust my own brother and sister. How could I trust you? You don't know what it has been like going from foster home to foster home, getting sent to people after people. Not knowing if one day you'll ever get to see your family again. And then moving into a home with people who beat you and are mean to you just because they can be and you end up in the hospital because you put a small scratch in his Lexus while washing it. YOU-DON'T-KNOW!" She finished her speech crying. "And then just when you think it is going okay someone pushes you down just because of where your family comes from."
"You're right I don't know." He wanted to hold her so bad, but he was afraid she would push him away. "But I'm willing to try to understand. I want to meet your family. I have nothing wrong with anything. I don't care where you came from. I don't care about your family's bad past. All I care about is you." He stepped forward and held his hand out to her. She looked at it confused. It meant that he wanted her to trust him. To rely on him, and that was a big step forward. But they had made it this far, could she go a step farther? "Go for it." A voice told her.
Marc was glad to feel her little hand in his. He knew what a big step this was. And holding her while she cried and knowing it was him soothing her pain made him feel even better.
