"Umm...what does she have?" Gordo asked, trying to not act pushy and annoying to her brother.
"She doesn't really have anything. She's actually a victim of child abuse by our mother," Dr. Simmons answered.
Gordo was floored, but yet his questions were largely left unanswered.
"Full medical term is Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy," he continued. "I really shouldn't be revealing this to you. You know, doctor confidentiality and all."
"Are you her doctor?" Gordo retorted. "I mean, she sent me to you for an explanation."
"I can make few exceptions, and I guess that I can for you," he said. "Our mom started it with her when she was seven, about the time that I was graduating from medical school. We are actually only half-siblings, I'm from my mom's first marriage. That explains our age difference."
"What is it?" Gordo asked. "Is it mental or physical?"
"Both, I guess. My mom dragged her to every doctor and hospital on the planet, insisting that there was something wrong with her."
"Did they move a lot or something?"
"Well, they did live here in Hilridge, but my mother insisted on moving close to the hospital, so one night she packed everything up and moved, so she wouldn't have to provide an explanation," he answered. "The details about what she did are still being uncovered."
"When did it end?" Gordo asked. "I mean, she must have been near close to death."
"My mom's insistance on her illnesses led to her having actual problems with her health. Erica's father's sister started to suspect that something was wrong, and conducted a thorough investigation. Erica was removed from their care, and placed into police custody. After that she had endure a hospital stay for illnesses that resulted from the abuse," he explained.
"And she's staying with her aunt now, right?" Gordo wanted to know.
"Yeah, my aunt volunteered to be her guardian," he answered. "She's a really strong and smart girl, though, I have to commend her on her strength. She lived through it, which most don't, and she is even going to college."
"Did you know about it?" Gordo asked, sounding a little accusatory. "I'm sorry. It must be hard for you too."
"No, it's okay. I was gone the whole time, with my own family."
"I can't believe this. It's almost too weird to be true," Gordo said, too shocked to comprehend what was happening. "What did you tell her, about an hour ago?"
"Our mom is fighting to regain custody, and apparently, there is enough evidence of Erica's "ailments" that she might win."
Saying that, Dr. Simmons looked extremely angry. Gordo still could not understand why something like that could happen.
"Do you like my sister?" Dr. Simmons asked out of curiosity. "She deserves a bit of happiness."
"Yeah, she does," Gordo answered. "We both do"
Matt pulled his car into his driveway, and turned to Victoria.
"My grandparents are gone for the evening. Do you want to come in?"
Victoria anxiously nodded, and the two strolled into the house.
Both Matt and Victoria were completely floored to see that the house was completely ransacked. Papers were strewn across the floor, every drawer was pulled open, and there were no signs of any breaking or entering.
"Somebody broke into our house," Matt exclaimed.
"No, somebody was looking for something. The major electronics are still here," Victoria answered. "And they had a key."
"I'm going to call the police," Matt stated, reaching for the phone.
Victoria almost slapped his hand.
"Don't touch that! It could have evidence on it," she yelled. "Use your cell phone."
Matt pulled out his cell phone, and reported the crime to the police, who informed him that they would be shortly arriving.
"I can't believe anyone would do this. Honestly," Matt explained to the police when they arrived. "Do you think it had anything to do with...my sister or my mother?"
The police officer looked up from his notepad. That was the first time that he had heard that idea.
"What do you mean?"
"I don't know. That's the only thing that's happened to my family."
After the officer was informed that there were distinct footprints and fingerprints present all over the house, besides the current residents, Matt turned to Victoria.
"I guess that ruined our day," he said apologetically.
"It's alright. I'm glad that I could be here with you."
He kissed the top of her head, and put his arm around her waist.
The officer returned to the couple.
"Alright, we gathered evidence so that we can begin our investigation, but we advise that you stay somewhere else tonight."
He then climbed into his squad car, and speedily drove away.
"Don't worry, you can stay at my house tonight. My parents aren't home either," Victoria assured him. "Donovan had a checkup in Los Angeles."
"What are you trying to implicate?" Matt said mischieviously.
"Nothing. You can sleep in Donovan's room...or on the couch," she joked, adding an icy tone to her voice.
Once getting to her house, the two decided to have a movie-watching marathon. But of course, as the day progressed, they could not pay attention to the movies.
"Who do think it was?" Matt asked Victoria.
"Are you still dwelling on that?" she asked, entwining her arm around his neck. "Let's talk about something more pleasant. Like you. And me."
Matt laughed, but he still could shake his nervous feeling that the robbery was about something better.
"I love you so much," he said, but as much as he wanted to devote his full attention to her, he still could not disregard his other thoughts.
She kissed him on the lips.
"If you want to, I guess we'll have a 'serious discussion,'" Victoria joked, putting her fingers into quotation marks.
"Okay, what do you want to talk about?"
Victoria's face clouded with a sense of seriousness suddenly.
"I've been thinking lately," she said slowly. "And I haven't seen my parents for about one-third of the past month."
"It's just that...I thought this crap would end when Donovan made a full recovery."
Tears were welling up in Victoria's eyes, and Matt could judge from her tone that this was exactly what she wanted to talk about. It was probably bugging her.
"Sometimes I wish that I would be the one with leukemia so my parents would pay attention to me," she said, bursting into sobs. "That sounds horrible."
"No, it really doesn't. I completely understand," Matt comforted her, pulling her into his chest.
"All my life, it was 'sorry, Vic, you can't take gymnastics lessons, because we need that money for chemotherapy,' or 'Donovan has a doctor appointment, we can't come to your recital.' They forgot they had a daughter in the process."
Matt held her face in his hand.
"Your parents love you, I promise," he said, his own eyes tearing up. "Why didn't you tell me about this?"
"I was ashamed. I sound so stupid for saying all of this," she said. "I want a day where I can have them to myself. I haven't had that since...before Donovan got sick."
"This is not stupid. My childhood was sort of the same, except Lizzie just got more attention because she was the perfect child," he explained. "Always perfect. At everything. So I tried to act out so that maybe one day they would focus on something that I did, instead of her."
"And that didn't work out too well, I presume," Victoria asked.
"Well, one day I tried pot, and after that it went too far," Matt said. "Everything was my fault, according to my parents, after that. Their drifting apart was even my fault."
"What happened?" Victoria asked.
"I was determined after rehab, that they would see me like Lizzie. So I tried really hard at soccer. And I was good at it," Matt recounted. "But it didn't work, because then they forgot that they even had children. They were too busy hating each other."
"Listen to us," Victoria said, amusingly. "We sound like two whiny, spoiled brats."
"We are two peas in a pod. Soulmates," Matt replied, laughing at her response.
"Have you thought about...us? Our future?" Victoria asked. "I've been thinking a lot about it lately."
"About what?" Matt asked, confused. Did she want to break up?
"Basically, our home lives suck for different reasons. My parents are gone all the time, partly because my brother was sick, but mostly because they are off at rich people benefits a lot of the time. You're basically an orphan, and you basically live by yourself."
"And?" Matt asked, not knowing at what she was getting at.
"And we spend so much time together. Like pretty much every moment of our waking hours," she explained. "Why don't we...never mind."
She suddenly looked down at her feet, extremely embarassed.
"Why don't we what?"
"I want to marry you, Matt," she exclaimed. "Let's get married, move in together, and make it official what we've known."
Matt was stunned to silence.
"We're only about to be juniors," he finally responded. "We're way too young to deal with that."
"Matt, we have overcome so many obstacles, and we are so mature before our time," Victoria pleaded. "We know that we love each other so much."
"Okay. I can't believe that you, the sane one of us two, is wanting this," Matt stated. "First of all, we don't have money. Your parents would never agree, and what if something happens?"
"Something like what?" Victoria asked.
"High School, maybe. What if...accidently, you get pregnant or something, and we have to throw our dreams away? What if we break up? What if we go broke?"
"First of all, we can work this summer, and save up our money. We don't even have to get our own place, too, because we can live in our guest house. We will be really careful until we graduate and are sure that we want kids, and I'm sure that our relationship is completely safe."
Slowly and unwillingly, Matt was beginning to see the logic in Victoria's idea. He loved her, and everytime he thought of family, he thought of her. Not his stoic grandparents, who still continued to pass judgement on him for his past mistakes.
"I can see it. We spend like, six out of seven nights together a week. We can still live in your house. It'll be perfect," Matt exclaimed, hugging Victoria in his arms.
"Let's do it tonight," Victoria said impulsively. "Let's run off somewhere and elope."
"I think we should clear it with your parents first," Matt replied. "I doubt that they will even consider it."
"They are going to be home tomorrow morning. We can propose it to them then," Victoria practically responded.
