Natasia didn't know how to tell her uncle what'd happened the day before, so she completely ditched that. He was passed out on the floor anyway.

Natasia couldn't help but wonder how.

How could he have gotten his hands on alcohol even after she'd cleaned the house of them?

She sighed, forcing her feet upstairs to her room. Natasia pulled out a bag from under her bed and opened her dressers. She didn't have many things to pack, she'd realized. The almost empty perfume bottle stared back, and Natasia felt her heart sink.

Tired, that's what she was. Everything felt unbearable again, and she was dizzy, hungry, and everything in between and desperately wanted to eat. She threw a bunch of her clothes on her bed, still barely able to carry herself.

There were so many things she needed to sort out, within a time limit, which was an hour. How was Natasia going to pack everything up within an hour?

It's not like you own a bunch of things anyway, headass.

Natasia wanted to cry, it was overwhelming for her to think about everything. Living in his house, with him, cooking his meals, cleaning his house, and whatnot. It was worse because he made her nervous. The pay was good, she told herself. Natasia would work the first year and then she would've earned enough to pay for everything and she would leave.

And then do what?

Her uncle interrupted her thoughts. "Natasia?"

"Yes?"

It sounded relieving to hear his sober voice again. A coolness swept through her when she met his eyes- warm and sweet after a long time. As if her uncle had finally met her eyes again after eight, long years. "I bought food."

"You did?" her voice was laced with disbelief. Her uncle frowned, shaking a paper bag in front of him, and Natasia quickly caught on. They were french fries from their favourite shop. "Where did you get the money?"

"I had some left over," he shrugged, as he tossed her the bag. "Enjoy, I'll be downstairs."

"Have some before you go?" Natasia opened the bag and motioned for him to take a few, but he declined and left the room, and she wondered how that interaction happened. He was a different person those two minutes he stood in her room.

And just yesterday, he smashed a glass bottle on the tabletop and left cuts on her arms because she'd cleared all the alcohol from the house. She flinched at the memory, and then looked down at the warm food in her hands, and everything seemed too good to be true.

She didn't know how she was going to bring herself to tell him that she was leaving.

*

Natasia didn't pack much. Just her two pairs of shoes, a few of her dresses that weren't already rags, her toilette bag and her mango-scented perfume that was almost about to run out. She only had fifty dollars in her pocket, and she stuffed that somewhere, closed the suitcase, and struggled for a moment to get it down the stairs but somehow rested it on the floor with a thump. She wasn't sure where her uncle was. "Uncle?"

"Uncle Giovanni?" she called again, louder, but her breathing was shaky, and her voice remained meek. "Are you there?"

She didn't believe that he was capable of leaving the house without telling her. He never did anything like that and she didn't think today would be an exception. Natasia's stomach began to churn, as did her heartbeat, painful against her ribs.

And then she hit his arm.

Her foot hit his fucking arm because he was passed out on the floor and his skin was pale and white and his lips, his fingertips were tinted blue and she couldn't figure out what the fuck was happening and she screamed. That was when the tears started to fall.

When her eyes found the needle sticking out of his leg. It was heroin again. It had to be, and he was either dead or on the brink of death.

Natasia felt weak to her toes but she ran, she swallowed her tears and she ran outside where she found Mr. Romanos standing beside his car, and she ran to him, her face wet with tears and shivering and shaking, breathing heavily, and barely being able to speak. She was panicking.

For once in her life, she didn't know what to do. Her nails dug into his coat, and she was trembling, crying hysterically and struggling with her language. He tilted her face up, her eyes up to him.

"Talk." his eyes searched hers, brimming with uncertainty. Natasia couldn't stop sobbing, and she was trying to best to. That made her feel worse about herself. She forced her gaze away. "Nasia. Look at me."

And she did, she looked up at him and his hand found its way to her face, and he cupped it, wiping away her tears with his thumb, and she was still freaking out and crying, and breathing heavily and he held her hand to his heart, close to his chest. Her eyes shut and he began to whisper beside her ear.

His embrace was comforting, and solid and he smelled like tobacco and patchouli and whiskey and she felt like she was melting in his arms as she pooled down to tears.

"What happened?" he'd asked again, a soft whisper beside her ear and she choked up again, meeting his eyes.

She couldn't stop stuttering, but she tried regardless. "He's- dead- he- he looks p-pale-,"

He pulled away, searching her eyes one last time before he told her to show him where he was, and when he came across the man, he wasn't sure what to say, because when he reached down for the man's wrist, there wasn't a pulse.

His chest compressions didn't work either. That meant her uncle was dead.

In a way, Natasia should've been relieved because he had done nothing to help her for the past few years. She was left to take care of him alone, with little to no financial contribution, and she was working and studying at the same time. She maintained her grades, graduated, she applied for colleges, and drove herself into more debt.

But she was here now, living. Now he was laying there, his lifeless body was, dead, just when she thought things were getting better. That he was starting to live normally again, or that he was going to start trying.

Her heart broke a little, knowing that this must have been the way her parents passed away too. With heroin and drugs in their system.

He placed a comforting hand on her shoulder, pat her back, but she wanted to curl up in someone's arms and cry. Where did all her friends go, she wondered. Where were they?

Because now she was crying alone with another unknown man standing behind her as she melted away.