Courage (Shayne)

[Mariella Katrine de'Medici]

She didn't really remember much. She'd been woozy (it had been happening lately; she hadn't eaten in a while...), and then she'd fallen. She remembered cracking her head on the steps and then she'd woken up in the hospital. She assumed that it was because she'd fallen down the steps, but...that was a feeding tube she was hooked up to, wasn't it?

What? Why? She was fine! She just hadn't been that hungry lately...

Okay, so even she knew that she wasn't okay, but she was as close to it as she'd ever be to it. She didn't even know how she'd gotten into this hospital room...

She looked around for any indicator of how she'd wound up here for a little while until the door creaked open.

[Shayne Tomas di'Angelo]

Shayne had been worried when she had fallen down, and so he rushed her to the hospital, hoping that she was fine. Shayne had been called out of the room, and the healers explained everything to him. Shayne sighed, before he slowly went back into the room, the door creaking slightly when he entered. She was awake now. At least there was that.

"Mariella. The healers said that you haven't been eating lately. What's wrong?" Shayne asked her walking up and sitting in a chair near where he bed was.

[Mariella Katrine de'Medici]

Wrong...? Nothing was really wrong with her. Why was he asking? She just hadn't...wanted to eat...what was so wrong about that? It didn't really click at that point that she had an eating disorder; she'd just been busy. There was so much to get done, and she wouldn't have time if she stopped working to eat or sleep. She was trying to be hard-working, like Shayne and Marc...

"Nothing's wrong! I'm fine!" she insisted. "I just...got busy, and there stopped being time..."

[Shayne Tomas di'Angelo]

Shayne frowned at her and shook his head with a sigh. He knew that she wanted to help; that she wanted to be like him and Marc, but sometimes things just went too far and she couldn't control it anymore.

"Stopped being time to what? Eat? Mariella, food is important," Shayne insisted, hoping that she would stop this not eating crap and get back to normal healthy Mariella.

[Mariella Katrine de'Medici]

Her face fell, and she looked down at her hands folded in her lap. He'd been worried, hadn't he? She felt bad for that; she didn't want to make him worry. She'd just been trying to help him, and she'd been eating...hadn't she? She didn't remember, anymore. Things had suddenly gotten foggy...

"I..I've been eating," she argued weakly. "I guess I haven't been eating enough, though..."

[Shayne Tomas di'Angelo]

Shayne was really worried about her, just because here she was in the hospital because she hadn't been eating enough. He didn't get why she hadn't been, and just wanted her to get better. If he were to loose her because she didn't eat enough...

"Obviously," Shayne returned, "Mariella, I just want you to be healthy and that means eating all that your body needs."

[Mariella Katrine de'Medici]

"My Momma doesn't," she mumbled. "And she's pretty, right? S-so...what's wrong with doing the same things as Momma?"

She'd never asked for much. She didn't care if everyone else thought that she was pretty; she wanted to look in the mirror and see someone that she thought was pretty. She didn't even care if her Momma kept yelling at her for the rest of her life over what she did and ate and didn't eat. She just wanted to see herself as pretty. That was all... She could deal with the rest of it.

"Carina, you know the issues you have with weight! Don't eat that!"

"Carina! Stop acting like a boy!"

She could put up with all of that and smile as long as her self-image improved. The logical part of her mind knew that she wasn't helping by starving herself, but she wasn't listening to the logical part of her mind.

[Shayne Tomas di'Angelo]

"You're pretty too!" Shayne insisted before quickly adding, "Anyways, how one looks on the outside doesn't matter! All that matters is what is on the inside, Mariella!"

Shayne didn't want her to go to lengths to change herself. Why couldn't she see that they all loved her the way she was? Why did she feel that she had to change herself? Shayne held a very high opinion on Mariella, and of the adjectives he would use to describe her, extremely beautiful, was one of them.

[Mariella Katrine de'Medici]

"I guess," she sighed. "I've just...been under a lot of stress...I'm sorry for making you worry, Shay."

She smiled at him weakly. She knew that he thought highly of her, and she knew that he probably hated to see her like this. She didn't like it very much, either...she just didn't think that anything would ever change. She would go home in a few days and her mother would still be there, and her dad would still be too bush for her. Had they even visited while she was in the hospital? She'd bet money that they hadn't. No time for Carina's silliness, they'd say...yeah. No time. Never any time...

[Shayne Tomas di'Angelo]

"It's really fine, Mariella," Shayne replied with a cute little happy/slightly cocky smile he always had, "I don't like seeing you feel bad like this. Who else am I going to tease?"

Shayne wanted to lighten the mood a bit, but he wasn't good at this. Though, apparently he was a great persuasive speaker, and would do well filling his father's shoes. He was good at reading people, and finding out what they were thinking. But with Mariella, he seemed to loose all those abilities. He didn't understand where she was coming from, even though he knew full well about her family and such. He didn't understand why she wanted to change how she looked so badly when she was perfect just the way she was. Shayne didn't get how she could ever think she wasn't enough, or wasn't pretty enough for someone.