Page 22 of Belong With Me
No. Not at all. Everything is crumbling around me, and no matter what I do, I only make things worse. But at least Jason is still here with me, and I’m not completely alone.
“Yeah,” I lie, and he knows it. Thunder cracks, and I wonder how long until the storm descends in full force.
It feels like it’s already started. “Let’s just get out of here.”
Eight
Gia ignores me for the rest of the weekend, and Monday and Tuesday too. I found out from Zia Stella that Gia made the volleyball team and had practice after school while I went to work. By Wednesday, I’m still getting the silent treatment through the school day when she doesn’t reply to my texts. I don’t have work today, though, so as I walk into the house after Jason drops me off after school, I’m mentally running through what to say to Gia to end her freeze-out.
Flinging open my bedroom door, I pause when it reveals Gia. She jumps around from where she was hunched over my desk, slamming the drawer shut and straightening up with a suspicious look on her face, hands hidden behind her back.
“What are you doing?” I ask, sliding my backpack off my shoulders and dropping it onto the floor.
“What did you and Mom talk about?” she asks instead of answering my question. She hasn’t pressed me for any details since she ran off on Saturday, and I was wondering when she’d get curious enough to break her silent treatment.
“Absolutely nothing,” I say, schooling my features into a cool disinterest like she’s done to hers. I’m not going to tell her about the documentary because it will only freak her out. Any time someone talks about me getting arrested for killing Stan, she clams up and breaks out in a nervous sweat. If she knew people wanted to poke into it, she’d lose it, and she’s finally stopped her spiral.
She raises a disbelieving eyebrow. “Nothing? She was just in town?”
I shrug nonchalantly. “You know Mom doesn’t really think things through. I think she came because she was nosy about what Dario was up to since he left her, and she wanted to brag about some rich boyfriend, Jim, who lives in Malibu. She didn’t ask anything about us or care what we were up to. I barely got a word in.” Not necessarily a lie. Excluding Florence caring about Dario, everything else I said is completely true.
Gia crosses her arms against her chest, not buying it.
“Then why couldn’t I be there? Why didn’t you tell me?”
Nothing I can say will make her not be pissed at me, so I settle with the truth. “I was trying to protect you.”
Gia’s nostrils flare, and she flings her arms out as she exclaims, “I don’tneedyou to protect me. I’m fifteen, Siena! I can make my own decisions; I don’t need you making them for me! You should’ve told me Mom was in town, and I could’ve met with her!”
Throwing her past bad decisions—the school break-in, letting her friends drive drunk, the parties, the attempted fake ID—in her face doesn’t seem like the best choice right now, so I clamp my mouth shut. But the reality is Gia is sensitive and impulsive and sometimes doesn’t think things through. I’m only trying to help.
She shoves her hands through her short hair, and it stands up like she stuck her finger in an electrical socket.
“Just stop thinking you know everything! Stop acting like you’re the only person who can do anything right! Yes, you covered for me with Stan, and yes, you covered for me with Brandon, but at some point, you’re going to have to trust me to deal with things myself.”
“I don’tnottrust you, Gia, I’m only trying to protect you becau—”
The front door swinging open cuts me off, and from downstairs Zia Stella calls, “Gia! We’re going to be late to your appointment!”
“Oh, look, perfect timing,” Gia says, her dark eyes filled with rage. “I knowexactlywhat I want to talk about in my session today.” She marches past me, just narrowly avoiding clipping me with her shoulder. Before she leaves, she turns to deliver a parting shot. “I would’ve toldyouif Mom was in town.”
And then she’s gone, storming down the stairs before slamming the front door. I release a tense breath, letting myself feel like shit. She’s right. She would’ve told me.
Maybe Gia has a point. Maybe I am sheltering her too much. But shefinallystopped drinking and acting recklessly and started taking an interest in school. I’m not going to derail her, even if that means she hates me.
It’s a quiet evening for me. Dario’s working late as usual, and Zia Stella and Gia go shopping after her session. Zia Stella texts me and asks if I want to come with them, then grab pizza after, but I don’t think Gia wants to be around me right now, so I decline. But it’s okay, because I can use the time to myself to unwind and de-stress from everything going on lately. Everything with Brandon, Officer Liu, Mom, and now Gia is a lot to process, and I haven’t had a moment to myself in what feels like forever.
In the past, these are the things I would’ve talked to Anusha about. Maybe I wouldn’t have told her the whole truth, but sometimes just talking things out with her actually helped.
A bitter twinge runs through me at thinking about her. I haven’t talked to her since she betrayed me by suggesting to Dario that I’d benefit from being separated from Gia and shipped off to Dario’s cousin in New York. If she thought that was the solution to everything, then she never truly knew me at all. She was only court-appointed to speak with me for a few weeks after I moved here, so I could settle in, but after that, Dario would have to pay.
Obviously, he doesn’t care, and I don’t want to continue with her, so no more therapy for me.
So, since I don’t have Anusha to talk to, I do my own self-care with a bubble bath. With my phone connected to Gia’s small Bluetooth speaker filling the bathroom with music, I spend so long pampering my skin and hair that by the time I slip out, it’s dark out and I’m all pruney.
I didn’t bother bringing my things into the bathroom with me since I’m home alone, so I wrap a towel around myself and tuck the end in so it stays up by itself, then wrap another around my hair. There’s a face mask in my room that would be a perfect end to my self-care night, so I pad into the hallway to get it, humming along to the music.
Before I get to my room, something makes me pause.