Page 98 of Belong With Me
And with that, I stab the End Call button, relief flooding through me. I’ve closed the door on Florence, and with it any hope that maybe things can be different, but I don’t regret it.
There’s a creak in the floor, and I turn to find Gia standing in the doorway. She has her own room across the hall from mine, but I thought she was out for lunch with her friends.
“How much of that did you hear?” I ask.
She gives a sad shrug. “All of it.”
“I’m sorry, Gia. I know how much Mom meant to you.”
Gia crosses the room, sitting with me on my new bed.
Something about her seems different, more mature. Maybe because of what we’ve been through these last few days, I’m imagining it, or maybe she’s actually holding herself differently. Either way, looking at her now, I’m reminded that she’s not my eight-year-old little sister who looks up at me with her pleading big brown eyes to ask me to open water bottles for her or play checkers with her.
“You know,” Gia starts, picking at the fleece of my bedspread, “I don’t think it was even really about Mom specifically. I was projecting my hopes onto her even though I knew she’d never be what I wanted.”
“What did you want?”
Gia’s smile is sad and wistful. “I just wanted a mom.
A dad. A parent. Someone. And yeah, I’ve always had you, but it’s different. Yes, you’re great, and you always have my back, obviously, but you’re still a kid too, and no offense, but you’re just as fucked-up as me; you’re in no place to be my parent when you’re trying to get your own shit together.”
We both laugh at that.
“You’re right. I did my best, but I had no idea what I was doing. I was barely holding it together as it was.”
“I know,” Gia jokes even though she’s not really joking, and we laugh again. It feels good to talk about this with her from a different perspective now that it’s all over.
Sobering up, Gia lays her head on my shoulder. “You did pretty great regardless.”
My throat is tight when I say, “Thanks, Gia.”
She clears her own throat and removes her head from my shoulder. “But now you don’t need to worry about me, and you can focus on figuring out your own shit.”
“I’ll always worry about you, you’re my little sister.”
“Okay, fine, but now you can worry about melessbecause we have Zia Stella, and she’s kind of awesome.”
It’s safe to say she’s more than awesome. Shewantsus.
Shecaresabout us.
“She really is, isn’t she?”
Gia takes in my new room, a blank slate to decorate however I want, with my own en suite and corkboard to fill with new memories. She puts her head back on my shoulder, settling in for a comforting moment.
As I place my arm around her, she says, “We’re going to be okay here—better than okay, even if the Stan stuff doesn’t blow over anytime soon. We have each other and Zia Stella, and we can handle whatever else gets thrown at us, together.”
“Together,” I vow.
Twenty-seven
The smooth hum of Jason’s car is a sound I never thought I’d miss, but sitting in it now, in the passenger seat on a rainy Sunday evening, I realize just how much I’ve come to love it. Jason was completely overjoyed when he got it back, pulling up in Zia Stella’s—my—driveway with a hugelook at this!smile. After spending Saturday settling in and today furniture shopping with Zia Stella and Gia for our rooms, I’m excited to go out to dinner with Jason, myboyfriend. I still can’t believe I have a boyfriend, especially a boyfriend who’sJason. I pinch myself in case he disappears, but he doesn’t. He’s still sitting there with those high cheekbones, straight nose, and strong jaw.
“Do you always stare at your boyfriends, or just me?”
Jason teases, barely needing to look away from the road to catch me in the act.
I give him a playful shove. “If your boyfriend was as handsome as mine, you’d stare at him too.”