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And here we go again.
“Different upbringings,” I muttered.
“Yes. Maybe. Aaliyah mentioned she grew up in situations like yours, too, though and—”
“Don’t be ignorant.”
“I’m sorry, what?”
“If you were comparing Aaliyah and me growing up in the foster system and the idea that you think all foster individuals grew up alike, then you’re ignorant.”
“I didn’t even know Aaliyah grew up in foster care. Maybe if you actually let me finish my thought, you would’ve seen what I was getting at.”
“What were you going to say?”
“Forget it. It doesn’t matter.”
I grumbled and didn’t push the subject.
We stood on the curbside, waiting for Aaliyah and Connor to join us. The silence was loud, but I didn’t have the nerve to speak up and offer Stella an apology for assuming what her thoughts had been.
“Do you always have this up?” she asked, staring down the street but speaking to me.
“Have what up?”
“Your shield.”
“Shield?”
“To keep people out.”
I shifted in my shoes and crossed my arms, not answering her.
Even though the answer was a solid yes.
She released a weighted sigh and turned to me. “Listen, I know you aren’t happy with this whole arrangement, and trust me, I’m not either. But if we are going to make this work over these next few months, we have to be able to communicate with one another.”
“I disagree. What we need to do is stay out of one another’s way. I don’t do the whole people thing.”
“Well, it turns out that we are complete opposites. I’m a people person.”
“That’s fine. Just don’t people with this person,” I coldly replied. “Besides, you’re not a people person, you’re a people pleaser, and that’s not the same thing.”
She laughed. “You don’t even know me, yet you’re already trying to define who I am.”
“It doesn’t take much to notice that fact about you. You bend over backward simply to get people’s approval. That’s why you care so much that I don’t like you.”
“I don’t care at all that you don’t like me,” she replied. Shifting in her shoes, she rolled her shoulders back. “Why don’t you like me, though?” she questioned, proving my exact point.
I snickered.
She frowned.
I wasn’t used to her frown. It seemed sadder than most. Maybe because she didn’t do it very often.
“Screw you, Beast.”
“With or without the lights on, Cinderstella?”
