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Psychopaths. That's what those two are.
Gigi sees it.
And if it weren't for T that night, she would have gone to the cops a long time ago.
Guess that's why she does this… Every night, just like this one, she tracks up the creaky wooden stairs of her quiet home that feels almost deserted when everyone else is out. When she reaches the dark dingy hall, she passes some closets and a ‘spare’ room where her dad grows his green babies.
Gigi passes that one by and shoves her way into the room she shares with T.
Bunk beds, same ones from back in sophomore year, up against the wall with the window that never shuts right, so it's extra drafty at night. And that loose floorboard under the bunks, for seven years now, houses that secret never meant to be spoken.
Gigi drops to her knees and rips out a rotten wood board from the floor, a plank with a dark stain that looks so like a painted Egyptian eye, the kind she would see in textbooks at school. It’s the loosest floorboard in the room.
She tosses it aside and peers into the dark space it reveals.
In the dirty nook, with dust and mice droppings, the familiar grey plastic bag winks up at her. The orange light on the ceiling flickers over it.
The bag rustles as she tugs it out and drops it to the floor, and she cringes at the noise, as if to cringe under attack, since that’s what it almost feels like in the dead silence of the home; a secret whispering too loud in the quiet, it feels so much like a shout.
It's why she does this when no one’s home. Especially not Tonya.
Tonya is so far up her ass, she could build a home up there. Is it a sister thing, a twin thing, or is it athat nightthing that makes Tonya feel so entitled to absolutely every thought, feeling, and action from Gigi? At least her mom and dad give her space to breathe. They haven't got much care in what their girls do. So long as they make money. And stay out of jail.
Tonya works at the bar.
Gigi works her training down at Mo’s, the gas station, but she's out back in the car shop learning the trade.
‘Belong, but don’t hide and never owe.’
That's the mantra around here. Means that one should lay strong foundations, a stable job or a family, to build on. Like her dad—the weed business is something that sits on top of an already established foundation. Her mom too. They both work for the sanitation department in the next town over, and she supposes that's how they made their connections down that way. Foundations first, then build. That way no one will be asking where the money comes from.
But tonight, Gigi is home alone... And that's exactly what she needs to get it all out. As always, she needs privacy for this.
Her parents aren't home, but that isn't unusual. Probably down at the biker bar next town over, selling and smoking. Or at some sticks party for… well,him.
Tonya is out. With the girls at Grace’s which is just too fucked up for Gigi's sanity.
Tears burn her eyes. Rage just itching to break out, rip free from her every pore. She tenses, shudders away that kind of adrenaline that makes you cry.
Gigi keeps control—and rips open the plastic bag. A pen falls out, one that she swiped from Carmine awhile back, old pink glitter and a pom pom at the end of it. She has to fish out the black journal from the plastic wrap. Setting it on the floorboards at the knees of her folded legs, she pushes around the numbers on the metal lock until she gets the combo.666. Obvious but symbolic as fuck, at least she thinks so.
All that frustration brushes out of her, into the pen in her grip, and down on the lined page. Tears spill down her tense, grim face. They always do. Gigi is used to it by now.
Seven years of writing it all down, anything to do with that night, she's so used to the angry-or-agony-tears that she doesn't even bother to swat at them anymore.
The pen presses down on the thin paper more and more, some rips along the way. She doesn't stop. She just writes.
Alone, in the dark shack that she calls home, Gigi gets it out; the vigil, his death, her relief, fucking Grace Maxwell, and the disgust she feels at the sleepover looming over her. It's a can of worms. Once she starts—
‘Gigi…’
She stops.
Gigi blinks down at the page, all those wet splotches from her tears, a bunch of tiny rips scattered all over, and a pen’s ballpoint hovering over an unfinished word.
She is still, motionless… waiting… listening.
She could damn well swear she heard someone whisper her name. But there’s only silence broken by the creaks and groans of the old shack.
