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ChapterNineteen
Ariana held the gate open for her friends. Rita marched through, but Bella didn’t budge.
“Come on.” Rita waved her over.
Bella shook her head. “I’m not going to your house.”
“We need to talk.”
“Then we do that here. At Ariana’s house.”
Rita threw Ariana a pleading look.
“I’m not changing my mind.” Bella crossed her arms.
“Why are you doing this?” Rita exclaimed.
“Me? You’re the one trying to control me! I refuse to trade one prison for another. If I wanted to keep living under someone’s thumb, I’d have stayed at home. But I’m done living that life! I’ve wasted too much time being a good little girl who obeyed every ridiculous rule foisted upon her. But I don’t have to be, and I’m not going to be! You escaped that life. Why would you want any less for me? You’re trying to take my freedom, too, just in a different way than Father and Neil.”
A flash of lightning lit the sky. A few moments later, thunder rumbled so loudly Ariana felt it.
The downpour began.
Neither Rita nor Bella had on coats.
“Let’s go inside!” Ariana gestured toward her house.
“Okay.” Bella marched toward the house.
Rita glared at Ari before following her sister.
Ariana closed and latched the gate, then hurried inside just as the sky lit up again. A crack of thunder shook the house just as she closed the door.
Hammering from the garage sounded over the peppy Halloween music.
“Where to?” Rita asked.
“Upstairs.” Ariana hung her jacket on a hook. Water dripped onto the floor. “You two need dry clothes. Take whatever you can find from Bella’s room. I’ll be up as soon as I clean up this puddle.”
This sisters bickered as they climbed the steps.
Ariana grabbed some hand towels from the kitchen and sopped up the mess.
One of her neighbors came from the living room and asked about some decorations. Ari pointed her in the right direction then made her way upstairs.
Rita and Bella had changed into dry clothes and pulled back their drenched hair.
“I have nothing more to say.” Bella plopped onto her bed.
“We need to talk.” Rita sat next to her.
“Not if you won’t treat me like an adult.”
Ariana started to say something, but Rita spoke first.
“You don’t understand what it’s like on the outside. Living with our parents—”
“I’d be able to find out if you’d stop acting like them!” Bella’s nostrils flared.
