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“You both have beenlyingto me,” Zia Stella accuses, betrayed eyes flicking back and forth between the two of us. “Is there anything else? What other secrets are you keeping? And not little secrets like stealing liquor from your father or staying out late partying, which . . .shit.”
She rubs her hands over both her temples hard, like her brain hurts from connecting this new revelation with our behavior since coming to live in King City.
Zia Stella’s phone rings again, the only sound in the room other than my strained breathing and Gia’s heart-broken sniffles.
“Nothing has to change,” I try again, but Zia Stella’s sharp eyes cut to me.
“Everythinghas to change.”
Gia gasps and sends me a pleading look that grabs me by the throat and squeezes. Everything is crumbling around us, and there’s absolutely nothing, no sheer force of will, no lie or plea, that I can use to hold the pieces up and keep them off us.
Zia Stella’s phone rings for the third time in a row, and she yanks it out of her back pocket and clicks Accept without looking away from us.
“What?”she yells into the phone, startling both me and Gia. In a more composed tone, she says, “Okay, yes, fine, I’ll be right there.”
She stuffs the phone back in her pocket and levels us both with a hard gaze. “This conversation is not over.
There’s a life-or-death emergency at work, and that’s theonlyreason we’re not dealing with this right now. When I get back, the three of us are sitting down and having a real conversation abouteverythingthat’s going on. What happened, what you did, the implications, and where to go from here. You’re both undeniably grounded and under strict orders not to leave the house until I get back.”
I don’t know how to address any of that. I have no idea what to say to make it better or even where to start.
We’re in very deep shit, and this time there’s nothing I can do to fix it despite Gia looking at me like I can. I can’t take back our argument or Zia Stella overhearing just as much as I can’t take back what happened with Stan in the first place.
“I have work,” I settle on saying, because it’s the easiest thing to address, even though I have no desire to go, not when Zia Stella is freaking out and Gia’s future is at risk.
“I don’t care,” she seethes. “There are consequences to everything, girls, and when I get back, it’s time to deal with yours.”
“But—”
Zia Stella’s phone rings again, and instead of answering me, she answers the call. “Iknow, I’mcoming!”
She doesn’t wait for the person to speak before she hangs up and storms to the door. Gia and I are still standing in the same spot, hearts pounding so hard and loud I’d be surprised if the neighbors across the street didn’t hear them.
Zia Stella’s parting words are a bitter shot. “Maybe Dario was right. You reallyareFlorence’s daughters.”
And then she’s gone, and Gia lets out a sob, wiping her face with her sleeve. My knees give out, and I collapse onto the bed, as if Zia Stella’s outrage was the only thing keeping me standing.
“We are so fucked,” Gia whispers. “I’mso fucked. I’m so fucked it makes all those other times I thought I was fucked look like a fucking tea party.”
No one was ever supposed to find out about this, and the fact that it was Zia Stella, the only adult in our lives who was sort of cool and who I thought kind of cared about us, hurts ten times worse. I never would’ve expected her to blow up like that; it’s so out of character.
“She was so pissed. Do you think she’ll turn me in?
Kick us out?” Gia asks, dropping into the desk chair and putting her feet up on the seat to wrap her arms around her knees, hugging them close. “God, I hope she only kicks us out.”
Not ideal, but preferable to any alternative.
“She was blindsided by something she could never have seen coming in a million years, so she was angry,” I start, my brain turning and processing as I speak. “She’ll have time to calm down and go back to being her normal, levelheaded self. I can reason with her, convince her nothing has to change and no one else has to be told.” I start believing the words as I say them. I know she’ll realize admitting this secret to others will accomplish absolutely nothing. And even if she sends us to military camp or kicks us out, I won’t care as long as Gia is safe.
“I’m not strong like you, Siena,” Gia says into her knees. “I can’t do it; I can’t go through everything you did. I couldn’t even deal with Brandon telling the school aboutyoudoing it; What’s going to happen wheneveryoneknows it wasme?”
Hearing her words, seeing her small body curl in on itself and blindly accept her feebleness, makes me feel helpless and want to take care of everything, yes—but another, surprising emotion comes to the surface first: anger.
I stand, marching over to my little sister and pushing her shoulder to force her out of her curled position. “Stop saying you’re not strong, Gia. Youarestrong, and youwillbe strong, no matter what happens after this.”
She’s not crying, but her eyes are puffy and worried, and her cheeks are flushed. “You don’t know that. You don’t know what’s going to happen.”
“It doesn’t matter what’s going to happen. We are going to get through it;youare going to get through it.”
