AllFreeNovel
Share Us
We’re in the forest area behind one of the bus stops, where the dim light just barely filters in. You can’t see us at all if you’re standing in the lot. Even Jason, standing guard nearby, is swallowed up by the darkness. I stand up, brushing myself off.
Gia turns off her headphones and tucks them away in her backpack, blanketing us in silence. “It’s creepy here,” she finally answers. “I didn’t want to wait out in the open.
I figured it was better to stay hidden.”
“Why didn’t you get on the bus?”
She mumbles her response, not meeting my gaze.
“I read the time wrong,” she admits. “The bus leaves at 9:00 a.m., not 9:00 p.m.”
Of course it does. Why didn’t I stop to think that a bus leaving for LA from here probably wouldn’t leave at night? I was clearly way too panicked to thinkanythingthrough.
“So, you were going to sit here all night?!”
If she says yes to that answer I might start yelling again, so I try to covertly do Anusha’s calming breathing techniques.
She stands and dusts herself off.“No,”she says like I’m asking a stupid question. “The bus was taking forever, so I checked my phone and found out my mistake. I was trying to figure out what to do next when you showed up and scared the shit out of me.”
I’ll save thedon’t wear headphones in creepy places soyou can be completely aware of your surroundingslecture for another time. Right now, I need to convince her to come back to Dario’s and accept that running away to Florence is a bad idea. I could force her to get in the car, even carry her if I have to, but I can’t lock her in her room and stand guard 24/7 to ensure she doesn’t try to run away again. I have to reason with her, get her to decide to stay the hell away from Florence and come home on her own.
“And what did you decide?”
She shrugs. “I didn’t want to ask Bri if I could stay there because, you know . . . Brandon lives there.” She shudders, and I don’t blame her. “Lindsey would’ve let me stay there, but she doesn’t drive, so she can’t come get me, and I used up all the money on my debit Ubering here.”
I take a deep breath, trying to be cautious in my approach. “Gia, you know you can’t go live with Mom, right?”
“I have to go somewhere. Zia Stella is going to tell Dario about Stan, and they’re going to see the car. I’m double fucked, Siena.”
“You don’t know that, Gia.”
“Idoknow that. They’ll punish me, and even if they don’t kick me out, it’s not going to be the same.” Gia looks so young, so vulnerable, when she says, “Zia Stellalikedme, maybe evenlovedme. For the first time ever, an adult cared about me and treated me like family, and now she and Dario are going to look at me like they look atyou.”
Her mouth snaps shut, and her eyes widen. She regrets it the second she says it, but it’s too late—the shot landed.
It’s a punch to the gut despite the painful reality of her words, and I struggle to keep the snide tone out of my voice as I ask, “So, what? You think Mom will magically start loving you now? Pretend like the last few years never happened and she didn’t abandon us?”
“She’s our mom! She’s the one person in the world who’s supposed to love us unconditionally!”
“Yeah? She loves us unconditionally? What makes you think that? The way she made our whole childhood revolve around her? The way she dumped us at her shitty sister’s house? The way she never reached out when I was arrested despite knowing what happened? The way she only pops back into our lives now,years later, when it’s to exploit us for her benefit? She doesn’tcareabout us, Gia, I don’t know how many different ways I have to say it before you open your eyes and see for yourself.”
“But she was here!” Gia exclaims, desperation creeping into her voice. “If she didn’t care, why was she here?
Why can’t you just tell me? Why are you trying to hog Mom all to yourself? Why are you so convinced she hasn’t changed and doesn’t really want us in her life?”
All I wanted to do was protect Gia, but maybe sheltering her from the ugly truth is doing more harm than good. My words are bitter when I say, “Fine, you really want to know, Gia? Mom only came back because she’s trying to convince me to do a deep, exploitative, tell-all documentary about what happened with Stan. She has a connection with some director who promised this would be the comeback she needed and told her how he’d spin the documentary to focus on how she and I are the same kind of fucked-up. She didn’t once mention you, and when I tried bringing you up, she changed the subject back to making her famous. She didn’t ask about you, didn’t ask to see a picture of you, and had no interest in you as a person because she can’t currently exploit you to get famous.”
Even in the dim light, it’s clear that Gia’s face pales more and more with every harsh word out of my mouth.
Her voice is barely above a whisper as she struggles to speak. “A documentary . . . about Stan?”
“Yes, Gia. A documentary. Not only about Stan, but aboutme. A film where I’d be exposed to the world, stripped bare of every secret and every emotion that I’ve hidden for years. Where I would become a public spectacle, my story dissected and analyzed byeveryone.
And when it’s over, there will be no escaping it. I’ll be in the public eye again—as if the first time wasn’t horrible enough—with every reporter and journalist hounding me for a soundbite and everyone judging me more than they already do. People already think they know me from what they’ve heard, from what they know about Mom, and how I’m so much like her. A documentary that explicitly draws parallels between me and her will be just what everyone needs to cement their opinions about me.
And all the while Florence will get her moment of glory and a new blooming career, and I’ll be left to pick up the pieces of my shattered privacy. The documentary will be out there forever, and no one will ever forget about that night with Stan like we want them to.”
Gia stares at me with wide eyes, processing all the information I’ve unloaded on her. She tries and fails to speak a few times before she finally stutters, “S-so . . . if Mom knew the truth . . . then I . . . ?”
