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“But I’m not lying! It w—”
“That’s enough, Gia!” he shouts, then shakes his head with a bitter laugh. “Your sister is so young and innocent, and you’re taking advantage of her. That’s a new low, even for you, Siena.”
This shouldn’t come as a surprise to me, but it still does. I should’ve known Dario would blame me whether Gia admitted to it or not, either saying it was my fault for
“corrupting” her or assuming that I manipulated her into taking the blame for me. He already thinks the worst of me, so really, it’s my fault for thinking Dario wouldn’t use this as an opportunity to make me the villain.
The realization settles over my shoulders like an invisible weight, and I straighten to face what’s about to happen.
“That is awful of me.” My voice sounds flat even to my own ears. “You’re right, it was me who stole your car and crashed it.”
“No, it wasn’t!” Gia tugs on my arm and hisses,
“Siena, what are you doing?”
“Gia, go upstairs so I can deal with your sister,” Dario demands, seemingly five seconds away from exploding.
Gia remains planted beside me, confused. “Siena?”
“It’s all right, really,” I tell her. “Go upstairs.”
She frowns. “But—”
“Now, Gia!” Dario yells, and we both flinch.
I give Gia’s hand a squeeze before gesturing at her to go upstairs. She doesn’t want to, and I love her for that, but we’re fighting a losing battle. Dario’s going to believe what he wants to believe, and there’s no point prolonging the inevitable.
With a heavy sigh, Gia turns and ascends the staircase.
Once she’s gone, Dario asks, “Where the hell is my car?”
“They’re working on it already at Wilson’s Garage in town, and I’ll pay for all the damage. And I’ll pay for a new garage door. I’m really sorry; it will never happen again.”
“You’re damn right it’ll never happen again!” he fumes, the vein in his forehead bulging as he rants. “You were going tostealmy car, Siena. Not only did you not have permission, a license, or insurance, but you don’t even know how to drive! You could’ve hurt someone! You didn’t even make it off the driveway before crashing! Do you know how exceptionally irresponsible and stupid you need to be to crash a car without leaving the driveway?”
I don’t argue with him; I couldn’t even if I wanted to.
“What the hell were you doing stealing my car, anyway? There isn’t a single valid reason on this planet to justify taking my Mercedes. What? Were you missing some party? Did your boyfriend have a free house and tell you to come over? Did whatever punk friends you hang out with score some booze?”
The condescending examples are clearly rhetorical, so I stay silent and lace my fingers together to stop from biting my nails.
He doesn’t need me to answer, because he continues,
“You aresogoddamn lucky my Corvette has been at the shop for the last few months and you didn’t hit that. It’s a 1953! That’s the first year they made Corvettes, Siena, and it’s so expensive you can’t even fathom! You can’t just hit that and expect it to be fixed without jumping through a shit-ton of hoops and spending lots of money!”
He reaches out and clenches his fingers with an angry growl, like he’s trying to restrain himself from strangling me. “You aresofucking irresponsible, Siena. What? The first attention grab where you trashed your room and tried to pass it off as a break-in wasn’t enough? You had to go and wreck my property? Do you even think before you do anything, or do you only care about following whatever impulse crosses your mind and fuck everything and everyone else?”
“I’m really sorry,” I breathe, but he’s not having it.
“And you can’t justreplacethe garage door! You need to redobothof them. It’s not going to match if you just redo one even if you get the exact same one because the sun changed the color, and it devalues the house to have one new garage door and one older one.” He’s pacing now, his face red.
I don’t know what I can say to defuse the situation.
He’s clearly making himself angrier the more he thinks about it, but I don’t think there’s anything I can do to fix it.
“Iknewtaking you in would be a bad idea. I knew you’d been too corrupted, too much like your mother, right down to manipulating your little sister. I couldn’t stand Florence—why did I think I could deal with her literal double, except worse, because now you’remyproblem, and it’smythings you’re ruining.”
My voice comes out shaky when I plead, “I’ll fix everything, I promise.”
