Gia never fought back when Victoria took her stuff, never even complained. She’d just move on to something else, no fuss. I watched for weeks, months, as my little girl totally dominated this kid and realized that we were different people, the Fontane mother and child, and my daughter and I.
Then Victoria started comparing and complaining. She’d taken very well to our new lifestyle. As part of my stipend, the school had given us a new apartment just off campus that was worlds better than the one we left, and Victoria was allowed to attend classes there as well, where she got to rub elbows with the children of the wealthy.
My kid is just like me; she wanted more. She didn’t want to keep returning to our little apartment while her new friends went home to castles. She especially envied Gia, and it was all Adrienne’s fault. Why did she have to be so hands-on with her kid? Why did she have to make their lives seem so picture perfect? She should’ve known what that would do to a child.
So, it’s not my fault; no one can blame me for wanting more for my daughter and me. But this is not the way I’d seen things playing out, though. We’d been cruising along smoothly for so long, everything going my way, and it was almost time for the girls to be out of the house. I figured in a year, or so when the girls went off to college, it would be time for me to really start living. I’d find a way to make these women accept me and get to enjoy the life I’d envisioned. They can’t hold the fact that I married my friend’s husband just months after her death against me forever.
That ass Jimmy would still have a decade or more left to go behind bars, and besides, I’d covered my tracks well enough that he’d never find me. With Victoria rubbing elbows with the sons of the richest and most influential people in the world, our futures would’ve been set whether I decided to stay with Felix or upgrade my status somewhere down the line. But now it’s all falling apart. Why now when I was so close?
It’s all that little bitch’s fault, the lies she must be telling. I didn’t do enough to suppress her, it seems. How else would she have been able to get away from me this easily? The little bitch is just like her mother, I could never break Adrienne either, so I never tried, but the daughter was a mere child. I should’ve been able to squash her like a bug beneath my feet by now.
Maybe I went about things the wrong way. Maybe I should’ve embraced her, pretended more, but she always seemed to see right through me when I tried. How could I live like that in my own home? If I’d relented even a little bit, she’d have ruled over my daughter and me. I couldn’t let that happen.
For a while, things were going well; if she wasn’t exactly under my thumb, she still cowered before Victoria and me, still showed the right amount of fear. Was it all an act? Had she just been biding her time? No, it can’t be. She didn’t have any strength until the Russo boy came along.
How did she get his attention anyway? When Victoria had been trying for years without any luck. And why is he acting so out of character for Gia? From what I know, that boy has always been aloof, detached. All the mothers around here would bend over backward to get him to notice their daughters without prevail. So how did he come to be the champion of that little mouse?
I looked at my irate daughter, more than a little pissed at her as well. “Why couldn’t you stay away from her at school? I told you not to do anything to her away from the house, especially not where others may see you.”
“What’s the point of bringing that up now? What’re we going to do about my car? It’s bad enough I never got the car I wanted, now the one I got is destroyed. It’s not even been a year yet.”
“The car you wanted was left to that little bitch by her mom. There was nothing I could do about it since her grandmother threatened to sue.”
“Does Felix even know she has it? She’s not eighteen yet; how did they get it anyway? Does that have anything to do with the counterfeit money you had?”
“No-no, that’s two separate things; one thing has nothing to do with the other.” She didn’t look like she believed me, but I wasn’t very interested at the moment. I had bigger things to worry about than her temper tantrums.
I thought that kid was harmless enough; I mean, he’s only eighteen, and from a preppy stuck-up family, how much trouble could he be? But the way he brought the car and dumped it, the look in his eyes when he looked at us, I’m not so sure. I legit felt a shiver down my spine. That added to the pressure in my head from everything coming at me so fast is almost too much to handle.
I feel like a cat on a hot tin roof waiting for the other shoe to drop. “Oh, hello, yes, I need someone to tow an old car. Do you do that?”
“We do. What’s the address, ma’am. Three oh two Sycamore Lane. Hello, hello.” I looked at the phone in disbelief. This is the third and last towing company in the area, and they’ve all had the same reaction. If I didn’t know better, I’d swear it was some kind of conspiracy.
“MOM!”
“Victoria, will you shut the fuck up?” We both stopped at my outburst.
“I’ve lost too much this week. First getting expelled from school, now this. While Gia is at the Russo mansion living like a queen, and I’m stuck in this dump.” She kicked the wall before running from the room in hysterics.
GIANNA
I woke feeling sore and a bit disoriented. My eyes came open slowly until I realized Gabriel was not in bed beside me, and everything came rushing back. I wish my mind had stopped on the beauty of what we shared, but no, it went back to my meeting with Greta. It’s weird how I could hardly recall much about her before; her face was usually just a blur whenever I tried to think of it.
But within seconds of seeing her, I wanted to run into her arms. If not for Gabriel, I might’ve. If not for him having my back and me no longer feeling alone in the world, I would’ve spilled my guts all over that poor woman the way I used to as a child. I remembered us baking cookies together, her patience as she answered the questions of an inquisitive child. And most of all, I remembered how kind she was to my mom.
I’d always been a bit angry with her, I realized, for leaving so soon after mom passed. But her guilt and tears placed me in the position of having to take a step back as a seventeen-year-old who now knew a little bit more than the abandoned five-year-old me did.
I felt sorry for her and a whole lot of other emotions that I couldn’t name, and things only got worse when she told me what she remembered about my mom’s passing. I’d gone numb after that. It’s as if my whole body shut down, and I just needed to get to Gabriel. He was like a beacon in a storm.
As much as I’ve told myself lately not to lean on him too much, that he’s too young to carry my burdens, he’s all I wanted when her words tore away the last shroud of innocence I had left and left me feeling raw, like an open wound.
Is that why I wanted to make love with Gabriel? I don’t know. I have no idea where that savage need came from. Should I be ashamed that upon hearing about my mother’s death, the only thing I wanted was to be close to Gabriel? I’m sure there’s a name for what happened to my emotions, what made me feel as if I’d die if he turned me away, but it’s not really important right now because those feelings have not yet left me.