Chapter 28
When I was in the third grade, almost everyone in my class had short hair.
At least, shorter than mine. At that age, my hair hung down past my waist, ending in little wisps that were always tangled and knotted.
Despite the pain, I loved Mom brushing them out every night, listening to her hum as she did so.
But that was until little Gemma had a realization of her own.
The other girls in class wore their hair in different styles every day—buns, ponytails, curls.
And I wanted that. I didn’t want a long braid every day.
I wanted my hair to look how I wanted it to, so I cut it off.
I don’t remember actually cutting my hair, almost like that had been deleted from my memory, but the aftermath was crystal clear, like someone preserved the moment in time on video.
Mom came into my bedroom and found me with the craft scissors, found the hair spread all over my floor.
I remember feeling happy—so incredibly happy at the uneven bob-length cut I’d given myself—until I saw Mom’s face.
I’d never seen it look like that, pinched and twisted in a way that looked ugly.
My response also rang clearly in my memory. Please don’t be mad at me, please, please, please.
All of that buzzed in my head now as I waited for the door to open.
It took several moments after my knock for the deadbolt to flip over, and another second of hesitation before the wooden door swung inward, revealing Dad, dressed in sweatpants and a well-worn T-shirt.
He blinked at me standing on the welcome mat, looking like he was dreaming. “Gemma?”
“Hi,” I said, and my voice sounded odd to my own ears, almost like I was speaking underwater. “Can I come in?”
Mom moved into view over Dad’s shoulder, standing with her robe tied tightly around her.
For the first time in two days, I could look her straight in the face, and the bags under her eyes were clear as day.
She must’ve been feeling the same amount of stress as I was.
“Gemma Marie Settler,” she began, words more confused than outraged. “Do you know what time it is?”
I didn’t. I didn’t know how long I’d been sitting at the bridge, waiting for Hudson to show. Given how dark the sky was, I guessed a while.
“Where have you been?” Dad asked, and he sounded equally confused as Mom. “How did you get out of your room?”
“The window,” I replied.
Mom gasped. “The window!”
I didn’t know what would’ve summoned Landon from the other side of the house—we weren’t being that loud—but in the next moment, he was there rubbing his fingers through his hair. “What’s going—Gemma?”
Apparently, everyone in the Settler household needed a turn to say my name.
“Jeez, let her in, Dad, she must be freezing.”
It was almost like the thought hadn’t occurred to Dad. He blinked again, practically springing to the side to give me room to pass. Everyone stared at me as if I’d grown two heads.
Mom was the first to speak, looking at me with something like betrayal.
“I have absolutely no idea what’s gotten into you.
This rebellious streak of yours, Gemma, I’ll have nothing of it!
Do we need to crack down, is that what we need to do?
Say no phones, no friends, no school? Homeschooling isn’t off the table! ”
My lips twitched even though her words were anything but funny.
She’d isolate me just like she isolated Hudson, and she wouldn’t even think twice about it.
Because it was her fault he was outcasted.
All her fault. I couldn’t remember what Mom had been like during Landon’s freshman year.
Then again, I could picture Mom doing that, throwing someone under the bus to preserve her own family image.
With how easily she cut Mrs. Davies from her life for daring to vote against her, I could see Mom doing that with ease.
“It’s only rebellious because it’s not me doing what you want,” I murmured under my breath, but Mom still caught it.
“Yes, Gemma, defying your parents is rebellion!”
“It makes me a normal teenager!” I fired back, shocked by my own sudden harshness, at the anger that burst from the humming sound in my head.
“I want to be a normal teenager who dresses how she wants and has whatever friends she wants and talks to whatever boys she wants. A normal teenager who goes to see a horror movie, who paints her nails, who pulls all-nighters. A normal teenager who drives!”
Landon’s eyes were wide as he surveyed the scene, looking around our trio like he was ready to bolt between us.
Mom shook her head. “We’re back to that?” Some of her fury faltered, like a split in the surface, cracking to reveal something unsettled. “I don’t see how that has anything to do with you showing up so late.”
“You don’t know the first thing about me,” I said, looking between her and Dad with my heart pumping so hard that I thought I was about to topple over.
“You don’t know my favorite color, or whether or not I wanted to go with Jaden to homecoming.
Whether or not I wanted a date in the first place.
You didn’t know that the only thing I wanted for my birthday was to get my learner’s permit.
You don’t know that I want to cut my hair.
Or,” I went on, nodding, “maybe you do, and maybe you don’t care. ”
Dad took a step toward me, concerned. “Did something happen, Gemma?”
“Everything happened.” The one guy who made me feel like myself took the blame for something that was my fault and now wouldn’t see me anymore.
The freedom I’d felt these past few weeks went up in smoke.
And possibly the worst yet was the fact that I’d found out who I truly was deep down only to lose myself again—but I made my choice.
Jump. “You never gave me the chance to tell you the truth, but it’s not Hudson’s fault about the knife.
It was in my backpack. No matter what he said otherwise—”
“It doesn’t matter where it was, Gemma,” Mom interjected, face growing flushed. “He took the blame for it, end of story. Trying to change the narrative now will just turn you into a liar. And I won’t have you making up excuses to protect the likes of him!”
Landon did take a step forward now, raising his palms like he was approaching two rabid dogs. “You know, it’s late, maybe we should talk about this in the—”
“He was a normal boy, too, before all of this,” I told her, holding her gaze with a ferocity of my own.
“Before Landon’s loser friends attacked him and before you made sure the truth was covered up.
You lied about who picked the fight, and you ruined his life.
He was just a normal boy whose mom just died, and you were the one to turn him into an outcast. Into a villain.
You were the one to take his name and drag it through the mud, all to protect our image.
Your image. Look around, Mom—the only villain here is you. ”
Mom physically recoiled, bumping into the edge of the sofa with the backs of her legs. My chest rose and fell hard with the severity of the storm inside me, one that started to dissipate upon seeing Mom’s faltering expression, brow creasing and knitting together.
“If you want someone to blame, blame yourself for agreeing to the mentoring thing for me. You never asked me. You never asked if I’d be comfortable meeting with someone alone, or if I would even want to mentor someone.
You didn’t care what I thought.” I cleared my throat.
“Tomorrow, I’m going to Principal Oliphant, or Superintendent Filmore, or whoever the hell I need to, and I’m telling them the truth about the knife.
I’ll take whatever punishment they give me, but I’m not letting Hudson take it for me. ”
How I was going to change the school board’s judgment about Hudson, I had no idea.
With Mom as president, they’d probably all take her side still, right?
Would they believe me if I told them the truth about the fight Landon’s freshman year?
But that would be the next issue to tackle. I needed to come clean first.
“It’s my decision,” I went on. “I’m choosing to do the right thing.
” Even though my insides quivered, the old fear and nervousness creeping in, I held her gaze.
Her beautiful, fiery gaze. I wanted that fire to burn brightly inside of me instead of flickering.
“And I won’t let you make my decisions for me. Not anymore.”
Silence fell over the living room like someone had muted the entire space.
There wasn’t a single sound besides the ringing in my ears.
No one moved, and no one breathed for a long time.
My hands shook in the fists they’d formed at my sides, bracing for an impact. I didn’t back down, though. I wouldn’t.
Dad, surprisingly, was the first to move. He reached out and placed his hand on my shoulder, its weight pressing me to the floor. “Let’s take a break for the night,” he told all of us. “We’ll talk more about this tomorrow, when we’ve all had time to cool off.”
I wanted to tell him that I felt cool—and he sounded cool—but Mom didn’t look it. Her anger had subsided, though, sloughed off into a pinched and twisted expression. The same one that’d been on her face the day I cut my hair off, seconds before she started crying.
Mom didn’t cry now. Instead, without another word, she turned and walked toward her bedroom, and a moment after she disappeared down the hallway, I heard her door click shut.
I let out a huge breath then, like I was finally given the okay to breathe.
With her gone, my heart kicked up its pace, as if recognizing the danger only after it passed.
Dad took his hand off my shoulder and followed after Mom.
“Make sure the door is locked,” he said, but didn’t look at me when he said it.
He left Landon and me in the living room alone, standing in the darkness since no one had turned a light on.
I stood by the door watching him, waiting for his reaction, waiting for him to tell me that I’d gone too far.
That I shouldn’t have yelled at Mom. That I should’ve just resorted to being the good little girl they expected from me.
Instead, Landon chuckled once. “Badass, Gemma,” he said appreciatively, nodding. “Badass.”