51. Sienna
fifty-one
Sienna
Cleo and I sit in an awkward silence, eyeing one another carefully. It’s been five minutes since we’ve gotten outside.
“So…” we say in unison, laughing nervously at one another.
“I’ll go first if that’s okay, Ceej,” I say, placing a hand on her thigh and squeezing gently.
“Jace and I kissed two years ago,” I admit. Her eyes widen like a cartoon characters, and I’d laugh if this whole thing was funny.
“What?! Who kissed who? Was I there? Does G know? Why didn’t you guys date then? Wh—”
Laughing, I tilt my head at her.
Cleo mimes zipping her lips as sighs, her shoulders deflating.
“To answer your questions, I kissed him. I don’t regret it, either, you were there, just not near us. Georgia does know, and we didn’t date then because I was a coward,” I admit, running a hand through my black curls as Cleo tilts her head at me.
“Sienna, you are not—”
Sighing, I cut her off.
“No, I was a coward. I ran away from someone I knew I loved because I was afraid that he’d leave me just like my parents. I was afraid that if I told you, that you’d want nothing to do with me, and Cleo, I just couldn’t live like that…so I ran. ”
The cool December air bites at our skin, the two of us only having blankets to keep us warm out here. I fiddle with the necklace Jace had given me, shifting uncomfortably as Cleo eyes me.
“You hid him? Why did you think I’d be upset? I’d never be upset with you, Si Si. Especially over something like this…” Cleo frowns, taking hold of my fiddling hand.
Taking a deep breath, I turn to fully face Cleo and a piece of my heart warms.
“I shouldn't have hid him or did a number of the things that I did. I thought you may be upset since he’s your best friend, but listening to myself now, I know that I had the wrong idea. I think that he and I have silently loved each other for years, and now that we’re in the same place at the right time…
I got scared and wanted to prevent myself from getting hurt. ”
Cleo pulls me into a hug, kissing the top of my head. “Never do that again. I love you and I will always accept you and who you love…Even if it is my crazy ass best friend.”
Chuckling at her words, I hug her tightly.
“Now, what happened with that Aidan guy? I thought you were dating him and doing a project together,” she questions pulling back slightly as I give her a confused look.
Who the hell is Aidan?
“Girl, do you mean Aric? My date from the beginning of the semester?” I ask snorting as Cleo’s eyes widen.
“So let me get this straight: you’re not dating your dance partner?”
Rolling my eyes jokingly, I shake my head. “She’s a girl and not my type.”
“Then who’s Aidan?” Cleo furrows her brows as I laugh.
“I have no clue, but let’s check on the guys…I’m sure they might know who you’re talking about.”
“Come on! Christmas with the in-laws isn’t so bad, my parents love you!” Jace exclaims for the tenth time, walking back into the living room with a bowl of popcorn in his hands.
Sighing, I sit up from my spot on the couch and grab a hold of the buttery goods. “Jace can we please just watch the movie?” I ask for the second time.
Christmas is officially two weeks away, and the only thing on his mind is where we’re going. My parents had told me that they’d be here for Christmas and my birthday, so I’m putting my faith in them and not making plans.
“But babe, my mom loves you, and Nonna wants to meet you! I can’t say no to my Nonna—you’ve met her. She’s scary !” he says with a shudder, and I laugh.
His nonna is an eighty-four-year-old badass who spends her days on yachts in the Amalfi coast with sangrias and her crochet needle— Scary.
“Heart.”
“Jones.” He raises a snarky brow at me as I gasp.
“Did you just—”
“I did, whatcha gonna do about it?” He smirks as I lean into him, kissing him silly. I’m about to deepen the kiss when my phone rings.
“Hold on…” I say, unlocking myself from him and jogging over to the device. My heart drops when the caller ID flashes my mother’s contact.
This can’t be good.
It’s never good when she calls.
“Honey, I’m so sorry—” Are the first words my mom says to me in months. I don’t need to hear the rest to know what’s next. It’s always the same with her: she’ll call and have some stupid apology before hanging up on me. I don’t get a word out before she does, and then the cycle repeats.
My dad doesn’t have to call me because he sends his wife to do it. I don’t think he and I have talked all year…
Sighing, I nod…I don’t deserve this and I never did. I’m their kid, not the other way around. The night they decided to have unprotected sex and then keep me was the night they became parents.
I’m an innocent in this equation, the fucking constant variable to their experiment. I didn’t ask to be born, or to be loved, and it shows.
“You know, Mom…I’m really getting tired of this shit.
You call me once every blue moon to get my hopes up.
You’ll say, ‘darling, we’re coming home!
’ or ‘Si Si, we’re going to be there for you’ and yet you have yet to see me perform , you have yet to physically show up for me and you…
you could care less about me, Mom.” My voice cracks as all of the unshed tears from my twenty years of life spill out.
“I have never—”
“ I’m talking now,” I cut her off. “I have worked endlessly for you to see me. I have broken myself daily to fit a mold of perfection, but you don’t even care to visit me.
The last time I saw you was a year ago! You don’t care that I was bullied relentlessly, or that I couldn’t look at myself for months because I wasn’t perfect enough for you.
” I sniffle as Jace turns on the couch, a deep frown on his face as I continue to break.
“Mom, I am human. I am your daughter . You and Major are my parents, and yet I don’t even know you.
All of my life, I've had nannies and caregivers, but never a mother or a father. I set myself up to be perfect for you, and then you call to say that you can’t see me on my birthday and Christmas?
Do you know how much I've struggled just to be seen by you? I needed a mother and got the one person who never deserved children.” My words hang in the air as my mother’s sobs echo through the line.
“Oh, Sienna…I’m so sorry. I never meant for you to get hurt—”
“But you did. You did and that’s fine, don’t lie to me. I’m an adult now. I set the moments up perfectly. I made sure that I was there each and every single time you claimed you’d show up. I was the perfect daughter and you were the perfect, absentee mother—”
Something in my mother snaps. She riles herself up and then yells, “I gave you everything, Sienna! You were difficult—you would scream and cry and I—I never wanted to be a mom. I wanted him, but he wanted you!”
The silence between us is loud and my heart cracks just a bit more as her words saw at my heart.
“I wanted to be free, Sienna, and then I met you. I loathed you—I did. But then I fell in love with you, and it was too late. You were maybe five or six—you didn’t need me, you had your nanny at the time.
You would've been so much better off without me, and that’s the truth.
I was never meant to be a mom, but I never wanted to hurt you.
I didn’t know about the bullying or the standards you gave yourself. I didn’t know.”
I sniff deeply, inhaling her words and blowing them out. She’s right. She was never meant to be a mom, and she didn’t know.
“You’re right, Eloisa, you didn’t know. But you also never asked.
You claim that you fell in love with me and that I didn’t need you, but I was six…
I needed a mother and you craved fame. You say Dad wanted me, but where is he?
You may have thought he wanted me, but he’s with you, right now.
Neither of you deserved me,” I say, and don’t give her the chance to respond before hanging up.
I don’t notice Jace standing next to me, or feel the small circles he traces on my arm, but when he pulls me into chest, I realize that this is where I belong. With him, I’m loved. With my friends and with the rest of my family, I’m cared for.
Sometimes the people you meet are more of a family to you than the people who birth you.
“I’m sorry, angel,” he says, kissing my hair as I shrug.
“Don’t be. Tell your mom and nonna I’d love to see them this Christmas.”