Daydream (Maple Hills, #3)(13)
Cami is quiet at least three seconds longer than I’d like her to be. Then she smiles. “We are going to get along really, really great.”
Chapter Four HALLE
I FEEL LIKE I’M AT a One Direction concert and not in a good way.
My stepsister has a whole host of talents: gymnastics, bringing back a plant from the brink of death, and weirdly, being able to hustle anyone out of their money during a game of pool, but I can confidently say singing is not one of them. The smooth vocals of Zayn are being replaced by the out-of-tune and out-of-time screeching emitting from my laptop speaker. “Gigi,” I say with a groan, turning down the volume.
She can’t hear me over the sound of “What Makes You Beautiful” being brutally murdered, or more likely, she’s ignoring me. “Gi!” I repeat, louder this time as my eyes scan the same line for the third time. “Gianna Scott! Could you please shut the hell up?”
The music stops abruptly, and I watch as she focuses back on our video call. “Did you say something?”
“I can’t concentrate on your essay when you sound like Joy when she’s hungry.” I don’t even think she’s old enough to remember One Direction being a band, but Mom found all my old CDs while cleaning out the garage, and now they’re Gigi’s latest fixation.
“What if I wanted to be a singer? What if you just crushed my dreams and became my villain origin story?” She sits up in her desk chair to fold her arms across her chest, a symbol of defiance, I guess. Her thick brown curls are secured in braids down each side of her face, tied with pink ribbons that sit right above the logo on her swea—
“Oh my God, that’s my sweatshirt! What did I say about going through my things when I’m at college? It isn’t even your size!”
“How’s my essay?” she asks, deflecting entirely the way only a fifteen-year-old with no fear can.
“I haven’t finished it yet because I can’t focus through your performance. Just be quiet for five minutes and then I’ll be done, and you can get back to your concert.” Gigi pinches her thumb and forefinger together, sliding them across her lips like a zipper, and I get back to reading about Orwell’s 1984. “Thank you.”
I get two lines in before her fingers drum against the desk as she hums what sounds like the tune of “Best Song Ever.”
Sighing dramatically so she knows how annoying she is, I mute her.
Getting Gigi to listen to the audiobook this summer was practically a full-time job, so I’m quietly proud of her for finishing her essay on time. I’ve been helping her with her schoolwork since our parents got married when she was five. I was the one who originally suspected she was dyslexic and had ADHD, and the one who worked with her for hours practicing dictation until she mastered it.
Now I’m her unqualified tutor because, according to my mom and Paul, her dad, I’m the only person Gigi listens to. Which, as I unmute her and immediately hear her blasting “Midnight Memories,” I can confirm is a lie.
They claim she needs academic reassurance. As well as all the assurances I give when they call me begging for me to “talk some sense into her.” Paul has full-time custody of Gigi because Lucia, Gigi’s mom, gets posted overseas often and it isn’t guaranteed Gigi would get the academic support she needs if she moved to different schools. As nice as he is, Paul has no idea how to handle a teenage girl and my mom wants an easy life, which teen-me gave her, so it’s easier for her to send Gigi in my direction. Maisie, our shared half sister, is too quiet to be any kind of threat to Mom’s peace. Grayson was a nightmare teenager, always fighting and getting into trouble, but my mom looks back on it with rose-tinted glasses because he’s her golden boy.
“It’s great, Gi. Good job! Gianna.” Of all the things I need to do in a week, getting through this video call with a child who clearly is less interested in it than I am is the most stressful. “Gianna, for God’s sake!”
The music stops again. “You’re very stressy today, Hallebear. What ever happened to gentle parenting?”
“Well, I’m not your parent, for starters, and you may find this surprising, but reading about how Orwell’s vision of a dystopian future written in 1949 stands against the reality of today is not my idea of a fun Wednesday night.”
“Why?” she asks, spinning around on her desk chair. “What other options do you have? I saw Will pregaming a party on his story, so I know he’s not with you.”
The casual mentioning of my ex knocks me for a moment, and it’s a sad reminder that I haven’t had the courage to tell my family we broke up yet. I love my sister, and ordinarily I’d share my life with her, but I know as soon as she needs to divert my mom’s attention she’ll throw my breakup to her like throwing a dog a bone.
It might seem foolish to assume any parent of a college-age child would be that invested in their love life, or loveless life in my case, but my mom sends me pictures of wedding dresses for fun.
In the theme of keeping secrets, I also haven’t told Gigi about the writing competition. That’s less about her snitching to my mom, though, and more about the fact I have no freaking clue where to start. All I’ve ever wanted to be is an author, and I can’t even decide on what story to write for the competition. I have so many ideas that I genuinely thought it would be easy, but nothing feels right. It doesn’t exactly fill me full of hope about my chances of winning a place in that course. Every single resource I’ve looked at says write what you know, and, as it turns out, I happen to know very little.