See You in San Francisco

07 | my lifelong fear of turning into my mother

          "Grace," Christina called, and I turned to face her so quickly I got whiplash. It shattered the ice coating my joints, but I was still in a nearly unbearable amount of pain and needed to sit down—stat. "It's okay. You just need to explain what happened and—"

          "She won't talk to anyone without a lawyer present," my mother dryly corrected, and Christina's cheeks flushed crimson. The only times I had seen that happen were not safe for work and were also incredibly inappropriate for the time being, so, the fact that my mother was able to do it just by publicly embarrassing her in front of our friends made my blood boil. "Her lawyer just so happens to be her father, who is in San Diego—"

          "I can talk to them," I retorted, and was pleased to notice my voice was a lot steadier than I thought it would be. Meridian had stopped paying attention to us, as his parents had met up with him and Sofia, and someone had to deal with the wreckage his speech at the funeral had left behind. However, that problem didn't concern me. "It's fine. I'm fine."

          "You look like you're minutes—no, seconds away from either passing out or throwing up," Felix pointed out, because of course he did. He was the one to always break the ice in awkward conversations, which was both a blessing and a curse simultaneously. "It's kind of low that they're choosing to crash a candlelight vigil over something that could be handled in the morning. If it were urgent, they would have already barged into the gym."

          If it weren't for Christina standing right next to me and for my exclusive attraction to women, I would have kissed Felix right then and there. He had a strange way of managing to calm people down, even during critical moments, and, for a split second, I almost forgot I was on my way to getting arrested.

          I let out a nervous laugh that didn't fool anyone. If anything, it only pissed off my mother even more—her nostrils flared, and she tightened the hold around my wrists.

          "We're going home, Grace," she announced.

          "Like hell we are," I spat. "I'm staying here. For June."

          Her eyes narrowed, while Xena shifted her weight from one leg to the other. "Do I have to remind you Juniper is the reason you're in this mess in the first place? Your bicycle—"

          "Oh, don't give me that crap!" I stepped away from her to make her drop her hands, heavily aware of the attention we were attracting. Christina tugged at the back of my jacket, silently asking me to tone it down, but why would I do that while my mother thought she had the right to insult my friend? "I spent an entire week worrying about my bicycle, you gave me hell for it, and now that you have to deal with the consequences, you want me to run away? You want me to ditch my friends after someone just died?"

          "I'm trying to help you, Grace! It's going to be the city scandal if you get arrested—"

          "I'm doing it anyway, but you're not forcing me to leave."

          I didn't wait for an answer. Instead, I walked past her, bumped against her shoulder as I limped across the gym, and even had time to flash a very incredulous-looking Leon the middle finger before being blasted with the cool evening air outside.

          They saw me first. My family was relatively well-known, mostly for being nouveau riche and for not being a long-time resident in Palo Alto, so I doubted they had had any trouble memorizing my face. If they didn't know me, they certainly knew my mother and had just put two and two together, considering we looked exactly alike.

          That fact also fueled my lifelong fear of turning into my mother, but that was currently irrelevant. You don't really need to worry about that stuff when you're in prison.