Page 64 of Nothing Heals Me Like You Do
“I wish I’d been there when Nora was shooting her scenes,” Sienna said. “I know you were there, babe. How did it make you feel?”
Justine understood that Sienna had questions. She was in the movie, she was dating Justine, and she’d just lost a parent.
“It didn’t make me feel anything,” Justine said, truthfully. “It was strange to see Nora Levine play my mother. A hell of a lot weirder than seeing Alexis play me, and that’s already been such a trip. But I don’t have any residual feelings for my parents and I honestly don’t know if they’re still alive.” Justine could only assume that someone, although she didn’t know who, would let her know when her parents died. She couldn’t predict how it would make her feel, but she suspected not a whole lot. “I also don’t care. They might as well not be my parents because I clearly stopped being their child.” While your child should be the most precious thing in your life. “It was their choice, not mine. I came to terms with that a long time ago.”
“What were they like… before?” Sienna was a bit too curious to Justine’s liking, but it was easy enough to cut her some slack.
“I guess these days you would call it bougie.” Justine was used to joking about them. When she’d had to describe her parents to Charlie for the screenplay, she’d gone about it the same way—perhaps the only way. “But the worst kind, you know? Everything had to look a certain way for the outside world.” Justine shook her head. “The right kind of clothes and the right kind of car. Until my twelfth birthday, my mother made me wear a dress every single day, even though I made sure she knew how much I hated wearing them. That kind of stupid, pretentious bullshit.” Justine ran her fingers through Sienna’s braids. It soothed her, and perhaps allowed her to continue more easily. “They were always so formal with each other, like they were business associates more than a married couple. With me as well. There wasn’t a huge amount of love on display, only a lot of expectations and, well, disappointment, I guess.” None of this still agitated Justine. “I came out to them in a fit of blind rage. God, I was so angry back then. I was a typical teenager. All out-of-control fury and feeling misunderstood. Although I have no idea who I got my rebellious streak from. I have no idea where I get any of my personality traits from. I always felt like such a stranger in my own family. Like I couldn’t believe these two uptight hypocrites made me.” Justine looked into Sienna’s beautiful face. “I wanted to leave home as soon as I could, but I wasn’t ready when they kicked me out. I was hoping college would be my big escape, but I didn’t even graduate high school. They didn’t give me the chance.”
“I’m so sorry.” Sienna reached up her hand and found Justine’s. “Thank you for telling me.”
Justine shrugged. “It’s all going to be inthat fucking movie.”
“Ourmovie.” Sienna squeezed her hand.
“I think Mimi might disagree with you calling it that.” Justine was more than ready for a change of subject.
“Maybe.” Sienna narrowed her eyes. “Did you really only agree to it for the money?”
“Of course, what other reason could I have had?” Justine intertwined her fingers with Sienna’s. “When I said yes, I didn’t yet know that Sienna Bright was going to play Rochelle, otherwise that would have definitely swayed me much earlier.”
Sienna chuckled. “I know for a fact that you’d never heard of me before I was cast. You certainly hadn’t seen any of my movies.”
“I’ve seen them all now.” Some even more than once.
“You didn’t agree to the movie because, deep down, you were hoping for some sort of closure?”
“Closure of what?” Justine shook her head. “I made my peace with what happened a long time ago. I don’t need a movie for that. I did it for the money because funding a homeless shelter for queer kids is very expensive.”
“You do realize that I’m hella rich now, right? Half of Bobby’s money puts me in the 1%.”
“Good for you.”
“Once all the paperwork is done, I will definitely donate more to the shelter.”
“Really?” Justine’s insides fluttered like a field of butterflies in the wind. “I do vividly remember that’s how you seduced me last time, but you’ve already got me now.”
Sienna burst out laughing. “There’s so much to unpack from what you just said, but I choose to only focus on that I’ve got you.”
“You have.” She bowed down again, to kiss Sienna fully on the lips this time. “You’ve totally got me,” she whispered, before letting her tongue slip into Sienna’s mouth.
Chapter36
“Come with me if you don’t believe me,” Sienna said to her sister. “We sure can use the extra pair of hands.”
“We?” Taissa gave her a look.
“All of us at the Rainbow Shelter.” They were sitting in their parents’ back yard. Sienna was telling her sister all about the virtues of volunteering. But Taissa wasn’t sleeping with the shelter’s founder, nor did she seem to need something extra—something different and good for the soul—to help her get over their father’s death.
“What do you even do there?” Taissa asked. “You’re hardly the type to be cleaning toilets.”
“There’s nothing wrong with cleaning toilets,” Sienna said, despite never having cleaned one in her life. “But the shelter’s not a hotel. There’s a strict chore rotation system. The residents do most of their own cleaning.”
Taissa gave her the kind of look Sienna had to respond to—all skeptical and full of judgment.
“What?”
“That’s exactly what I should be asking you.” The skepticism in Taissa’s eyes softened.
