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Chapter One
Gia
Fifteen Years Old
Many years earlier
“Begin again.”
My head automatically falls onto the kitchen countertop, my forehead landing with an audible thud against the cold tile. I’m going to kill T for putting Damien up to this.
“Gia.” He says my name, but I pretend like I don’t hear it. The lights are on, but nobody’s home, sucker.
Damien sits across the kitchen from me at our four-seater breakfast table. I don’t know why everybody in this house insists on calling it a breakfast table when we eat all of our meals there. It’s not logical.
The eraser of what I am certain is a deliberately targeted flying number two pencil smacks me square in the temple. Freaking Damien. It doesn’t hurt, but it prompts me to move my lips - a little. I’m ready for this to be over with. I have photos I need to go upstairs and edit. I need to clean the lens of my camera. Maybe I could vacuum out my camera bag. Anything but reciting the words of a dead man for the ten millionth time. This is torture of absolutely epic proportions.
“Four score and blah blah blah…is this really necessary, Damien?” My head remains firmly attached to the countertop. My butt rests on an old wooden barstool. I don’t look up. My braids hide my face away from my big brother Tyler’s best friend, also known as my own personal pain in the rear end.
Mrs. Hightower, my history teacher and current arch-nemesis, made a call to my mama two weeks ago about my less-than-exemplary mid-semester test scores and now Mama is on a war path to make me bring my grades up. She tried to recruit Tyler to tutor me, but he refused, citing irreconcilable differences. The joker thinks he can take one high school law class and, all of a sudden, he’s an attorney. Yeah, right.
He knows I won’t listen to him anyway. So, I guess, he’s not wrong.
“If you don’t learn this stuff, you’re going to fail history, and your mama will never cook chicken and waffles for me again.” Damien huffs, finally bringing the truth to light…at least part of the truth. I knew he was being bribed to tutor me.
I’ve known Damien all my life. He’s an only child by birth, but sometime back before I have any solid core memories, Tyler claimed him as his brother by another mother, and he’s been a part of our family ever since. This is his senior year, same with Tyler.
The two of them are the definition of high school royalty. They’re star hockey players, and when they’re not on the ice being cheered on by hundreds of their already adoring fans, they’re being worshipped by the pineapples. You know the type. They look cute and sweet and oh-so-fun on the outside; but in reality, they’re pokey, and if you eat too much the acid in them will burn the inside of your mouth. They’re always too much if you ask me.
Good thing they don’t know I exist. Nobody does. Well, except for Mrs. Hightower. Crotchety old woman.
There is no way Damien Henderson was volunteering to tutor me without some sort of compensation. Family or not.
Scratch that. Especially family.
“So, this is about you. Typical. Self-absorbed, much?” I roll my eyes at the pale blue tile.
It’s a lie. Damien isn’t self-absorbed. If anything, he’s the opposite. I’m not necessarily mad at him – per se. I’m mad that I can think of at least fifteen things I’d rather be doing than sitting here right now. He gets the brunt of my anger by proximity.
“You’re smart, Gia. I know you know this stuff. Why are you failing?”
Now, he’s getting frustrated with me; I can hear it in his voice. Good. Maybe he’ll give up and just let me be.
Besides, why does it matter? If I fail, it’s on me. My actions, my consequences. Nobody around here gets me, I swear.
“I understand history, Damien. I understand the significance. I get it. I get how our past affects our future.” My voice begins to rise with every sentence. “What I don’t understand is why I need to memorize the entirety of the Gettysburg Address. It’s just that, memorization. I want living history. I want to see life in motion as it’s happening. I want change and deliverance. You wouldn’t understand.” I finish on a deep exhale of breath that rushes out with the remainder of my words.
I attempt to explain to him the unexplainable. These are the things that keep me awake at night developing film in my closet instead of sleeping. They’re also why I don’t have much of a social life to speak of. I don’t fit in…anywhere.
Damien sighs loudly, and I feel it as if it came from me instead.
Me too, brother, me too.
“I see you, Gia. You want to live history. You want to be the change. I will never fully understand, but I will listen. I will learn. I will educate myself. And right now, I’m trying to help educate you. I’m trying to help you not fail your history class.”
I register a hint of passion in his voice that I don’t think I’ve heard before. Silence isn’t always understanding, just like it’s not always ignorance. Maybe he understands more than I’m giving him credit for. His words make sense. Well, up until the part about his need to educate me, or whatever that nonsense was. I tuned him out after that.
“Ugh, you’re the worst,” I growl, and drool drips from my lip onto the counter. Stupid gravity. Stupid Mrs. Hightower. And stupid Damien for following through with this charade when he knows I know this stuff.
