Chapter 7


Mariana's POV

I'm sitting in my bed, trying to do everything possible to distract me from thinking about what happened. Callie and Jude went downstairs, shortly after the moms and Christina finished their conversation. I've done my English and algebra homework. Unfortunately, I still can't get the thought of Christina getting sent back to juvie out of my head. I mean, I don't even like the girl very much. After that huge argument we had while walking home, I should be glad she's probably leaving. But, juvie? For something that she didn't even do?

God, why did I have to have a conscience? I grab a magazine from my backpack and start to flip through it, drowning myself in the pictures.

Jesus walks in, without knocking of course. "Hey," he says, but I don't bother looking up at him.

I have to get a lock on that door…

He walks over and sits on the bed beside me, "Are you really gonna let Christina take the fall for you? They're going to send her away."

Why did he have to come home now?

Why couldn't he go practice volleyball at the school or something?

I start to calm down as the voice of reason comes to me, and unfortunately that voice of reason was Jesus.

Go figure!

"They're going to be so mad at me," I practically whisper. "… The other night, when Ana just took all that money from me, like I was an ATM or something, not even a person, much less her daughter… I thought well, hey, at least I have two moms at home who love me…They're going to hate me," I say as I start to feel the tears welling up in my eyes.

Jesus jumped in, "They're not gonna hate you. I promise."

I know he's right, though. They have never told me they hated me. Not even once. But I still don't want to disappoint them. "They're totally going to cancel my Quinceañera."

Jesus just shrugs his shoulders, and we both stop talking when we hear a knock on the door. "Come in," I say.

Callie walks in, "Hey, sorry about that. Can I talk to you for a minute?" she asks me.

"I get the point. I'm gone," Jesus says and looks back at me, "You just do what you gotta do. Come talk to me afterwards."

"If I'm still breathing," I joke and Jesus walks out of the room.

"What's up?" I ask her.

"Have you heard what happened?"

"Yeah, and I'm on my way to confess," I respond.

She looks at me like she's about to say something but suddenly changed her mind.

"Is that it?" I ask.

"Yeah, I guess."

I walk slowly down the stairs and into the kitchen, dreading the conversation that I was about to have with my moms.

They're preparing for dinner and getting the salad ingredients ready, and they barely stop moving when I walk in, making it harder for me to get the right words out. "Hi?" Lena says, knowing that I've come downstairs for something.

Suddenly, I want to run back upstairs and read every single magazine I've ever owned, just to avoid all of this. I turn back around and see Jude staring at me, which causes me to face them. I just have to blurt it out. If they don't hear me, that's their problem.

"Christina didn't sell Kelsey the drugs."

Both of my moms freeze, when they hear what I have to say. Mom speaks first, "Then who did?"

"Me… I sold them."

"Did Christina put you up to this?" Mama asks.

"What? No. I haven't seen her, since you sent me upstairs… but she didn't sell her the drugs."

"Mariana," Mom says in a disappointed tone.

"I didn't mean for this to happen."

"Well, what did you mean to happen?" Mom asks in an angrier tone.

Mama lifted her hand in the air to calm Mom down, as she took a deep breath and opened her mouth, "Mariana, why would you sell your brothers pills in the first place?"

"Because… I needed the money," I answer, hoping that the questions would end there, and they'd ground me for eternity and get it over with.

"For what?" Mom asks even more infuriated.

"I can't tell you," I whisper.

"I'm sorry? You can't what?" Mom practically yells, and I knew she was extremely pissed off at me already. Letting them know I've been in contact with my birth mom behind their backs would just make matters worse.

"It doesn't matter what I needed the money for. The point is that Christina didn't sell the pills. I did… So, there really isn't a reason why she should get sent back to juvie."


Stef's POV

Lena must've sensed that I was about to go off on that girl, because she sent her upstairs immediately after Mariana finished speaking. I'm sure that Mari was thankful that she did that, because only God knows what I've would've done.

"She thinks she can just confess something like that and leave out whatever information she pleases?" I ask Lena, trying to make some sense of the whole thing.

"We're not done with her. She'll tell us what happened. But first we need to discuss the Christina of it all," Lena answers.

"What's there to discuss? She didn't do it," I answer blankly.

Lena leans against the kitchen counter, "Yes, I heard her, Stef. But we just accused her of stealing Jesus's pills and threatened to call Bill."

"No, she was the one that told us to call Bill."

"Well, we didn't say that we weren't going to, which just makes it seem like we were."

"Yeah, well that's because we thought she stole his pills," I remind her.

"But she didn't."

"I know that, Love. But she didn't say that she was innocent either."

"Oh my God, I'm getting a migraine," Lena says as she puts her hand on her head.

"Fine, we won't call Bill then," I answer, in hopes that this conversation would come to an end. I could tell Lena was getting all worked up over nothing. We should focusing on why the hell our teenage daughter thinks it's okay to sell drugs at school, without giving us any explanation as to why…

"What I'm trying to get at is, what are we going to say to her?" Lena asks.

"We're going to apologize. What else is there to say?"

Lena and I walk over to the back door, open it, and step out into the backyard. The first thing we see is Brandon sitting on a chair, texting away. We both glance around and find no sign of Christina.

"B, have you seen Christina. She came out here, a little bit ago," I ask him.

"Uh. Nope. I've been here for longer than that and I haven't seen her. She's probably inside."

Lena and I exchange looks, thinking that we would've heard her come in, if that were the case.


Christina's POV

I ran as fast as I could out of that place.

Screw that! If I'm going to juvie again, I'm going to make sure it's for something I actually DID.

What the hell is their problem? Do they just bring juvie kids to their house, only so they can throw them back out again?

I knew I shouldn't have trusted that cop. I should have told David that there was no way in hell I was staying here and fought harder to get another placement that night.

I should have known better.

Poor Callie is in for one heck of a trip. I should have tried to warn her, but I knew I'd be risking too much by staying another second in that place.

Hopefully, she'd get the hint.

I'm a few blocks away, when I start to run out of breath from all of the running. I know that I shouldn't be doing any type of exercise in the first place, especially not running, since I have asthma. But I'd have to suck it up, at least until I get farther away from this place.

As soon as a stop to take a breath, I see a black Honda Accord coupe pulling over beside me.

"Running from the police or something?" I young light-skinned guy asked. I couldn't tell what he really looked like from where I was standing and the darkness of the inside of his car made the sight of him even less noticeable.

"Ha-ha. Funny," I reply. You have no freakin' clue how right you are.

"Need a lift?" he asks.

I think for a second. The smart idea would be to say, 'No, dude. You're a stranger. I'm sorry but thanks for offering.'

But the fun idea would be to not think too much about the smart idea and just get in, to take a chance.

"Hello?" he asks wondering if I heard him at all.

"Um…" just as I'm about to decline, I start to hear police sirens.

The fun idea just became the smart idea all of a sudden.

I get in the car quickly and slam the door shut.

"Damn girl. I wasn't going to kick you back out," he smiles.

I smile too, "Sorry, I guess I'm just not used to your car. I didn't mean to slam it."

"No problem… I'm Vico by the way."

"Christina."

"I've seen you in school; you're the new girl right? The one staying with the VP?"

"The one who STAYED with the VP. Never doing that again," I answer.

Vico starts driving down the row slowly, "I hear ya. That lady is straight up evil. Gave me detention today. That's where I just came from actually."

"Figured."

"What? That I would get detention? Do I look like a trouble maker or something?" he moved his hand up to his chest over his heart, to pretend that he was deeply offended.

"No, I just figured that she was straight up evil."

Vico kept driving. "So… am I going the right direction? Where are we headed?" he turned to the side to face me.

"I don't know you tell me?" I flirt, or at least try to. To be honest, I'm not even sure what I'm doing or where I want to go. I know that I want to see my best friend, but I have no clue where she is. The last time we actually talked on the phone, she was in the process of moving to another foster home. We never discussed the details, because I didn't think I'd get out of juvie so soon.

"Oh really?" he answers with his eyebrows raised with sudden interest. "Well, I was on my way to the pier to drop off some beer and run a few more errands. There's going to be party tonight by the beach. You should definitely come. Things could get quite interesting."

"I bet they would."

"So that's a yes then?"

"What the hell, right?"

"What the hell," he finished.