It had been a little less than a month since Dana and Carol had announced that they would adopt Gina. All the paperwork had been filed and they were now legally the girl's parents. Though Gina still had to move all her stuff from her foster home and some stuff Ashlyn let her keep in the girl's house to her new house.
They had offered to let Gina keep the last name Porter, but she had decided that she wanted to leave her mother behind and that she would now be Gina Salazar-Roberts. It felt weird to not have that tie to her parents but it also felt freeing. She could reinvent herself now, she didn't have to be the girl who was always the best at everything she did. She didn't have to be petty or jealous whenever her talents weren't enough. She could just be a teenager who's exploring herself and making mistakes.
Her first step to being Gina Salazar-Roberts was to move in. She had already decorated her room, mostly by painting a moon and stars on her wall with the message "Create your own destiny". When they went to Home Sense she had gotten the essentials like a wooden bed frame, a black and white bed cover set, and stuff like a desk and bookcase. Her room was organized so that her bed was in the middle of the room right under where she painted the moon. She also had a moon carpet in the middle of the room, a tent that extends from the corner of her room, and as a finishing touch fairy light hanging all over her room from her ceiling. All she had left to do to make it her room was to take all her stuff and move it into her new room.
Ashlyn had agreed to help the girl move in, they had already spent most of the week packing up Gina's stuff. Some of the girl's stuff was already in boxes because it was mailed to her from her mother's house in DC. Carol and Dana had just taken the boxes over from the girl's old houses to theirs so all that's left to do was unpack. Ash had arrived early that morning though Gina was pretty much an expert on unpacking so it shouldn't take too long.
"Wow, you really don't have that much stuff" Ash points out.
"Yeah, I kinda just keep the basics. I have a lot of extra stuff at my grandparents house but it just kinda became inconvenient to take a bunch of stuff around with me"
"I guess we'll get this done and then we can have some time to hang out in your new room"
"Okay, first on the list" Gina picks up a box labeled shirts "clothes, there should be boxes labeled pants, dresses, and other clothes. Can you help bring these up?"
"Yup" They bring the boxes up and Gina puts her shirts away and Ashlyn puts away the stuff on the dresses box. There were more than just dresses in there, it was more stuff to be hung up, but it was easier to write down dresses.
"How's it going Ash?"
"Why have I never seen you wear this?" She says, holding up a black blazer with purple lining.
"Uh, I guess because I've never had a reason to wear it"
"Well now you do, let's do a fashion show" She hands the blazer to her girlfriend.
"What about finishing quickly and then hanging out in my room"
"If we do it later we'll just have to put clothes in your closet only to take them back out. Plus you can make sure that everything still fits you"
"Fine" Gina slips the blazer over the sweater she was wearing "How does this look?"
"I love it," She hands the girl a plain blue dress "now try this on"
"Ugh, Ash this is gonna take forever. You have to choose your 5 favourite pieces for me to try on. Okay?"
"Aw, but all these clothes are gonna look so good on you"
"I don't have time to change into a bunch of different outfits"
"Fine, but it'll take me a minute to choose which 5"
"Okay" Gina goes back to unpacking her clothes as her girlfriend chooses which clothes the girl will have to try on. After a few minutes go by Ashlyn hands her girlfriend a stack of clothes and walks into the hall to wait for the girl to finish.
"Do I look cute?" Gina opens the door wearing a short puffy white dress.
"Ahh, The cutest! Okay, now put this over that" she hands the girl the black and purple blazer.
"Okay, but this counts as a new outfit" Gina says as she puts it over her dress.
"You look amazing, you have to wear that at your welcome home party"
"Are you sure you don't want to see me in the rest of the outfits before you decide on one"
"Definitely" She goes back into the hallway to let the girl change. They do this a few more times and after seeing all the outfits Ashlyn decides that the dress and blazer is definitely the best outfit for the party.
"Okay, so that took way to long for you to choose the first one"
"I wanted to see you in all of them"
"Why?"
"Cause you're so pretty to look at"
Gina turns away from the girl, blushing "Okay so I'll get the rest of the boxes while you finish putting my clothes away"
"Are you trying to hide the fact that you're blushing?" Ashlyn teases.
"No! I should just bring the boxes up now so they're out of the way"
"Sure"
Gina goes down to get the boxes as she thinks about how lucky she was to have a girlfriend that loves her so much. Ashlyn was constantly showering her with compliments but she always just assumed that the girl knew how amazing she was. Since she was trying to be a better girlfriend she decided to brainstorm some compliment to give her when she gets back. "You are an amazing songwriter" that would be too out of the blue, they weren't doing anything that has to do with songs. "You are great at picking out outfits", why would she say that after coming back from picking up boxes. "You're the best girlfriend ever" why was she comparing her to other girls, she hadn't even had a different girlfriend. In the end Gina just decided to tell Ashlyn that she was worried that she was being a bad girlfriend by not giving the girl enough compliments.
By the time she comes to that conclusion she's back to her room with a box full of books.
"Hey Ash, you give me so many compliments and I'm worried that I'm not complimenting you back enough and that it's hurting your feelings" Gina sheepishly says.
"Oh, yeah I guess I would like you to compliment me more often, but you don't have to force it if you don't think I'm good at anything"
"Nonono, that's not the reason I don't compliment you often I just kinda assume that you already know how good you are at things. That and you often leave me speechless"
"Oh, well if you think I'm so good at so many things you can give me all those compliments now" Ash says semi-jokingly as she sits down on the bed.
"Sure, you're amazing at writing songs, you're beautiful, you always know the right thing to say when I'm feeling down, and I am the luckiest person in the world to be able to date you" Gina lists off as she sits down next to her girlfriend.
"Thank you, it means a lot to know that you think so much of me" Ashlyn blushes, no one had ever complimented her that much before.
"Of course I think highly of you, you're Ashlyn Caswell" Their conversation quickly gets interrupted when Gina spots Dana in her doorway "Hey, what are you doing here?"
"Oh I was just checking to see how the unpacking was going" She responds.
"We kinda got distracted, I found a bunch of Gina's clothes and forced her to put them on for me" Ash answers.
"It sounds like you girls are having fun, I'll leave you two to it!" She leaves thinking about how much she wanted to have a romance like that when she was in high school.
The next day Gina wakes up early because her moms had planned a hiking trip before the party that's happening today. They had been doing a lot of stuff with Gina since spring break, she didn't mind it though. She always wanted to do fun things like that with her mother but the woman was always too busy.
"Alright, are you guys ready?" Dana asks.
"I think so, this shouldn't take longer than 2 hours right?" Carol responds.
"It better not take too long. I can't miss the party" Gina adds.
"Don't worry we should be done before 12 and the party starts at 4 right? Plus I have to pick Nini up from at 1 so we can't be too late"
"Yeah but I need time to get everything ready" Even though Ashlyn was the one organizing what would happen during the party Gina was in charge of decorating the house beforehand. They had thought about having it at her girlfriend's house since it's bigger but the point of the party was that the girl is moving into a new home so it would only make sense to have it there.
"4 hours should be more than enough with us helping you"
"Right, I forgot you would help," Gina says.
"Okay, and Nini isn't coming with us again?" Carol asks.
"Oh she's not coming with us. She's on a date with Ricky again" Dana answers.
"Is that all she does?" Gina jokes.
"Sometimes it feels like that"
At first Nini and Gina were always hanging out, but Nini started to get tired of the girl and pretty quickly they went back to having a less than friendly relationship where they would mostly ignore each other. Occasionally one of them would try to get close to the other again but that would only ever work for a couple days.
They got into the car and drove to the hiking trails. It wasn't too far and Carol had made a playlist of songs for them to listen to on the way there. Dana also brought a joke book so the car ride there was pretty amusing.
It was never like that when Terri was driving, she was always quite an emotional driver which didn't work too well since she would often get mad at Gina. The girl had multiple memories as a little kid thinking that her mom was about to crash the car because she was driving so recklessly. She tried not to think about the past and just delight in the present but it was hard to not think about her memories on the road. As she spent more time pondering over what had happened the emotions of those times started to come back. She tries to stop and just enjoy what's going on but it becomes more and more enveloping until she starts to hear her mother's voice yelling at her again.
"Gina, Gina, what's wrong?" she suddenly hears Dana calling out to her.
"What's going on?" She gets confused about what's happening and where Dana's voice is coming from. Terri's voice continues to get louder and louder on her head as she starts smelling the horrible stench of the car she had as a child that was hardly ever cleaned.
She could've sworn that she was just with her new moms driving to a hiking trail but her mind starts to get too foggy to understand why she now felt like she was back to being a kid in her mother's car.
"Hey sweetie, can you tell me three blue things that you see?" Carol asks in a calming tone, "Can you do that for me please?"
"Uhhh," Gina's mind was too foggy to understand why she was being asked that or even what was happening but it could spot out blue things. "There is a billboard that's blue, my phone case is blue, and your shirt is blue"
She starts to feel her mind clearing and her mother starts to get quieter. She quickly realizes that they are no longer driving and are now parked somewhere with Carol standing beside her outside of the car.
"Great job, now can you tell me 3 things that are squares"
"Umm, the gas station sign, the dice hanging from your mirror, and the bumper sticker of that car" She realizes that they are now in a gas station parking lot and that Dana is missing. "What happened?"
"We were driving and you started acting weird and not responding to us. You might have had a panic attack"
"Ohh" Gina musters the energy to say. She was still in a foggy state of mind from what had happened.
"How is she doing honey?" Dana comes back carrying water, iced tea, and a slushie.
"Good, I think she's out of it now. She's been responding to me"
"Hey, I didn't know what you would want so I got you 3 different options. Which do you want?"
Gina stares blankly at the drinks and finally grabs the closest, a can of iced tea out of the woman's hand.
"Good choice" Dana hands the water to her wife "So Gina, how are you feeling?"
"Good" she spits out the only response she can remember.
"Are you sure, you kinda just had a panic attack?"
"Yeah" She again just defaults to the easiest thing to respond with.
Carol starts to pick up that the girl isn't really thinking about her answers and forms a question that she can actually get an answer out of "What do you want to do now?"
Gina thinks about if for a minute before responding with "I don't know"
Carol turns to her wife and they start to make a plan on what to do "I'm worried that if we head back now she'll have another panic attack in the car"
"Yeah, but the house is probably the best place for her to deal with this"
"I think that she should be able to recover somewhat out here"
"There are too many people passing by and she doesn't have any privacy"
"We could try going into a washroom"
"That's a horrible place to deal with a panic attack" Dana points out.
"Yeah, but I just don't want her to have another"
Gina gets tuned in to enough of their conversation to make out that they're going back home. "Wait, what about the hike?" she interrupts.
"Oh sweetie, I don't think you can handle it right now" Carol says kindly.
"Nonono I can, the panic attack was just a mental problem hiking is a physical thing"
"Mental and physical health are intertwined"
"And being in nature can help with mental health" Dana argues.
"Hmm, we are closer to the trail than home"
"I guess we could go there and walk a bit while you recover from this and then we can go home"
"Yeah" Gina says.
"Okay, but we won't go that far"
They get back into the car now with Dana sitting with Gina in case something bad happens again. Luckily the girl is fine during the few minutes that it takes to get there.
"Okay, we'll just walk for 10 minutes in then it'll take us ten minutes to get back. Do you think you can handle that Gina?"
"Yeah"
"Okay, but we can turn around at any point"
"I won't need to turn around"
"It's okay if you do need to, you know that right?"
"Yeah"
They walk for 10 minutes and take pictures of the wildlife and themselves. The moms try to get Gina to perk up but the girl still has trouble interacting with the world around her. Carol points out that they should turn around now but Gina protests and says that she's having a fun time and she's feeling fine.
"Sweetie, you aren't acting like you normally do. Are you sure you're okay?"
"Yes"
"I think it's time for us to go home"
"No, let's keep on going"
"We don't need to keep on going"
"I just want to, okay" Gina starts walking further down the trail.
"Sweetie, are you afraid of going back into the car? We can just sit outside of the trail, we don't have to get into the car until you're comfortable"
"Stop trying to make this about something it's not. Let's just keep on walking" The girl continues, a little confused about where she should go since she was following her moms for most of the walk.
"That's not the trail" Carol points out.
Gina is too far away from them to hear her and still walks, having trouble keeping her balance because of how out of it she was and since she wasn't supposed to be walking there. She takes a few steps then trips and rolls down a little hill to the trail below them. Carol and Dana run after her to make sure the girl is okay. Gina slowly gets up while holding her right hand up to her chest.
"Don't worry about me, let's keep going?"
"No Gina" Carol puts her foot down "We're turning around now. You're not in a good place and you just hurt your arm"
"My arm is fine"
"Can you please just tell me why you don't want to turn around. Is it because of the car? Are you trying to prove yourself to us? What's wrong?"
The girl takes a deep breath in and out before finally speaking "I didn't want to ruin our day"
"You didn't ruin our day, just being with you makes our day sweetie"
"I know but it doesn't make for good memories"
"What do you mean by good memories?"
"You have so many stories and pictures of things you did with Nini. I feel like you guys are so closely knit and I'm just stitched onto you"
"You are just as much of a part of our family as Nini is. Family isn't about memories, it's about love, and we love you guys more than anything in the entire world"
"I know but I just don't feel close to you guys"
"You will in time, trust me"
"Okay"
"So can we leave now?"
"Yes"
They walk for a while with Gina still holding her hand above her shoulder. The girl takes deep breaths in and out and still seems in a daze but more connected with the world.
"So you're arm, is it okay?" Dana asks.
She thinks for a minute before answering "I don't know"
"Okay, does it hurt?"
"Yeah"
"On a scale from 1 to 10 how much would you say your arm hurts?"
She thought about it for a bit, her arm hurt a lot but if she were to be thrown down a flight of stairs it would hurt a lot more than it does now. "I guess 5"
"Okay can you move your hand like this for me?" Dana waves her hand around in a circular motion from her wrist.
Gina start to do the same but pain shoot from her wrist and she quickly stops "Not really"
"So that's an issue, let's go to the hospital"
"What, no, it's not that big of a deal. My hand will probably feel fine tomorrow"
"But maybe it won't and maybe something is really wrong. Don't worry it's pretty close, it should only be like a 10 minute drive"
"But what if I'm late for the party?"
"It's only 11:30 and it shouldn't take them more than a couple hours to figure out what's wrong"
"Nothing should be wrong"
"But if something is then you have to take care of it. You're a dancer, it's important for you to take care of your body"
"Fine"
They drive over to the hospital with Dana sitting with the girl in the backseat again. The drive is pretty quiet with most of the conversation being about if Gina is doing okay.
They wait in the hospital room for the doctor to come back with Gina lying on the bed there.
"Do you think anything is wrong with it?" the girl asks Dana.
"If you don't think it's anything, it probably isn't"
"Yeah probably"
"Let's not try to predict anything, the doctor should be here soon," Carol adds.
After a few minutes the doctor walks in "Okay, so you're worried that you broke your arm right?"
"Yeah, did I?"
"It looks like there are a couple fractures on your wrist. So you'll probably need a cast for around a 6 weeks or so"
"But the musical is in 2 weeks!" Gina protests.
"Oh, sorry but your arm is broken so, there's really nothing I can do"
