They drive home with Gina's wrist in a small bright pink cast.
"We're really sorry sweetie" Dana says.
"I probably should've listened to you," Gina says regretfully.
"It's okay, I know you just wanted to become closer to us"
"Yeah but now I can't be in the fall musical"
"Well at least it'll give you some time to sort out your mental health issues. If you were to go on you could have another panic attack on stage"
"Yeah, I guess"
Gina takes a picture of her cast and sends it to the drama club group chat.
The Best Drama Club
Ash: Wait what happened? Are you okay?
You: Hey, so I kinda fell and broke my arm
Miss Jenn: oh no
Miss Jenn: don't worry sweetie, just rest
Miss Jenn: we still have some time to practice and I'm sure we can learn to do it with Seb in that time
Carlos: Omg, are you okay
Kourt: What happened?
Nini: Wtf happened
EJ: Are you okay
You: Guys I fell and I'm not okay, I broke my arm
Nini: I mean like how did you fall
You: Oh, I was on a hike with our moms and tripped
Nini: Oh that's boring
Ash: What about your party? Should we do it on a different day?
You: I should be fine to do it today
Miss Jenn: and about the musical
Miss Jenn: Seb, will you be able to go on for her?
Seb: I guess
Seb: Evan has a broken arm so shouldn't she be able to do it with her arm broken
Carlos: he gets the cast off in the second act
Seb: We've already made a lot of changes to it, can't we make it so Evan just gets a different cast
Carlos: I guess but with the choreography, would you be able to do it Gina?
You: I don't know, we'll have to take out the flips
You: But I'll also have to make sure my moms are okay with it
She looks up from her phone "Hey would you be okay with me still doing the musical? Please"
Her moms look at each other "How would that work?"
"The character I'm playing already has a broken arm and we'll get rid of any choreography that puts stress on my wrist"
"But what about your mental health?" Carol asks, concerned.
"I only had 1 panic attack, it probably won't happen again"
"I know but I just don't trust you to stop of it becomes too much"
"Yeah, I guess I am bad at that. But I promise that, this time I will" Gina tries to convince them.
"You promise?"
"Yes"
Carol takes a deep breath, "Fine, you can be in the musical"
"Thank you so much!" The girl smiles goes back to texting on her phone
The Best Drama Club
Seb: So what did they say?
You: they said I can do it!
Seb: That's great!
You: you're too nice of an understudy
You: you should be mad
Seb: Why would I be mad?
You: because you should want to play the lead instead
Seb: Oh, Okay, let me try again
Seb: Curse you Gina the human!
Carlos: great attempt, babe
Seb: Thank you
Carlos: So I'll plan some choreography to replace the flips and we can start practicing it next rehearsal
You: Yeah, but if my wrist is giving me too much trouble Seb might have to step in
Carlos: Cool
Carlos: Babe, this is where you give a vague threat
Seb: Okay
Seb: I'll be ready to perform, mwahahaHaHAHAHA
Carlos: you're getting better at it
They arrive home and go to start decorating since they only have 2 hours to do it. But Carol and Dana quickly find Nini waiting for them and looking quite irritated.
"You were supposed to pick me up at 1, why didn't you tell me you weren't gonna come?"
"Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry Nina, we just got caught up with everything that was going on with Gina. I just didn't have the time" Dana apologizes.
"You couldn't even text me?"
"I know I should've, I just forgot to. Did you have to walk home?"
"No, Ricky's dad gave me a drive home"
"That's nice and I promise this won't happen again"
"Sure" Nini frustratedly turns to go up to her room.
"Hey, can you please help us decorate for the party. Gina hurt her arm and we don't have much time"
"You have like an hour, it can't be that hard"
"We also have to clean up the house and she has to get dressed for it"
"Fine, I'll help clean but I won't put up decorations"
"Thank you, sweetie" Dana gives the girl a kiss on her forehead.
The decorations are up and some of the guests were there already. Gina had decided that she would wait until everyone was there to make her big entrance. It was a pretty special event and she told everyone to wear semi-formal outfits, but nothing too much. All of the kids in the musical were invited including Lily, she also invited Miss Jenn and Jack.
After a few minutes she hears her girlfriend call up to her saying that everyone was there and that she could come down. She takes a deep breath and looks into the mirror, she's wearing the outfit her girlfriend picked out for her and her hair was in a poof on top of her head. She feels like a new person, a better person so she walks down the stairs to see everyone there, looking at her. There are a lot of people there with some sitting on the floor and most of her good friends all sitting around on the couch. Jack is awkwardly standing in the corner waiting for her to come down and Lily is either out of sight or not there. Her moms and Miss Jenn are also standing around making small talk.
Ashlyn is waiting by the bottom of the stairs and shouts out "Introducing Gina Salazar-Roberts" as the girl is coming down the stairs. Everyone claps and Carlos yells out her name in excitement.
"Hello everybody! How do you like my outfit? Ash picked it out for me" Gina says as the twirls to let them see the full thing.
"It's amazing," Kourtney exclaims.
"You look gorgeous!" EJ compliments her.
"Thank you! So Ash, you planned this, what's gonna happen tonight?" Gina says.
"First I planned for us to play Carlos' board game but I thought that you might want people to sign your cast before everything"
"That sounds like a great plan"
She goes over and sits down with everyone while Ashlyn grabs a marker. Ricky signs her cast first.
"Try not to take up the whole thing" Gina requests.
"Yeah... no" Ricky says as he writes large letters.
"But your name is so small!"
"Oh, I'm not writing my name," he smirks.
"What are you writing then!" She tries to look at it but he moves her arm so she can't see.
After a few seconds he talks again "And I'm done". She looks to see that he had written "CONNOR" in big letters on it as a reference to the musical they are doing.
She chuckles "Oh, thank you. Are you gonna kill yourself after this?" once again referencing Dear Evan Hansen.
"I just might"
After she goes around to get the other to sign her cast, going to her new family first to make sure there's space for them. Once there is no more space Carlos brings out The HSM board game he made and they all play for a while.
It gets pretty exciting with everyone getting very invested by halfway through they are all shouting the answers to questions. All of the sudden Gina stops feeling excited and starts to feel the stress of everyone shouting different things right next to her. It starts to remind her of when her mother was screaming at her for losing her stuff last semester. She tries to stop thinking about it and just enjoy being with her friend but their voices start to turn into hers. She recognizes that the same thing that happened in the car was happening again. She decided that the best thing to do is to leave before she becomes too out of it. She quickly stands up and without explaining runs to her room. She goes into the tent in her room and buries herself under the pillows there.
When she left everyone at the party looked towards her in concern. Ashlyn gets up and starts to walk towards the girl and Dana and Carol follow her.
"Do you know what happened to her?" Ashlyn asks.
"Don't worry, it's happened to her before. She should be fine, you guys were probably being too loud" Carol answers.
"We'll go see how she's doing, you can go sit with your friends" Dana says.
"Are you sure? I want to be there to support her"
"It's okay, we can handle this," Carol says.
They go up to the girl's room and see her hiding under the blankets.
"Hey sweetie, did you have another panic attack?" Carol asks.
"I think so, but it didn't get as bad as before"
"Good, I'm proud of you for leaving then. It's important to respect your limits"
"Thank you, do you think it's gonna keep on happening? It happened twice today"
"We'll take you to see a psychiatrist and they'll figure out what's going on" They sit next to her.
"I don't want this to keep on going, I'm supposed to be the new and better Gina, I'm supposed to be happier than before"
"You'll probably be able to recover from this"
"But what if I don't"
"We'll just have to figure out what causes them and you'll avoid the triggers. Speaking of which, do you know what might've caused them?"
Gina thought about telling them what happened but that would require her to tell them about everything that had happened with her mother. So instead she just says, "I don't know"
"Are you sure, were you in a car crash or something when you were younger? Do you have any trauma related to cars or loud noises? You told me that your mom used to yell at you a lot, do you think it's related to that?" Dana asks.
"No, this isn't about anything!" Gina angrily says.
"Sweetie this is clearly about something"
"Well, I can handle it by myself! I don't need you to help me with this!" She goes deeper under the blankets.
"Sweetheart, we're your parents helping you with stuff like this is our job"
"Well then maybe I don't need parents!"
Carol takes a deep breath, "You might not need them but having parents will help. I understand how it's hard for you to open up to us, but if you try to I think it'll help"
"Okay," Gina says, peering out from under her blankets "But can we talk about it later?"
"Of course, whenever you feel comfortable"
"Great, what's happening downstairs?" She smiles.
"They've quieted down and are mostly making small talk"
"I think I'll go back to the party"
"Do you think you can handle it?"
"I'll tell them that I need them to be quieter and I'll leave again if I need to"
"That's a good plan," Carol pats the girl on her back "Are you gonna explain what happened to them"
She takes a deep breath and thinks about it, "I'll just say I started to have a panic attack because they were being too loud"
"Okay honey, we're proud of you"
Gina goes downstairs and answers all her friends' questions about what happened. They were most concerned about if she would be able to play Evan and she assured them that she should be fine. They finish the game now raising their hands to answer the questions.
The next thing that Ashlyn had planned was Nini singing a song that she wrote for her new sister. It was about leaving behind their past fighting to create new fighting as sisters. It was a pretty sweet song about finally having a sister who she can fight with and them now loving each other as they fight. They all listen to her sing and Gina takes in the peace of it all, with her all her friends and her girlfriend by her side and her new, loving family there with them. It was truly an amazing moment.
"Because now when I hate you I'll love you," Nini sings, everyone starts clapping and cheering. Gina runs up to the girl and gives her a warm hug.
"I love you, sis," Gina says softly.
"I love you too," Nini responds, they hug for a few more moments before letting go of each other.
"Okay, I have also prepared a song to sing to you, so let me get ready" Ashlyn says as she goes up to the piano.
"Ash, this is too much, you really didn't need to do this for me" Gina says excitedly.
"This is a big day for you, I wanted to make it special" She sings a pretty typical, we'll be together forever love song to the girl. But it didn't matter that the song wasn't special or that they probably weren't going to be together forever. What made it special was that it was Ashlyn singing it and that she had put all that effort into this party for her girlfriend.
After the songs they talked about the musical they would be performing, Dear Evan Hansen.
"Okay, so most of the choreography changes are pretty easy since most of it is already pretty easy. Plus I already had a back up plan for stuff Seb can do if something happened" Carlos says.
"Hey, we aren't that much worse at dancing then she is," Nini mentions.
"Oh, yeah of course. It's just that none of you could do the choreography I planned for her" Carlos responds.
"Oh come on, it's not like I can do it anymore either" Gina defends the others.
"Back to my point you'll all have to be there early at rehearsal on Monday, there is a lot new stuff to practice"
"And Seb you should be ready too, just in case" Gina adds.
"Don't worry I will be!"
After that it's time for dinner, which is pizza from Salt Lake Slices. The adults go into the kitchen to get plates, cutlery, and drinks for everyone.
"So Gina really likes the drama club, you must be a good teacher" Carol says.
"Thank you, it's always really important to me that the kids have fun. And thank you for still letting her do the show with a broken arm. Trust me, nothing bad will happen to her"
"Honestly, I'd do anything to make her happy. She seemed like such a sad kid when we met her but I guess you knew her for longer. What's she really like?"
"While, she doesn't really reach out to many people emotionally but she always seemed to be under a lot of pressure. Other than that she's an extremely talented and hardworking girl, she's gonna go far in life"
"Yeah, she seems to be happier now, but I'm worried that since she's started getting panic attacks that's going to go away. What have you noticed that makes her happy?"
"She always enjoys the spotlight and being praised, but other than that she just really seems to love dancing"
"Hm, thank you for telling me that. It always feels weird to have to ask people I barely know about who my daughter is. I wish I had met her before, to just be closer to her" Carol sighs.
"Even if you haven't known her for as long, I'm sure you know her better than most of us. She doesn't let many people in, you know"
"Yeah, I'm really glad that she trusts us"
Ashlyn walks in "Hey, I was just seeing what was taking you guys so long"
"Oh, I guess we just got carried away with conversation"
"Well, I'll just take this stuff out" She picks up a couple packs of sodas and leaves, the adults follow her out.
Once they have all finished their dinners Gina's new family pulls out some gifts.
"So we thought that since we have a lot of birthdays and Christmases to make up for we should have some gifts for you"
"Aww, you guys shouldn't have"
"We just thought that we owed you some gifts"
Nini goes first, giving the girl a notebook, "Songwriting has always helped me through big changes in my life, so I thought it might also help you"
"Neens, thank you, that's so thoughtful!" She gives the girl another hug.
Carol and Dana go next with the latter handing Gina a gift box with a big bow on it. She opens the box to see an instrument case in it, when she opens it up there is a violin inside.
"Oh, I don't know how to play violin"
"Yeah, we know. You said that you always wanted to learn how to play it"
"I mean, I'm probably not very good at it"
"It's not about being good, it's about having fun"
She smiles "Thank you, this means a lot to me"
"Okay, next gift" Dana slides a heavy wrapped box over to the girl.
"While this is definitely something" she unwraps it to see that it's a weighted blanket, "That explains why it's so heavy"
"Yeah, it's supposed to help with anxiety and sleep issues"
"Well, this should be helpful"
"Okay, and last one" Carol hands the girl a gift bag. She opens it up to find a horse stuffed animal that matches the giraffe one that she was given right after her mother died.
"Aw, a friend for Mr. Short Neck"
"Is that what you named the stuffed giraffe we got you?" Dana asks.
"I mean he has a short neck"
"I've already told you he's very insecure about his neck" the two laugh.
A little while later after they all have ice cream and talk more, everyone goes home and Gina goes to bed in her new room with her weighted blanket and stuffed horse. It was truly an amazing end to a bumpy day.
