Page 51 of The Other Side of Paradise (Story of Paradise #2)
Stella
Was this really the life we were right back to? After all of this—after having a few glorious days of being my own person, having some real family connections, and being together with someone who just felt right in every way, I had to go back to this?
The airport gate was about as friendly and welcoming as a prison cell.
I’d forgotten just how many people we’d brought along, the whole extended family and everything, packing in all together, and I felt like there were a million of us and I knew zero of them.
I sat next to Ryan, who looked as miserable and small and broken right now as I felt, and I wanted to scream at all the assholes who were giving her dark, judgmental looks from the other side of the seating arrangement.
Aunt Helena, mostly. Fucking Shane Austen, worst of all, who kept trying to make eye contact with her, and I wanted to claw his fucking eyes out.
But the worst of it all was the nothing—was nobody saying anything, this oppressive silence where you knew everybody had plenty to say but it was staying in whispers at best. Everybody too scared to actually start anything, to actually say anything.
Me too, apparently. I wanted to stand up right now, shout them all down, tell them Ryan deserved some basic dignity and dammit so did I, and if anybody had any issues with her being bisexual, they had issues with me too.
But then I’d have to sit next to them on a flight.
Fuck my life. Maybe I’d throw down with them once we’d landed.
Or maybe by then, I’d have crashed, this churning and desperately sad feeling in my stomach ever since I’d finished driving away from Allison’s house and parked the car in the resort parking lot, slumped back against the seat, and spent an eternity looking up at the car roof willing myself not to cry.
I was just fucking sad and lonely already and sick to death of everyone’s bullshit, so I was absolutely not in the mood for it when Grandma muttered icily, “Well, that’s the last vacation I go on.
” She said it quietly, just not quietly enough for it to go unheard.
And I think she did it on purpose. Aunt Helena, the perpetual suck-up who’d stopped being Grandma’s favorite daughter when Mom had kids and had never forgiven it, turned to her with a desperate look.
“Mom, please don’t say things like that. This was just a one-off event. We’ll make sure everybody behaves next time,” she added, with a deadly look at Ryan, and I fucking lost it. I stood up, my head hot, legs moving before I’d known what I was doing with them, and everyone stopped, looking at me.
“Can we not with the passive-aggressive remarks?” I said, my voice thicker and heavier than I’d wanted, and Grandma made a face.
“Oh, and that’s what we need right now, is it? To crown things off with an argument at the airport?”
Mom cut in, her voice antsy. “Mom, please. It’s just been a lot for everybody. Don’t pick on my children.”
Aunt Helena snorted. “ Picking on? Your children getting held accountable is picking on them? I guess you never change, Elizabeth.”
Mom strained her voice. “Helena. I know you’re upset—”
“I’m not upset, ” Aunt Helena said, that stupid smug voice making me want to break something. “I just don’t think you have any damn right to act like just because you have children, they’re always right, over our own mother.”
Mom started saying something, but I couldn’t take it anymore, something breaking like glass in my chest and words tumbling out of me before I could catch them.
“Leave my mom out of this, Auntie,” I shouted, voice loud enough the whole fucking airport turned to look at me, but I didn’t give a damn.
“We all know you’re just taking out your anger that James didn’t want kids—”
Aunt Helena and Grandma both paled in unison, Aunt Helena speaking over her as they both chided, “ Stella, ” but I didn’t see why fucking stop now.
“And we know Grandma is just angry that Ryan is bisexual and not sticking to her ideals of a miserable housewife,” I started, before Aunt Helena stood up too, her voice thick and heavy and full of stupid fake tears and self-righteous indignation.
“I can’t believe you’d say that,” she said, squeezing her husband’s hand. He didn’t take the invisible request for aid, looking past us into the middle distance. Aunt Helena ignored it, her voice peaking. “This whole family only exists because of your grandmother and everything she’s done for you—”
“I’m not beholden to her every bad mood because she’s my grandmother,” I shouted, stamping my foot as I turned to the others, “and neither is Ryan. Neither is my mother! She’s a bully, and you’re a bully, and Shane is a dirty-ass cheater, so if you all hate this, I’d say you get what you deserve!”
Grandma went so marble-white she looked like she’d faint, everybody else around suddenly chiming in all shouting over one another—some people yelling at me to sit my ass down and behave and some people saying we could talk about this after a flight, a whole bunch of things that amounted to shut up and stop drawing attention, and when Aunt Helena cut in with a tearful protest, I was about to shout something else I probably shouldn’t have when Ryan stood up, swiftly enough and suddenly enough that it made everyone stop, staring at her.
She spoke quietly, but in the kind of low voice that made everything else drop and commanded everyone’s attention anyway.
“I guess I should have stuck with the original plan,” she said. “Go on without me. I’ll find my own way back.”
Aunt Helena clenched her hands tighter, probably about to crush her poor husband’s fingers. “Ryan, you’re being ungrateful and immature right now—"
Ryan shot her a look that made my blood run cold, and Aunt Helena flinched, eyes wide, panic in her face. “That’s fine by me,” Ryan said icily. “Let’s not do this again, Aunt Helena. I don’t think we need to talk anymore. You live your life, and I’ll live mine. You too, Grandma. Enjoy yourselves.”
She turned on her heel, walking away—not an angry storm, but a cold, coolheaded march at an even pace that got the attention of everybody in the terminal, and I wanted to cry and hug her and tell her I was sorry everyone was a fucking asshole and have her tell me she was sorry everyone was a fucking asshole too, and I squeezed my hands until they hurt and I shouted without thinking about it, “And I’m bisexual too, so thanks for the fucking support! ”
I stormed after Ryan, the gate silent behind me as I marched, and I felt myself cracking down to nothing, my eyes burning with all the tears I’d been holding back since I’d left Allison’s house.
Followed her around the corner and out to the baggage claim, where she slumped back against the wall, looking the most tired I’d ever seen her, and she gave me an inquisitive look.
“Hey,” she said softly, voice cracking at the edges. “You don’t need to march out in solidarity.”
“I’m marching out because I can’t stand this fucking family,” I said, my voice wavery and thin and whiny no matter how hard I tried to be cool and like I didn’t care, but Ryan didn’t need an explanation—she put out an arm for a hug, and I took it, stepping into her and wrapping her up in a hug that burned in my arms from how hard I was squeezing, buried my face in her collar and gritted my teeth, trying not to cry. It only made me cry harder.
“Let it out,” she said softly, squeezing me back. “You’re safe here.”
“It’s just… none of it’s fair,” I choked. “They’re always so mean even without saying anything, but since it’s without saying anything, it’s always like I’m the bad guy… for saying something… but none of them have ever given two shits about me. Nobody gives a fuck.”
She squeezed me tighter, and her voice wobbled with tears herself now too. Great. Guess we were both crying. What a mess. “They really don’t,” she said. “I can’t think of a day they haven’t tried to talk over you and dismiss you. No wonder you’ve gotten to be so loud.”
I choked on a laugh. “I thought you’d argue… all my friends do that. You know, oh, they’re your family, they love you, family’s just like that. ”
I felt her shrug. “Your friends don’t know the family. I do. Love takes a lot of forms, but none of them look like that bullshit.”
Dammit, I’d never realized how much I’d needed to hear that. I let myself cry, just a little, choking on ugly sobs against her shirt, before I said thickly, “You’re the one who they’ve been harassing all this time and I’m the one crying on you…”
“Hey, I’m crying too,” she said with a thin little laugh, and I scowled against her.
“You don’t cry very hard.”
“You’re just louder than me in everything… including in coming out. You made a journey that took me ten years in about five days.”
I snorted. We really didn’t know how to compliment each other normally. “What’s it matter?” I sniffled. “They can’t hate me more. They might as well hate me for who I actually am.”
She paused. “Hey, Stella?”
“What?”
“Don’t quote me on this or expect me to ever say this again,” she said, voice small, “but I love you. Thanks for standing up for me.”
Shit, I was going to cry again. I hadn’t even stopped crying and I was going to start again. I laughed thickly. “You do not. You can barely stand me.”
“That too, but I also love you at the same time. Siblings, and all that.”
I gave her one more squeeze before I stepped back from the hug. “Yeah,” I said, wiping my eyes. “Love you too. This sucks. But I feel like I at least got a cool sister out of it.”
I saw the quiver in her face, trying not to cry, and she swallowed, putting on a smile. “You can go back, you know. I’m not going to make you rough it finding a way home together with me.”
I shook my head. “I cannot be on the same plane as those people. I’ll figure it out. We’ll both figure it out.”