Post by GIA HARPER-BASTIANELLO on Mar 18, 2013 21:01:07 GMT -5
[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=cellSpacing,0,true][atrb=width,500,true] [style=text-align: center] Chasing Pavements [style=font-size: 10px; line-height: 10px; padding: 25px; margin-top: -10px; color: CCCCCC;] [/style][Sunday, 4:54pm] "Gia, are you ready dear?" "You really should pack the purple top. Your nonna bought that one for you." "Are you really going to wear those shoes in Athens? You'll look so American. "Stand up straight sweetheart. You'll start to look like Quasimodo." Gia listened as her mom walked back and forth past her door, barking out questions and commands and, what her mother liked to consider, "constructive criticism" as she packed the last of her things for her family Spring Break to Athens. This was Bastianello-Tavoularis tradition. Every year, her family and Owen's family would alternate between Athens and Rome, all of the grandparents and aunts and uncles meeting in one city on one of the family vineyards for a week of fine dining, wine, and passive aggressive familial congregation. Normally, she did not mind a week out of the country with her best friend. This time, she was a little apprehensive. This time she actually had something she didn't want to behind. Gia tossed some things in her bag and thought to herself that only a week ago, she was with Dakota, in his arms, with him telling her how much he wanted to be with her, but he couldn't. He had been afraid his friends would disown him for having a girlfriend. And she didn't protest too much because she knew exactly how he felt. It was no secret that Aileen was not fond of Dakota, yet Owen, who she thought would have taken Aileen's side, had suddenly given her his silent blessing. Everything changed, thought, when Dakota finally told his friends the truth about her, after Jude's week in the hospital. He cared about her enough to lay it all on the line, and like a coward, she couldn't oblige him the same courtesy. Well, not until today. She would tell her mother and father that she was with him, even if the thought of what the fallout would look like gave her an ulcer. "Gia...Gia!" Gia's head snapped up from her subconscious routine of folding her jeans and she peered in her mother's direction. "Huh, what? I mean, yes ma'am?" "Are you alright? You've been rather aloof lately." "No, I just--" "--Well, whatever it is pull it together, darling. Our jet leaves at 6:15." Gia sighed, dropping the now folded pair of pants into her suitcase. "Yes ma'am." She knew there was no talking to her right now. Maybe she would tell her mother about Dakota after they were in Athens, that way her father would not be able to get in his car and hunt Dakota down. If they were thousands of miles away from Easton for a whole week, they would have time to cool off, to really let it sink in that she had a 'boyfriend', a word that was taboo in the Bastianello household unless she was talking about Owen. Boys "would be a distraction". They would "deter her from her intended goal". At lest, that's what her parents liked to tell her ever so often, with the gentle reminder that if she did ever break that rule, they might have to take her out of Easton and put her in a school somewhere in the Swiss Alps so she could focus on her education. "Okay. Well, your father and I are going to pick up the pilot. The towncar he sent for went to the wrong address, and its just quicker if we pick him up ourselves." Her mother said, walking into her room and stopping in front of her vanity mirror, admiring her own reflection. "You both have to go?" Gia asked, not looking up at her mother as she continued to move items around in her suitcase, trying to organize and optimize space. "Well, I just want to get out of the house. I've been cooped up in this place for two days because of your father's 'last minute meeting' in Harrisburg. I just want to get out of here and step onto Grecian soil, finally," she said before baring her teeth to the mirror and wiping a small smudge of red lipstick away from them with her tongue. "Okay..." Gia rolled her eyes and reached out for another clothing item from her closet, but before she could get her hands on the purple shirt her mother hand been going on about, she heard a banging at her front door. "I wonder who that could be..." Her mother said, heading out of the room and down the stairs." [Sunday, 5:15pm] "GIA. GET DOWN HERE. NOW." That yell. The only time she had heard her father yell like that was when she had broken their grandmother's antique lamp practicing field hockey in the kitchen. She headed down the stairs with her arms folded, ready to rebuttle anything her father had to say. "I swear I didn't do it. I don't even live here during the--" She paused as she made her way to the bottom of the staircase, face to face with two police officers, one closely watching her agitaed father, and the other walking in her direction, but he was quickly cut off by her mother. "Anything you need to say to her, you can say in front of us." The officer sighed and adjusted his hat. "We need you to come answer some questions for us." "What? Why? I haven't done anything." She protested. "Not about you. About your boyfriend. Dakota Kaelimm." Gia's father turned swiftly and in what felt like two seconds was across the room with his hand around Gia's wrist. He was seething, almost ready to boil over. "What did he just say?" "Joseph!" Her mother reached out for his hand, which he retracted quickly. "I will handle you later." Her father said, almost visbly fuming at the thought that she could have been keeping such as secret from them. He turned his attention back to the officer. "What is this about?" Gia watched in shock, not just from her father's quick outburst, but at the idea that she would need to go ask questions about Dakota. "Is he okay?" She interrupted. "He said you could be his alibi for his whereabouts last night." Gia froze. As far as her parents knew, she had gone to the St. Patrick's Day party the night before. But these were the police. She couldn't exactly lie. "Fine, I'll go." Gia said, not looking at either of her parents, and following the officers out of the door. "You can't question a minor without parents present!" Her mother said, following close behind. "Then I guess you two better get your jackets and meet us down at the station then, shouldn't you?" tagged; name/open. words; ###. notes; have anything to say? TEMPLATE BY LITTLE BITTY PRETTY ONE @ CAUTION 2.0 |