Not Exactly What it Seems

She thought of everyone before herself which was mind boggling to me. She was so set on finding someone for her cousin that she did not even care that she had basically told us her deepest secret. But then she opened up to me more than I ever thought possible. It made me wonder whether I could handle it or not. I thought that I could, but I wasn't so sure. The look in her eyes though, caused me to come to a decision right then and there.

Before I could voice any of my concerns that my life was too much for Hayden, we heard some very loud yelling coming from the kitchen above us. I had no idea anyone could actually be heard, I mean I had the room soundproofed for God sake. But I knew that it was Frankie and her parents so I cursed and flew up the stairs as fast as I could, Hayden right behind me.

“You can’t make me!” Frankie screamed. “I won’t go back with you! I’m so sick of everything about New Jersey and I’m sick of everything you put me through!”

“Francesca, we will not stand for that kind of attitude toward us,” my uncle Dan chastised in an annoyingly calm voice. “You have been nothing but ungrateful for a while now and that will not go on. Either you come back to New Jersey with us or we send you to boarding school in North Dakota. Take your pick.” North Dakota? That was the most random place I had ever heard in my life.

“I’m not going to boarding school. Besides, North Dakota is even worse than Jersey. But I don’t want to stay with you anymore. You say that I’m ungrateful, but it’s because I have parents like you. There is nothing that you can say to me that would make me want to come back home with you. And there is nothing you can do to make me be grateful for everything you have not given me. You just can’t stand to love me can you?”

“That’s it Francesca, it’s boarding school. We tried to give you a choice but you just would not make this easy. There is no option anymore. I don’t care if you want to go or not. That is where you are going.”

“She’s not going to boarding school,” my father informed his brother. He had come up behind me and I did not even notice. My father had always loved Frankie and would never let something like that happen to her. “She will stay here with us and will attend Onyx’s school when the break is over. You will not under any circumstance ship her off to the middle of nowhere against her will.” My father was scary as heck when he talked down to a person like that, especially a grown person.

“This does not concern you Geoffrey, so I would suggest you stay out of it. You think that just because you have all the money in the world to throw around, you can have a say in the way I treat my daughter? That is not going to happen.”

“That dump you want to send her to may as well be a juvenile detention center for the way they treat the students. You will never send her there and that is the end of it. Frankie, you can stay here with us. I know that Onyx would love to have you.”

My aunt Marie and uncle both scowled at my father, because they knew that once something was decided by him, there was no other alternative. Case closed. The smile on Frankie’s face was a beautiful thing to see because I knew that she was trying to find a way out for a while. It was finally happening. She was finally getting what she so desperately wanted, what she so desperately needed. Why did her parents dislike her so much?

So that night the three of us stayed up all night watching movies in celebration, but I couldn’t help feel kind of off about the situation. I mean, they were her family and to just leave without any bad feelings about it? I would never have been able to do that. But that was why we were different, Frankie and me.

My parents had called me up the next morning so that we could talk about everything. They did not mind at all that Frankie would be staying with us, and they had already called the school to arrange everything. They were concerned for the same reason as I was though, that she was not sad about leaving her family. We talked for a while longer and then I went back downstairs. But I could hear that Frankie and Hayden were talking about me, so I listened because I was apparently that pathetic.

“She’s not going to go for that,” Hayden mumbled. “I’m telling you that she does not like me in that way. If I try, she will reject me, saying that it could never work because of her other life or whatever. And to be honest, I don’t know that I could handle that.”

So I was right, he couldn’t handle it. So much for never abandoning me, I though with remorse. I did like him; that was the problem. I thought that I made that point all too clear to him- so clear that it was embarrassing. Apparently not.

“Don’t give me that,” Frankie seethed. “I know that you would do anything for that girl. Why don’t you tell me what the real reason is and we can go from there, okay?” She was a great person, but I would never be like that to a guy who was confused like Hayden. Why would she push him to admit things he probably hadn’t figured out? And it wasn’t surprising that he couldn’t handle my superficial life.

He sighed rather loudly. “I’m afraid of what will happen if, by some miracle, she actually decides that she wants to go out with me. I’m not good enough for her; I could never be anything that she needs. And it’s no secret that I’m nothing like the guys she’s dated before.”

“Well, that was an obvious one. But that’s the whole point Hayden, the entire point. She doesn’t like the guys she goes out with so why wouldn’t she like you? You are exactly what she has always looked for in a guy. More probably. So you really need to just give this a try and stop being such a pansy. She needs you more than you know.”

If I had to guess, his face would be holding a look of skepticism. Why could he not just listen to her? Why could he not just take that chance? But that was exactly what I had been trying to prevent in the beginning. I knew that he was perfect, I knew that I would start to develop feelings for him. I did not want to actually feel that; I wasn’t sure I could handle it.

I had heard enough, so I walked down the rest of the steps and pretended like I had just finished talking to my parents. They thought nothing of it. Frankie kept shooting Hayden looks that clearly said “just do it now” all night. It was frustrating because I knew that I wanted him to do it, but I also knew that he shouldn’t like me. He would end up getting hurt.