𝐄𝐂𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐒𝐘 || RAFE CAMERON

005

The smell of marinara sauce infiltrated Gianna's nostrils.

It was around seven o'clock when the girl arrived back at her home, shades of orange and pink coating the sky as the sun began setting on the horizon.

She made her way to the kitchen, catching her mother stirring a pot on the stove, occasionally adding a bit seasoning here and there.

"What smells so good?" Gianna asked, her mother glancing up from her activity as she looked at her daughter with a smile.

Katherine happily stirred a pan with the bright red substance. "I'm making pasta. Do you mind setting the table?"

Gianna nodded swiftly, "Yeah. Let me just take a shower first. I wanna get the sand off me." She turned on her heel.

Leaving her mother be, Gianna climbed up the stairs of her house to the second floor, going directly to her room.

She took out a few clothes from her dresser, but before she entered her bathroom, a short knock came from her door.

"Come in!" She called out, the hinges on her door creaking as she turned her head to see who had knocked.

Richard Gray closed the door behind him. "Hi, honey. How was the beach?"

Gianna smiled up at her father, "It was good, Marisa says 'hi', by the way."

The man nodded, approaching her bed and sitting down on its foot. "How's your mom?"

The question Gianna hated the most.

How's your mom?

The question everyone in her family has asked her ever since she was eleven.

The question that made her blood boil like no other.

The question that made a knot form in her throat and her chest tighten.

Gianna looked down at the shorts and oversized shirt in her hands, "She's okay. I mean, she hasn't been completely sober the whole time you were gone, but nothing too bad."

"Has she relapsed again?"

She chewed on her lip and dug her nails into the palm of her hand. Gianna hated these types of conversations, always felt like some kind of informant sent to spy on her mother and report it all back to her father.

Of course Katherine Gray was doing drugs again, it was impossible not to notice when she was high and Gianna couldn't understand how her father, and everyone else, could be so oblivious to it most of the time.

"Yes," she spoke, lifting her eyes to her fathers. "She has."

Richard sighed, rubbing a hand over his face. "Why didn't you tell me? You have to tell me these things, Gia."

"I'm sorry-"

"You don't have to apologize, just..." Richard got up, crossing his arms over his chest. "Next time, tell me. I can't speak to your mothers doctors unless I know about the things that are happening here when I'm away."

Ever since the incident last year, Richard Gray had been in contact with Katherine's psychiatrist and therapist, always speaking to them in regard to her relapses and behaviors.

But it was difficult to let them know about those things if Richard didn't know about those things

Gianna had a certain difficulty with telling her father about the things that happened at home when he was away. She was afraid that, if she were to tell him that her mother was snorting cocaine again or drinking obsessively, the two would get in a fight and divorce and that it would be all her fault.