“Elena, what’s going to happen to you now?”
“Elena, are you okay?”
“Ugh,” I groan loudly. I can hear them even with my head buried under my pillow. “I can’t believe Willow posted that photo of me.”
“I can,” Gavin says, breaking his silent treatment.
“How could she post that when I’m going to live with her?”
An incredulous noise escapes his lips. “Yeah, she had no intention of following through with that.” The edge in his tone tells me he’s still upset with me, which reminds me that I’m still mad at him too.
I sit up. “Of course she did. I got her the job on the show. She owes me.”
“Do you even hear what you’re saying? Friends don’t owe each other anything except respect.” Gavin scoffs. “She wasn’t trying to help you. She saw an opportunity to boost her self-image, and she took it. I don’t know why you’re so surprised. You do it all the time.”
I gape at him. “I’m not like that at all.”
“Oh yeah? Why did you tell Callie about Sonya?” He stares at me with wide, accusing eyes.
“Because. She deserved to know the truth about you.”
“And what about you? Didn’t you think she needed to know the truth about you too?”
“That’s different. I’m not in a relationship with her.”
“Yes, you are!” He shoots up from his bed, startling me. “A friendshipisa relationship. Don’t you understand that not every person owes you something or needs to pay you for your company? Callie isn’t like that. She’s looking for friendship, no strings attached. She deserves to know the truth about you as much as she does about me. So don’t kid yourself into thinking you were doing her a favor.”
“You’re right,” I say, sitting up to match his cold, hard stare. “Maybe I don’t know how deep and meaningful relationships work like you do. But can you blame me? If my own family abandoned me when I needed them the most, why should I expect anyone to be there for me?”
His face contorts in confusion. “That’s what this is about? Public validation to make up for not getting attention at home?”
“Is it so hard to believe that I want to feel valued? I’m tired of being ignored in this family. While you were supported and praised your entire life, I was a joke.”
He lets out a humorless laugh. “For the last time, theVoguearticle was the joke! We didn’t give it a second thought. But you certainly did. And now it’s all you ever think of.”
“What was I supposed to do? You abandoned me!” I point an accusing finger at him.
“Just because we didn’t take it as seriously as you did, that doesn’t mean we abandoned you. When you turned it into your catchphrase, that was when you decided to be on your own.”
Is he really trying to make this about me? Because Gavin’s wrong.He’sthe abandoner.
“As long as we’re calling each other out, your responsible-big-brother act may have fooled Mom and Dad, but I can see through it. You lied to them, just like you lied to me about Brennan.”
His head jerks back. “Brennan?”
“I heard you two talking at the cafe.” I purse my lips at him.
“You what?” He arches his brows in disbelief.
“I didn’t know if I could trust you to ask him how he felt about me without messing it up, so I followed you. And I was right not to trust you. Because I heard everything you said about me. I heard you making fun of me. It wasVogueall over again!”
Gavin stands up now, clenching his fists. “Did you hear the part where I said I misunderstood you all these years? That everything you do—from the money you’ve earned to support us, the way you got Dad to harvest what Mom wanted, and the impact you made on the town’s beautification initiative—has shown me that you are a strong, capable, and determined person who will always end up more than fine?”
What? When?I must have left before I heard that part of the conversation. Still, it doesn’t explain what I did hear. “Then why did you say all those insulting things about me?”
“I was trying to reassure Brennan that you weren’t the fragile person he thought you were. He mentioned how you were flirting with him pretty hard, and he was worried you wouldn’t take the rejection well. I wanted to let him know that you may seem like a vulnerable person, but you have an amazing ability to turn a bad situation around and make it good. And that quality has gotten you far in life. Once I got him to see that, he no longer saw you as weak but as strong. Don’t you see? I was being a good brother!” Gavin is practically shouting at me.
His explanation is starting to make sense. But if he’s been a goodbrother, then that means I’ve been a bad sister. And I don’t want to believe that. I can’t believe that. So I grasp for things that still don’t add up.
