Page 2 of Married Into Love

“Crap,” I groaned. My eyes filled with tears, and I closed them in the hope that I’d be able to stop myself from breaking down. Crying wasn’t going to solve anything. “I really wish you’d told me sooner, before we were so many months past due on rent for the landlord to start the evictionprocess.”

“It’s not my fault she fucked us over,” Ariana growled as she jerked awayfromme.

“I know it isn’t.” I wrapped my arm around her shoulders and pulled her close again. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said it that way. Of course it isn’t your fault. If anything, it’s mine because I was dumb enough to take her up on her offer to help with stuff like making the rent and utilities payments when I changed jobs. I should have known better and just figured out a way to get it all done during my lunch break orsomething.”

“Hey!” She jammed a pointy elbow into my side. “Don’t beat yourself up about this. It isn’t your fault, either. There’s only one person to blame, and that’s Mom. She’s the one who fucked up here;notus.”

“Fat lot of good blaming her does us. If she’s been gambling with the rent money I’ve been giving her”—my eyes filled with tears again at the thought of the money I’d left for her just yesterday so she’d have it for the rent payment due in a couple of days—“then there’s no gettingitback.”

“So what you’re basically saying is we’re screwed with no hope of digging ourselves out of the hole Mom put us in? Because we both know damn well that’s exactly what she did with the money. We’re going to lose the apartment and have to figure out someplace else to live. I, for one, vote we leave Mom out of it and find a place without her. We’re adults, dammit. It’s time we moved out on our ownanyway.”

She was all fired up, and like usual I was the one who had to burst her bubble. “With what money, Ariana? Do you have thousands of dollars tucked away that I don’t know about? Because I don’t. I barely have anything left in my account between what I’ve been giving mom for living expenses, the most recent repair to a car that desperately needs to be replaced, and the tuition I already paid for my summerclasses.”

I felt even more like crap when she slumped against me. “Any idea how long we have before they kick us outofhere?”

“Based on what the notice said, we have five days to either pay up ormoveout.”

“Five days,” she gulped. “That’s not a lot of time. Want to call Mom and see if she’llpickup?”

“Sure,” I sighed. It wasn’t going to do us any good, but we should at least give her a heads up that we knew what she’d been up to and how we’d found out. Ariana pulled her cell out of her pocket, unlocked it, and put it on speaker phone as she made the call. We both groaned when it went to voicemail after ringingonlyonce.

“Hey, Mom. It’s Alessia and Ariana. Your daughters. The ones you just sent to voicemail because you don’t want to have to tell us that you messed up and gambled away all our rent money.” I heaved a deep sigh and forced myself to calm down a little so I didn’t scream into her voicemail because that would only make her want to avoid us even more. “I wanted to give you the benefit of the doubt, Mom. That maybe there was a misunderstanding of some kind and you’d be able to give us a different reason for why the rent hasn’t been paid in months, even though I’ve been giving you the money to pay for it. I was hoping you’d tell us not to worry and you’d go into the rental office tomorrow and clear it all up. But that’s not going to happen, is it? Instead, you’re too afraid to even talk to us on the phone and try to help us figure out a way to fix this so we don’t end up homeless in five days. I don’t know what to saytothat.”

And it wouldn’t have mattered if I did since I’d run out of time to leave anything else and the call was cut off by her cellservice.

“I do dammit,” Ariana piped in, twisting her body away from me, pulling the phone closer as she jabbed at the screen a second time. The call went straight to voicemail once again, and it pissed her off even more. “Alessia is too nice to know what else to say to you, but I’m not. Don’t bother coming home anytime soon. You can come grab your stuff after we move out. We’ve put up with a lot of shit from you through the years, always forgiving you because at least you didn’t walk out on us the way Dad did. But you know what? Not anymore. The shit you just pulled is even worse than what he did. You didn’t just walk away. You stole from Alessia and left us up shit’s creek without a paddle, fully expecting that she’d figure out a way to clean up your mess just like she’s been doing ever since high school. Well, that’s not gonna happen this time because I’m going to make sure she starts living her life for herself. It’s about damn time Alessia acts her age instead ofyours.”

She tossed her phone on the cushion next to her when the voicemail cut off again and turned back towards me. “Whoa,” I breathed. “Thanks for the backup, big sis. But now is the worst time ever for me to decide to get a life. We only have five days to find a new place to call home or come up with the thousands of dollars we’d need to stay here. I don’t have any time towaste.”

She put her palm over my mouth to stop the flow of words as my tone crept higher and higher. “What can we do today tofixthis?”

I glared at her until she pulled her hand away. “Figure out how much cash we can get our hands on. Drop out of my class, ask for a refund, and hope like heck they’ll give it to me fast. Look for somewhere cheap we can move to. Box up whatever we want to take with us,” Irattledoff.

“I don’t have anything saved up, but I can ask around and see if I can pick up a couple extra shifts this week. I can also see if any of the girls have suggestions for places where we couldmoveto.”

“That’d be good.” More like amazing. As pissed as I was at our mom, I couldn’t help but smile at my sister because she was stepping up to the plate to try to figure this out with me. No muss. No fuss.Justhelp.

“While you’re taking care of your school stuff today, I’ll go out to get us someboxes.”

My smile grew bigger. “Even better.Thankyou.”

“But then tonight, you’re going outwithme.”

And there went my smile. “Wait.What?”

“I have today off, and I doubt I’ll be able to pick up an extra shift thatquickly.”

“Okay,” I drawled, crossing my arms over my chest while I waited for her to finish herexplanation.

“And I was serious when I told Mom it was past time for you to act like the twenty-one-year-old that you are. So tonight, you’re going to let me dress you up and takeyouout.”

“We don’t have money to waste on crap like that,” Ihuffed.

“I didn’t say anything about spending money tonight,” she laughed. “We’re close enough to the same size that you can wear something from my closet. I have enough make-up and hair products to open my own salon. We’ll go to a club where I know the bouncers so we won’t have to pay a cover. And we’re both hot enough that we’ll have plenty of guys who’re willing to buy us drinks so we won’t need to worry about thateither.”

“Ariana,” I groaned, but I was pretty sure it came out more as awhine.

“C’mon. You always used work or school as an excuse anytime I tried to talk you into going out with me before. Are you, or are you not, dropping your classestoday?”

“Yes, I am,” I answered while glaringather.

“Do you have to wake up in the morning and headtowork?”

“No,” Igrumbled.

She didn’t seem at all bothered by my glare. “Then what could it hurt for you to live a little, Alessia? Let loose, just for one night. Please. We bothneedthis.”

“Fine,” I huffed. One night wasn’t too much to ask for, considering I’d run out ofexcuses.

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