Tell Me More Lies

Chapter 2: Sierra

The front door slammed as I was about to make my way down the cobble stoned steps onto to the backyard for some fresh air, this time invited and not trying to find a way in. The force of the heavy door was as much loud as when Ayla entered the living room disheveled and noticeably coming down from the high of last night. 

Charlie was beaming as soon as he saw me and welcomed me into his comfortable embrace. "Lordy, is this you already? I see Meredith had been feeding you that dietary herbal nonsense. I swear you were much chubbier than I remember."

It's been so long since I'd last seen him. It was refreshing to be near a familiar face. But I wasn't invested in making niceties because my focus drifted to the hysterical woman behind him who seems to be the only one to notice the mess in the living room. Her fingers were intertwined with the her blonde locks—more like pulling on it. She was fuming.

"Savannah, come here and meet Sierra," Charlie said, seemingly unfazed about the aftermath of a garbage bag explosion that found its way to his couch.

The blonde woman gives me the best forced smile she could muster. "Sierra! It's so good to see you finally." She pulls me into an unexpected hug that I almost tumble. As quick as she puts her arms around me, it vanishes before I could return the favor. Up close and in person, she looked different than the photos I saw of her on f******k. Her hollowed out cheeks were no more. 

"I'm so sorry about all this mess, I told her to make you feel at home but she goes and pulls a stunt like this." She makes a show of waving her hands.

Charlie lays a hand on her shoulder to calm her from having a meltdown. Emotion was pooling in her eyes and not the good kind. 

"It's fine, Savannah," Charlie's voice nonchalant. I get the feeling he was used to this by now. "I'll try to talk to her later."

Savannah blinks at him for a moment but then nods. Inhaling deeply, the forceful smile was back again on her face. "How was your flight, dear? Got trouble with TSA? I hear they're bitchier here than any other city in the world."

I break into smile. 

"Savannah," Charlie called.

"Oh hush, honey. She's probably used to foul words by now, teenagers and their runny mouths. I bet you're gonna have a bitchin' time with us. Mark my words. I'll make it so." 

I laugh. "No, I didn't have trouble getting here. But," I pull out the silver key from my pocket and hand it back. "You might want to rethink about putting this somewhere else. Found it inside the flower pot." 

Savannah frowns and turns to Charlie. He simply shrugs. A man of spectacular vocabulary Uncle Charlie was. 

"Thank you." She takes it from me and points a finger at Charlie. "You know how this one always keeps everything lying around."

No, I don't. 

Ayla ambles through the foyer with an apple in her hand. I'm taken aback by her sudden change of appearance. Her once blue hair was now a deep shade of brown. The change of hair color throws me off that I was left gaping at how beautiful she looked. Brunette suits her. 

"Stop looking, weirdo. Saved you half a bottle upstairs in the bathroom," she points out. 

"I'm good," I say. Ayla looks at me with humor in her eyes.

"I wasn't asking." Like before, she walks away from us giving her mother a kiss on the cheek and a tense stare at my uncle. He didn't seem faze by it, another indication that he must've gotten used to Ayla's mannerisms. Well, I'm not and it isn't really comforting.

"It's not that we don't approve of your choice of color, it's just that Ridgewood High doesn't tolerate . . . unconventional ways," Charlie elaborates while stroking my hand as if comforting a child. 

Great, then maybe by keeping my dyed hair, I'll get expelled and transferred to public school.

"In other words, RH is a basic b***h," Ayla calls out from the kitchen.

"Ayla Morales, you explain to me right now what happened to the living room!" Savannah charged after Ayla.

"The maid didn't show up," Ayla responds, busying herself in the kitchen by opening drawers looking for something.

"And that gives you the reason not to clean up after yourself?"

Ayla throws her hand up in the air and lands forcefully on the island top. "I'm sorry. Is that what you want to hear? Besides, your boyfriend told me I could have a few friends over."

"Yes, a few friends not the whole high school!"

"My friends and I got carried away last night. Last weekend of summer and all that."

Savannah's frown deepens. "I swear to God, Ayla, this is the last time I'm putting up with your s**t. Can you stop being a disappointment for once!"

My eyes widen. That's not . . . good.

Charlie eases up beside her, rubbing her shoulders. "It's fine, honey, I'll call the cleaning service right now. Calm down."

"No, this has gone too far. No matter what I say she doesn't list—"

Ayla cuts her off. "I'll clean it up right now." Her voice was much softer now.

Savannah seems to ease at that but quickly disappears. Her shoulders went rigid with mouth agape as she stares at something on the floor, just below the spot on the island where Ayla had put her purse earlier. Bending down, she picks something up from the ground and held it between her palm as if savoring its texture before it could vanish.

The room stills, the ambience shifted to something, I don't know, dark? It fills me with complete unease. 

Ayla looked shocked. I would be too if my mom accidentally saw my weed.

"Ayla, is this yours?" Savannah asks calmly. But Ayla didn't look scared or worried. She was quick to compose herself. 

"Nope." I stop myself from rolling my eyes.

Savannah takes a step toward her clutching the small bag tightly in her fist. "I'm not asking you again, Ayla," she says louder, her anger bubbling up inside.

Ayla matches her tone. "Why are you only asking me, I'm not the only one inside the house before you arrived home." They both looked at me.

Wait, is she really pinning this on me? For something we both clearly know who it belonged to?

"Oh, sure," I say, sarcasm dripping from my tone. "Airport security did a banged up job spotting a bag of weed being transported three thousand miles in the air."

Ayla smiles. "I rest my case." 

Hurriedly, Ayla snatched the weed from Savannah's palm and dumps the contents inside the trash bin before throwing the plastic itself inside. There was something in her rushed movements that I couldn't explain. 

Crossing her arms, she leans against the kitchen sink and looks at me, expectantly. "You really should be careful where you put your things, Sarah."

She's not giving up the act. "And you should really be wary of the time you come home. Even an i***t can tell apart sunrise and midnight when they're drunk."

Something snaps inside Savannah. "You came home drunk in the morning?" she asked, her voice hard.

Ayla scowls at me. "Relax, Mom. Elio dropped me off, no need to twist your hair extensions in a knot."

"After Charlie and I agreed you could have some friends over so you didn't have to leave the house?"

Ayla looks at me pleadingly. I was about throw Ayla a bone but I didn't get the chance before Charlie spoke.

"Your daughter revels in being a pain in the ass that she had to pull something different to get in our nerves. Of course the weed wasn't Sierra's, she doesn't even use drugs." He sighed.

Harsh, Uncle C. 

Savannah's shoulders sagged in defeat. "Do you?" she asked, as if she didn't want to believe her daughter purposely lied.

"No. Believe it or not, I've got better things to do than toking up in the kitchen."

Savannah wipes a hand over her face, defeated. "I, excuse me. I can't deal with this right now."

She brushed past us and up the stairs leaving her luggage at the front door probably expecting Charlie to hoist them up to their room. 

From the sink, I can hear Ayla mutter softly, "Shit."

Pushing herself upright, she stomps her way across the kitchen with the intention of following Savannah up the staircase but Charlie juts his hand out stopping her. "I don't think that's a good idea. I'll talk to her, she's going to be fine. Let her be."

Ayla snarls, "Yeah, you'd like that, wouldn't you?" The way she said it implies that there was a deeper meaning behind her words.

"No, but she would. She's had a long day as I'm sure you had, too. Go and freshen up. I'll make dinner."

This generates a humorless laugh to escape her lips. "Just because you had another addition to this false illusion of a prissy family that you never got to have doesn't mean I'm going to start playing house with you."

"And I'm not expecting you to," Charlie says calmly, challenging her with his eyes. "But the next time you bring that type of s**t under my roof, I can make you sleep outside of it."

Ayla doesn't relent. "Gladly, if it means not putting up with you."

Keep your mouth shut, I chant over and over, but the part of me that's hell bent on making my existence miserable had a mind of its own. "Uhm, Ayla—"

"Was I talking to you?" she sneers. Now I know what the other end of the viper's gaze looked like because Ayla stared at me like I was her prey. She takes an intimidating step. "Make sure you've got friends to back you up because you've got a shitstorm coming your way."

With the last word she heads straight for the door and never looked back, disappearing somewhere in the night.

Charlie sighs. "As you've see, I've gotten my plate full since your Dad was still a free man." And he gave you another problem to deal with. "I'm sorry. Ayla can be a bit," he drags, not wanting to talk smack behind her daughter-in-law's back.

"Frustrating?"

"Yeah, that. I admit, I'm not exactly father figure of the year. It doesn't take a fool to know she does not like me at all. I think you'd understand that."

I do. I was the same with Meredith when she married my father but that was different. She had eyes for a good pair of boobs and diamonds and used my father as a stepping stool to reach for them. But Charlie wasn't Meredith. My uncle's a good man and I don't see why Ayla hated him for simply wanting to marry her mother. But I guess since I had my reasons for hating Meredith and I'm pretty sure Ayla has hers as well.

"I don't think she hates you." I feed him a lie. Although it's not right, I think what he needs right now is a bit of small hope. To not feel like a failure from attempting to want to raise a family of his own like he'd wanted to when he and Dad were teenagers. But while my father started a life of his own, he succumbed to the temptations of the life of alcoholism instead. "I think she's misunderstood. No kid wants their mother to marry someone they didn't know would have the patience to put up with their family."

"So she's rebelling to prove a point?" he asks with humor. "For two years?"

"Or testing the waters. But what do I know?" I dismiss. "Besides, why was Savannah so pressed about the weed? Isn't it like legal now?"

"Only in fourteen states, kid." He sighs. "Savannah has a history of using before she went to rehab." 

That's why Savannah looked different in her pictures. Her bony figure, thinning hair. She must've been on them when they were taken. "I won't air dirty laundry especially my fiancé's but she sometimes have a hard time even just looking at them. So, if you're using, I suggest you do it somewhere else and not under my roof. Got it, kiddo?"

"I don't do drugs," I assure him.

"Good, cause I'll be damned if I let another one in the family be an addict, my kid or not."

I regard him carefully. "What about you?" I hate to call him out on his addiction, not when we haven't seen each other for a long time. I don't have the right to comment on that but I was curious.

"How do you mean?" I eye the cupboard Ayla opened earlier. "Oh, that. I don't drink much anymore. I just keep them there for occasions. How'd you even know? Thought I put a lock on that damned cabinet."

Yeah, occasions. I just pray it's not relapses. 

Charlie makes a move of locking it back in its place. But I doubt that would stop Ayla from getting in again. She's probably done it more than once.

He ruffles my head. I push him away and laugh. "It's really good to see you, Sierra. I'll check on Savannah for a bit and help me make dinner?"

I nod my head feeling grateful for Charlie. 

At least there was still one person I have left in my life to lean on.