Jordan came home and we had one of those rare days where the whole family was just in the same space being normal. Food, bad TV, Gia laughing too loud at something. I sat on the couch and let it happen and tried not to think about the fact that twenty-four hours ago we were in a courtroom.
Then Gia started talking and I remembered she is, under all the quiet, absolutely ruthless.
* * *
We had been eating for about an hour when Gia looked at me with that expression she has when she has been thinking about something for a while and decided now is the time.
"Are you dating Cassie and Maddy at the same time?" she said.
"I am not dating either one of them."
"Okay, fine. Talking to them."
I thought about it. "Yeah, I guess. But I have not really talked to Cassie much lately."
"Why not? I like Cassie."
"I like Cassie too. She is just too open."
Gia looked at me like that was the funniest thing she had heard all day. "What about you? You are talking to two girls who are best friends at the same time. And why do you even like Maddy? She ignored you for months and now suddenly she likes you. It is weird."
"Woah. Where is this coming from?"
She glanced toward the hallway. "You cannot tell anybody."
"I will not."
"Cassie told me," she said. "She feels like you just stopped talking to her and started messing with Maddy. And apparently that is true."
I leaned back. "Cassie is fun. But she has dated like every guy she has ever met."
Gia set her fork down. "You are being a hypocrite. You try to talk to every girl you think is cute and then you want to judge Cassie for doing the same thing."
I did not have a great answer for that so I went a different direction. "Are you mad at me?"
"No," she said. "I want you to go on an actual date with Cassie. Not thinking about anything else. Not things you have heard, not things you think you know but do not actually know. Just be with her. Actually be present. And then tell me honestly if Maddy is better."
"Why do you hate Maddy so much?"
Gia was quiet for a second. Then she said, "Because you have had a crush on her since before she knew your name and now that she is paying attention to you, you are so blinded by it that you cannot see what is actually in front of you. Cassie is genuinely nice. She is sweet. She actually likes you for you. And Maddy is going to use you for what you have. And you are about to have a lot more. So either go on a real date with Cassie and actually see her, or do not date either one of them."
"Wow," I said. "That is the most I have ever heard you give an opinion on anything."
She looked back at me completely unbothered. "Someone has to tell you. You make bad decisions sometimes."
I could not argue with that. I sat with it for a second and then I said, "Okay. Why do you like Cassie so much? Give me the actual list."
Gia thought about it. Then she started.
"She always remembers things," Gia said. "Like if you tell her something once she holds onto it and brings it back later in a way that makes you feel actually heard. She is the only one of your girls who has ever talked to me like a real person, not just been polite because you were in the room. She is genuinely funny without trying. And she is loyal in the way where she would take a hit for someone she cared about without thinking twice, even when she probably should think twice."
"She is also really pretty," Gia added, like it was a footnote.
I listened to the whole thing.
"You have thought about this a lot," I said.
"You have not thought about it enough," she said. Then she picked her fork back up and went back to eating like the conversation had not just happened.
I sat there for a while after that.
Gia was thirteen. She was also, and I was not going to say this out loud, probably right about at least half of it.
I thought about Cassie. Then Maddy. Then the fact that I had walked out of a courtroom this morning and somehow the most complicated thing about my day was this conversation.
I did not know what I was going to do about any of it. But I was going to think about what Gia said. Whether I wanted to or not.