“I suppose we should go down,” I said.
It took us a while to get down to the kitchen, with me carrying our dinner dishes, and Jesse on his crutches, but when we got there, we were greeted by the sight of my family, plus two police officers sitting around the dining table. Mum and Dad looked serious, though Mum looked as though she’d had an awful shock, which in a way was true. It’s not every day you’re informed that your daughter tried to drug someone. Georgia’s face was tear-stained, and she was still crying. Instead of waiting for anyone to speak, I went to her and pulled her into a tight hug. I couldn’t stand seeing her cry that way.
“What’s going on?” I heard Jesse ask from across the room as Georgia sobbed into my shoulder.
“Georgia went to the police station earlier with some new information,” Dad said. “They need to speak to you and Hunter about what happened.”
“Okay.”
“We’ll go into the other room. The girls have things to talk about in here.”
Nobody spoke, but I heard chair scraping across the floor as Dad, Hunter and the police officers rose from their chairs. It wasn’t until their footsteps had faded that Mum said, “Isabelle, take a seat.”
Reluctantly, I let go of Georgia, but sat down beside her and took her hand. She gave me a small, but grateful smile.
“Isabelle, is there anything you want to tell me about what happened at that party?” Mum asked.
“Mum,” Georgia said, “I already told you, none of this has anything to do with Isabelle. I told you everything.”
“I know what you told me,” Mum said. “But I want to hear it from Isabelle.”
“What do you want to know?” I asked, weakly.
“I want to know if you knew what Georgia intended to do to Leon at Mischa’s party.”
I shook my head. “Of course not. Those pills would have been flushed down the toilet if I’d known about them.”
Mum raised a suspicious eyebrow, and I said, “Mum, really? Do you honestly think I would have let this happen?”
“I didn’t think Georgia was capable of even thinking of spiking someone’s drink this morning. So, the answer is, I don’t know, Isabelle. I don’t know.”
“I had no idea,” I told her, firmly.
“Why didn’t you come to me as soon as you knew the truth? And don’t you dare tell me that it’s because you didn’t want to get Georgia into trouble.”
“But that is the reason.”
Mum’s chair almost flew right out the back door as she quickly stood up, and snapped, “What is wrong with you? This isn’t just some stupid little schoolgirl error! Georgia had drugs in our house, and fully intended to use them to hurt someone!”
Georgia was past the point of consolation and unable to defend herself, so I stood up too.
“She didn’t intend to use them! Maybe she thought about it, and that is bad enough, but what matters is that she didn’t do it! She couldn’t do it!”
“Whether she intended to use them or not, once you knew what had happened, you should have come to us instead of hiding it!”
There wasn’t a single moment in my life that I could recall seeing my mum so angry. That was probably why she was so angry. Aside from the occasional detention at school, Georgia and I had never done anything that would cause this level of upset. Well, I hadn’t. Georgia might have done things that our parents simply hadn’t found out about, but mostly, we stuck to the few rules they had given us.
“I’m ashamed of both of you,” she said, her jaw clenched. “This is why you and Jesse weren’t talking, isn’t it?”
I nodded. “Yes. I didn’t want to lie to Jesse, but-”
“You asked him to keep Georgia’s secret,” Mum finished. “I’m surprised he could forgive you. It is far more than you deserve.”
The guilt of asking him to cover for Georgia hadn’t left me, and I wasn’t sure it ever would. Did she seriously think I didn’t know how lucky I was? Did she have any idea how much it had hurt to turn my back on him? That was one part of the situation I’d never forgive myself for, but if Jesse was willing to give me another chance, shouldn’t my own mother have done the same?
“Stop it!” Georgia yelled. “Both of you, just stop! Mum, stop blaming Isabelle for what I did, it’s not her fault! She didn’t tell you because I begged her not to. I was scared, okay? I was scared of what would happen to me, and scared of Elliott finding out that I’d-”
She stopped abruptly. My eyes widened, and Georgia took a sharp intake of breath as she realised she’d almost blurted out her other, distinctly more disgusting secret. It was one thing confessing to carrying drugs, but admitting that she’d once had sex with the guy who’d been stalking her was perhaps a step more than she was prepared to take.