Graduation Day (7)

As they watched the interaction, hatred and disgust flashed in Jason Song and Kara Song's eyes.

"Why are you intruding on someone else's family dinner? Don't you care how that makes us look?" Her father spat while grinding his teeth.

"Aika invited me. I'm not intruding." Aria fidgeted with her hands, and looked directly into her father's angry eyes.

In the next moment she vaguely heard Kara muttering, "As if someone would want to invite someone like you to anything..."

Unable to stop herself, Aria glared at her and spoke louder than she had before. "And someone would rather invite someone like you?"

Before she could realize what happened, she felt a harsh slap hit her face and stepped back several times with tears building in her eyes. When she cleared her eyes and looked in front of her, she saw her stepmother raging and being held back by her equally angry father.

"Aria! Do. not. speak. to. your. stepmother. like. that. Next time I won't stop her." Stunned, Aria stood there with her mind blank. She was only snapped out of her daze when she felt eyes roaming over her and turned to see Christian with a creepy smile.

Immediately ready for something like this Emma jumped in with tears in her eyes as well, "Mum! Dad! Don't treat her like that! She's still family, no matter how awful she acts... she'll always be my older sister."

Her words only served to make Jason and Kara angrier. They both hated seeing their precious daughter treating this scum well.

Suddenly, Jason chuckled lowly. "She may be the daughter of my first wife, but she's not family. I refuse to accept someone like this as my daughter any longer. Aria, get out of my sight and never let me hear you call yourself a Song again! You will never be a Song!"

"Da-" Emma continued with her act and tried to interject on Aria's side but was cut off.

"Quiet! Do not defend her!" Kara grabbed her daughter's hand and dragged the clearly reluctant girl into their room, soon followed by the other two members of the party.

Aria slowly brought her hand up to her face and felt where she was slapped. Oddly, she felt something wet and brought her hand down in front of her before realizing it was her tears. She knew he hated her, she always knew that. But she never though that her own father would go as far as disowning her out of his hatred.

Mindlessly, she slowly walked back to the room the Suzukis were in with her head hung low so they wouldn't be able to see her face. All she wanted right now was to go home and learn that her whole life was just one long nightmare and finally wake up.

When she walked into the room, she was pulled from her daze by Aika's calling out, "Aria?"

Without thinking, she rushed forward to the taller girl who had been by her side for the past month and wrapped her arms tightly around her, sobbing quietly.

After several long minutes, Aria had stopped crying and pulled back slightly. It was only at this point that she realized she had soaked Aika's dress in her tears and she called out quietly, "I'm sorry... I got your dress wet..." Aria's voice was slightly hoarse from crying and she sniffled.

She was rather exhausted from the shock and all her crying and had completely forgotten about the hand print on her left cheek.

Thus, she was shocked when she saw Aika's face turning dark and then her hand raised up and touched her cheek, causing her to flinch back.

"Who did this to you?" Aika's hands were by her sides clenched to the point her knuckles went white and her face was empty of anything except pure rage.

Once Aria realized what she was asking, she simply shook her head. "I just want to go home..."

Almost instantly, Aika's face calmed down slightly though the rage boiling inside her didn't go away. She turned to her parents who nodded and they all quickly left the restaurant with Aria standing directly next to Aika the entire time and her face down.

As the car drove down the now slightly empty roads of B City, Aria thought about everything that had just happened in a loop and clutched her mother's diamond decorated platinum moon necklace. Despite the horrible turn the night had taken at the end, the more she thought about it, the more she became glad that she was free from her father and that awful family.

Aria didn't know anything about her mother as she had died the same day she was born, but she had faint memories of her father's parents talking to her about her mother before they started hating her too. She had been quite young at the time and it wasn't traumatic like the events with her younger sister so all she remembered was her mother's name, Aya Montgomery.