I hate that a middle school girl knows me. My face is all over the tabloids. Yesterday, they dissected a photograph of me leaving a restaurant hand-in-hand with Lily.
And then it hits me fully.
She’s my half-sister.
“Yeah, that’s me.”
“And you’re at my house…？ Do you know my mom?”
Emily waits impatiently for her daughter, about to interject, but I do her a favor and shut down her inquiry.
“Not really,” I say. “She’s a friend of my father’s.”
“Mom,” she whispers. “You know famous people?”
Emily shrugs, her shoulders stiff.
And then my eyes catch a pin on the strap of the girl’s jean backpack. Mutant & Proud. What are the odds? “You like X-Men?”
“The cartoons,” she says. “X-Men: Evolution.”
“My girlfriend likes those too.”
“You mean your fiancée? I just read in Celebrity Crush that you’re getting married.” She rocks on her feet and pushes her glasses further up her nose as they slide down. “Is it true?”
“Yep, it’s true.”
Her eyes brighten like she’ll have something good to tell her friends tomorrow at lunch.
Emily widens the door so her daughter can pass. “Willow, inside please.”
Willow examines me with an inquisitive gaze before she resigns to her mother’s pleas. And then she slips indoors and out of sight.
“You named your daughter after a Buffy character?” Maybe we like the same things, I stupidly think. Probably because Willow strangely does.
She frowns. “What?”
“The televisions show, Buffy the Vampire Slayer?” She’s still confused. “Never mind.”
“What do you want, Loren?” she finally asks. “What did you think would happen by coming here?” Her voice lowers and the door begins to close so I can’t see past her body and into her house. I can’t see the life that I never would’ve had. “You’re twenty-one. You’re an adult.”
“You’re not my mother. I think I got it,” I say roughly. I hate that I don’t hate her. Not even a little bit. I take a step back, my eyes flitting over the house, over something that I don’t want to destroy. I ruin everything I touch.
And I’m not going to mess up her life. Even if mine is all fucked up. Right as I’m about to leave this all behind, something else catches my eye in the window.
A girl. A child. No older than two or three. She peers through the glass, clutching a stuffed dinosaur. I see me. Growing up and being lied to. Never knowing about my brother and finding the answers in the most jarring, horrific way. The secrets. The betrayal.
I face Emily again. She seems at peace with her decision and her life, but she’s repeating the same mistake as my father. As Sara Hale. She doesn’t see it now, but the lies she weaves will eat at her family from the inside out.
“You should know,” I say, “that even though I’m not your son, I’m still their brother.”
Her lips press in a line.
But I keep speaking. “And maybe you don’t see it like that, but take it from someone who’s been in their situation before—they will.” I think of Ryke. “I’m not saying that you have to tell them about me now or anytime soon, but they’ll find out eventually. If not from the press, then from some stranger, and they should hear it from you.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” she says shortly. “Anything else?”
Fuck you. I can’t say it though. I don’t really feel it. More like, Fuck me. For being so stupid. For thinking you’d care.
I shake my head, everything draining from me like I’ve been slit open on the sidewalk. I take another couple steps off the stoop, glance up at the three-story brick house. Middleclass family. Happy. Normal.
I turn around and never look back.
{ 48 }
LILY CALLOWAY
With Lo in Maine, he wanted me to skip my therapy session with Dr. Evans today, but the therapist called me and said that if I skip, he’d contact my parents and tell them how poor my progress has been. So I sit alone in Dr. Evans’ office, constantly checking my phone. Lo said he would call after he sees Emily. If their meeting doesn’t go well, I’m worried that he may choose to escape with alcohol. I really wanted to go, but at his request, I’ve stayed here.
Dr. Evans applies the electrodes to my wrist and hands me the small black box with all the wires poking out. He nestles behind his desk in his seat, wearing a smug look. He loves the fact that Lo isn’t here to interrupt the session.