The People We Choose

by Katelyn Detweiler

  I stiffen at the word. “Not a daughter,” I say, correcting him. “Donor offspring. Those are two hugely different things.”

  “Right. Yes. I’m sorry. Your moms—do they know?”

  I shake my head.

  “And Max?”

  I shake my head again.

  He nods slowly. “Okay. When will we tell him?”

  “Not we. Me. I will tell him.”

  “He loves you, you know. He hasn’t told me, but I can tell.”

  I rub my foot against the gravel driveway, watch the glitter catching in the morning sun. “Promise me you won’t tell him. Please. It needs to come from me.”

  He sighs, the kind of racking full-body sigh that would usually be exaggerated, but in this moment, it’s the only kind of sigh there is. “Fine. I promise. I’ll let you tell him.”

  I nod, still not meeting his eyes. They look too much like mine.

  “I don’t need to go on my run, if…”

  I glance up, curious.

  “We could go to the diner or something? If you want to get breakfast. Talk.”

  It’s too much. At least right now.

  “Not today. But… maybe sometime?”

  He nods. “You know my number.”

  “I do.”

  “I’m glad you told me.”

  “Not really a choice, was there?”

  “I guess not. But still. I know this had to be hard. Maybe the hardest thing you’ve ever had to do. I hope things get easier, once you tell Max. I bet you can still be good friends.”

  Easier.

  He says it like he knows me. Understands me

  I turn my back to him, pick up the thermos, and start walking home.

  I call the cryobank as soon as they open for the day, even though I’d acted so certain for Elliot.

  Even though I am certain.

  They assure me they don’t make mistakes about donor matches. The system is “foolproof.” The calm, patient voice on the other end of the line checks, though, referencing both files, just to be certain. I’m not sure if she’s technically allowed to do this, but she does. Possibly because she hears my desperation and feels pity. And because I obviously know his name, his identity. We’ve talked. We’re neighbors.

  “Neighbors?” she asks, sounding dumbfounded. “We’ve heard of some interesting coincidences, but… neighbors. Wow.”

  “Neighbors.” I leave it at that. For her sake.

  The phone call ends then. There’s nothing left to ask.

  I text Ginger an update: It’s him.

  When she tries calling less than a minute later, I press Decline. I’m not ready to dissect all the gory details. Not yet.

  Instead I practice the confession in my bedroom mirror—stare at myself, study what it will look like when I tell Max. My expression. The shape of my lips as I try to form impossible words. The words get harder every time I repeat them. Never easier.

  I’m your sister. Half sister.

  Your dad is my dad. My donor.

  We have to fall out of love.

  Max and I didn’t grow up together. We didn’t share our childhood. We didn’t take baths together, or cry about our nightmares, or bandage each other’s skinned knees. That was me and Noah. Noah is a brother to me. In every way but blood.

  But it all comes down to blood, doesn’t it?

  I would be allowed to fall in love with Noah.

  I don’t have the same allowance with Max. My heart was wrong for ever letting that happen.

  I need to end things. Today.

  A letter—I’ll put all the truths and feelings into black-and-white for him to process. Write down the things that are too hard to say out loud.

  I take out my journal from the drawer and start writing.

  Page after page ends up scribbled over and crumpled on the floor. There are no perfect words. Jane Austen herself would have been at a loss for how to express these sentiments with any grace and delicacy. The truth is too ugly for grace. Too harsh for delicacy.

  Two hours in, the morning is gone and I’m down to the last three pages of the journal. The final attempt. What will be, will be. Fate has intervened. This is it.

  It all started with another letter, I write. And my own curiosity. I painstakingly copy Elliot’s note. I don’t leave anything out, not even the part about how certain he was he would never have kids. I don’t think I was meant to be a dad, but so it is. Max won’t disagree.

  Copying is the easy part. Writing my own words after—breaking down the consequences of this first letter—is much trickier. It all feels like overstating the obvious: You are my half brother. This, us, must end. Immediately.

  I say these things because I have to. But I say much more than that.

  I write that it was all true. It was all real for me. Every kiss, glance, word. He is—or was—the only boy I’ve ever loved. More specifically, been in love with. Love and in love, the difference is a hungry, gaping canyon. Love is still okay. In love will never be okay again.

  I remind him of the conversation we had earlier this summer about how quickly we became friends. That sometimes people just click. That moment on the hammock, the easy happiness—it feels like another era. I have aged centuries since then. But I smile as I write this, because the heart of our exchange is still true: Maybe we clicked because we’re two souls cut from some of the same cloth. But much more literally than we thought, or ever would have chosen.

  When I’m done I fold the letter into careful thirds without rereading, because I need to be finished. I tuck it tightly inside my copy of Sense and Sensibility and carry it downstairs.

  I make more coffee, graze on some nuts and dried fruit. I’m not hungry, but I need to fuel myself for the torture that lies ahead.

  And then I pick up my phone to text Max. Push it all into motion. He’ll inevitably come by the house to see me at some point, but I need this to be over with. And better to do it before my moms are home and potentially in hearing range. It will be a separate—also unpleasant—conversation with them. After.

  Are you free now? I type, and click send.

  I go outside and lie down in the hammock. I toss the book—with my letter—onto the grass below me.

  It’s a perfect afternoon. Too perfect. Maybe the bluest, clearest sky of the summer. Low humidity. Hot but not scorching. The perfectness is too at odds with the events of my day.

  I’m staring at my phone, waiting for a response, when I hear the crunching of gravel. A car in our driveway. Damn. I should have had hours still before Mimmy and Mama got home. I’ll have to ferry Max away when he gets here, keep a straight face until we’re somewhere more private. The hill or the pond or my tree. I hate to destroy our happy memories in those places with this terrible one. But privacy is essential.

  I’m feeling solid about this plan when I first see him rounding the corner of the house.

  Not Mama or Mimmy. Not Max.

  Noah.

  He stops abruptly when he notices me watching. Lifts one hand up in a tentative wave.

  I wave back, and he must take that as a sign that I won’t snap his head off for proceeding. He takes slow steps in my direction. It’s hard to keep my patience. A sloth would beat him in a landslide victory. When he’s a few feet away, he pauses. Hovers. Still uncertain if it’s okay to join me on the hammock.

  “Hey,” I say, shifting to the top of the hammock and patting the empty space next to me.

  “Hey.” He sits down carefully, making sure to leave enough space between us that we don’t risk skin brushing skin.

  He won’t look at me. That much is obvious. But I study him. I try to decide if he looks different after this much time apart. We haven’t gone this long without seeing each other since I was a newborn and he was still in the womb. His hair is particularly unruly today—his golden-brown curls in clumps sticking out in odd directions, like a tufted bird. He’s in his usual uniform, white T-shirt, denim shorts, slip-on sneakers. The same Noah on the outside. But on the insid
e? I’m not so sure. I don’t know what to think anymore.

  “How are you?” What I want to ask is: Why the hell are you here?

  “I’m okay.”

  I wait for him to pick up the reins of the conversation, perhaps ask how I’m doing. When a few minutes pass and he’s made no progress, I say: “I’m surprised you’re here. It’s a Saturday, too. Don’t you have your cello lesson?”

  He turns to me, his blue eyes meeting mine for the first time. His cheeks are flushed. There’s a strange look on his face. Guilt. Or pity.

  I know then, before he says it—why he’s here. What he knows. How.

  It’s a betrayal that slices deep at my core, stealing my breath. Ginger told him.

  I won’t make this easier for him. He needs to say the words himself.

  “Ginger told me your news,” he says finally. There’s a nervous twitch in his right eye, a rapid flutter. I’ve never noticed that twitch. I suppose our lives were always too easy before this summer. Straightforward. No twitch-inducing moments of revelation.

  “Obviously.”

  His cheeks turn an even deeper shade of red. Maroon almost. “She called this morning. But she didn’t want me to say anything.”

  “Of course she didn’t. It was supposed to be a secret.”

  “I couldn’t not talk to you, though. I couldn’t stay away. So I called my instructor and said I was sick today. And then I spent the rest of the morning talking myself into actually driving over here and facing you.”

  “You’ve been staying away most of the summer. Why stop now? Don’t skip your lesson on my account.”

  “That’s not fair.”

  “Isn’t it? You’re punishing me for not being in love with you.” Noah flinches at those words, his body curling as far along the opposite end of the hammock as possible without tumbling off the edge.

  “Listen, Calliope. I’m sorry. I am. I know I’ve been shitty this summer. Seriously. Mega-asshole. Total wanker. Me.” He points to his chest with both hands, looking down at himself with a disgusted lip curl. “I was hurt, and I ran away. It seemed… easier? But it was dumb. I don’t know what I thought—it’s not like I could stay away from you forever. You’re my best friend.”

  “Am I?”

  “You know you are.”

  “You have Ginger.”

  “It’s different.”

  “Is it?” I shake my head. Messy curls fall over my eyes and I don’t bother to push them back. Better to be shielded. “Never mind. This doesn’t matter. It’s not why you came over—to apologize. Don’t act like that’s the reason.”

  “It’s part of the reason. Hearing about what you’re going through—”

  “What? You wanted in on the soap opera, too? Didn’t want to be on the sidelines of my wild drama? I mean—incest. Come on! Doesn’t get juicier than that, does it?”

  He frowns, looking genuinely wounded. “You know that’s not what I’m thinking. I’m here because I couldn’t stand knowing you were hurting. I had to come. Even if you did end up tossing me out on my sorry ass. I had to try.”

  “Interesting. You couldn’t show up for my eighteenth, though?”

  “You’re right. I threw myself a pity party after that night at Max’s house. And I didn’t want to see you and him together. I’m not proud of that particular decision. I was being selfish.”

  “Incredibly selfish.”

  “That’s true. But don’t act like you’ve been having a miserable summer without me. Not until now.” He takes a deep breath, closes his eyes. Preparing. He must find whatever courage he’s searching for, because when he opens his eyes again, there’s no guilt there, just resolution. “I have to say this, Calliope. And then I’ll leave if that’s what you want me to do. I know you can’t choose to love me like that, and I get it. I do. But you do realize it goes the other way, too, right? I can’t choose to not love you, or to stop because that’s the more convenient option. Trust me, if I could not be in love with you, I’d be all about it. Unrequited love? Let me tell you. It’s the fucking worst. So as hard as love has been for you this summer—not loving me, loving Max, discovering you can’t love Max—I get it. Not quite like you do. I’ll give you that. But it’s all hard, isn’t it? I needed time to mourn. Time to get over myself.”

  It’s true, what he says. I know it is. There are things in life you can’t control:

  Falling in love. Falling out of love.

  Who and when and why.

  “I’m sorry that you love me,” I say. And I mean it. It doesn’t excuse his icing me out this summer for having another boy in my life. But I am sorry.

  “You could be more terrible, you know. Make it easier to not love you.” He’s smiling.

  I smile, too, and push my hair back off my face. He edges closer to the middle of the hammock.

  “Really, though,” he says softly, “how are you holding up?”

  “It’s hard to say. I don’t think it’s fully hit yet. That’ll come after I tell Max. Seeing his reaction will make it feel more real.”

  “When’s that happening?”

  “Today.”

  “Shit.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Do you think you’ll be friends still?”

  “I hope so. Because we’re more than friends, aren’t we? Just not the more than I had thought this summer.”

  “I still can’t wrap my head around it—of all the men who donate, your moms picked the guy who grew up next door. I mean, what the hell? Life has strange plans sometimes.”

  “Strange is putting it mildly.”

  “Is there anything I can do?”

  “No. Thanks. This is my disaster to untangle. I just…” I pause for a moment, try to focus all the questions spinning through my mind. “I keep thinking about family, and what it means. What makes a family, how much blood matters—and if not blood, what does? You’ve always been the brother to me. We have that history. That bond. Max and I, we have none of that shared past. So how is he more of a brother than you?” I stare at Noah, willing him to give me a good answer. Because I need it—I need an answer to this question, so badly.

  Noah shrugs, looking down at his sneakers. “There are different kinds of family, I guess. Some share DNA. Some don’t. I don’t think one is better or more real than the other. Just because people share DNA doesn’t mean they always get along, right? There’s more to it than genetics. Families come together in all different ways.”

  “But why isn’t it like that for you?” I reach out, put my hand on his knee. He looks up, first at my hand, then at my face. “I mean—why am I not like a sister? How are you in love with me? Why are things different for you and me?”

  Noah winces, looking like he’d rather slip through the holes in the hammock than have this conversation. But even still, he answers. For me. He must sense my desperation. “I guess all the things that make me feel like a brother to you—everything we’ve done together our whole lives, all the memories, sleepovers by the magic tree, getting our braces on the same day, holding your hand during my grandmother’s funeral—just made me feel even more connected to you. You get me. I get you. When you’re in a relationship, isn’t that person supposed to feel like family? Eventually, anyway. When you settle down and make a life. All that. That’s what I want, anyway. Some day.”

  What he says—it makes sense. It does. Mama and Mimmy are family. Of course they are. We’re all Silversmiths. You find someone, you build a life together, you make them your family. Maybe you mix your blood, maybe you don’t.

  “What about physically, though?” I ask because I can’t stop myself—because this is what it boils down to, isn’t it? The chemical sensation that comes from deep under your skin. The part we can’t control. “I’m sorry. I know that’s… personal. And weird for me of all people to ask. But I want to understand.”

  “Jesus, Calliope. You’re asking why I’m attracted to you?”

  I bite my lip. “Yeah. But if it’s too weird, you don’t have to answer
.”

  He shrugs. “It’s hard to put into words. I just… am.” He’s quiet for a minute, and I’m about to tell him to forget it, that it was an awkward question, when he says: “All the little things, I guess—your laugh sounds like a happy bird chirping in the spring. Your eyes are like the color of the ocean, or at least how the ocean should always look. How messy and wild your hair gets, especially in the summer. Case in point: right now.” He smiles and flicks a finger at one of my stray curls.

  I asked for this, but I’m not sure what to do with the information now that I have it. It doesn’t change how he feels, and how I don’t feel. Nothing will.

  “Thank you for that,” I say, standing up from the hammock. “I hate to kick you out, but… Max should be over pretty soon. I think it’s probably best if you’re gone when he gets here. No offense.”

  Noah gets up, too. “Yeah. Of course.”

  “But seriously, thanks for… checking in. I appreciate it.”

  He nods. He lifts his arms like he’s going to hug me, but then he jams his hands in his pockets and starts off toward the driveway.

  I watch as he disappears around the side of the house, and then fall back in the hammock. Close my eyes. Breathe.

  Wait.

  A few minutes later, I hear a snapping twig. Rustling brush.

  I open my eyes and Max is there, stepping out from the edge of the woods. His face lights up with a happy boyish smile, and I worry that I’m going to be sick.

  I make myself stand. My legs feel weak.

  Before he can say anything, I announce: “There’s something you need to know.”

  His smile fades. He walks faster, closes the gap between us. When he reaches out to me, I put my hands up to stop him.

  His brows furrow as he frowns. “What’s going on?”

  “I wrote you a letter. That says it so much better.”

  “A letter?”

  I nod.

  “You’re scaring me, Calliope. Your face right now—” He shakes his head, looking as sick as I feel. And he doesn’t even know yet. “Please just tell me.”

  I take a deep breath.

  “I found my donor.”

  “Okay? And that’s… a bad thing?”