Leftover Girl

by Bolick, C. C.

  Bailey rolled her eyes. “A new pool.”

  Dad choked on his glass of wine. “Pool?”

  “To replace the one we had before Jes came to town.”

  “Bailey,” Aunt Charlie said, “that’s not fair.”

  “She’s not even afraid of water. You should see us swimming in the creek.”

  My eyes widened. “What are you talking about?”

  “Come on,” she said. “Admit it, you love to swim.”

  Aunt Charlie crossed the kitchen and grabbed Bailey’s arm. “You’re not doing this tonight. We don’t need any more drama in this family, especially on Christmas Eve.”

  As Bailey argued, I backed away from the table, escaping for my room. Before I reached the stairs, she was behind me.

  “Some friend you are. You should’ve had my back.”

  I spun around, but Pade stepped between us.

  “Leave her alone,” he whispered.

  She snickered. “What will you care after next week?”

  “Next week?” I asked, staring at Pade. “What happens next week?”

  “Dad asked Pade to move to Colorado and he’s going.”

  Pade’s eyes were sad as he backed away from Bailey. “You promised to let me tell her.”

  My face was numb. “It doesn’t matter.” I ran upstairs, throwing the pillow over my head like a scared child, abandoned yet again. Beneath the comforter, I cried for hours, until the door opened and a pair of pink fur-trimmed shoes stole across the floor.

  Bailey’s voice was soft. “I’m sorry about earlier.”

  I sniffled and wiped my nose. “Please, just leave me alone.”

  “We have to talk.”

  I pushed away the comforter. “I know why you were so mad.”

  She frowned. “Those things I said, I didn’t mean to—”

  “It’s fine, whatever.”

  “No, I caused a scene about you when everyone was looking at me.” Bailey approached the bed and I noticed her eyes were swollen like mine. “I told them I was lying about the creek. Are you okay?”

  “I’ll be fine. I’m over Pade.”

  Bailey crawled in, forcing me over. She took my hand under the comforter and squeezed. “Jessica Delaney, I know you better than that. You’ve always liked Pade and that hasn’t changed.”

  Tears streamed down my face. “How can he be leaving us like this?” I gulped between the sobs. “How can he be leaving you?”

  “I’m going with him.”

  “What?”

  She looked away, her voice shrinking. “Dad wants us to move to Colorado and complete the second semester. It’s only ‘til summer.” Her last sentence spilled out in a rush, as if to cover the one before.

  I stared at the ceiling. The lamp at my bedside cast strange shadows above us. “Just like that, you’re moving to another state.” My tears dwindled and dried a path to my chin before Bailey replied.

  “You of all people should understand. I haven’t seen my dad in two years.”

  “So he shows up and you just go?”

  “I want the chance to know him.” Her voice cracked. “Do you think you’re the only one who’s wondered about your real dad? About why he didn’t stay around?”

  “No.” Faced with the ugly truth, how I was only one of many kids hurt by their real parents, I laughed.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “You made me feel normal.”

  She shifted on the bed. “Dad wants me and Pade to come to Colorado and live with him. We can finally get answers.”

  I pulled my hand away from hers. “Good luck.”

  Her voice rose. “Can’t you be happy for me?”

  “Does it have to be for the whole semester?”

  “Mom’s staying here while we go. I know it sounds strange, but she has her job at the hospital.” Bailey sighed. “Dad promised to bring us back when summer comes.”

  “How can you forgive him, like he only sent you to your room?”

  “He’s my dad.”

  “So, now you call him Dad?”

  “He’s always been my dad. Don’t be jealous because yours isn’t here.” Her words filled the air around us, buzzing in my ears until I wanted to scream. I covered my ears, desperate for an end to the sound, to lie alone in bed, for the room to be dark. The lamp glowed from my bedside.

  “Jes, I…”

  “We’ll talk about it tomorrow,” I said, through clenched teeth. In one sentence, Bailey had cut to my deepest feelings and my worst fear. Rolling over, I reached for the lamp, but never felt the switch. My fingers grazed the spot where I should have touched it, at the same time a crash sounded. The room flooded with darkness.

  Bailey and I fell asleep in silence, and neither of us mentioned the lamp.

  * * * * *

  On New Year’s Day, I slumped into my normal seat at the table. Mom served collard greens and black-eyed peas, both of which I refused. “Good luck,” she said and filled me in on the old southern tradition, but I’d given up on luck.

  When I headed for the stairs, no one seemed to notice how much food lingered on my plate. The air outside my bedroom window was warm enough for shorts. I stared through the screen as Pade knocked on the door.

  “I think we should talk before I go,” he said.

  I shivered, focused on a line of clouds above the trees.

  “Nothing to say?”

  “I’ve heard Colorado Springs is not so bad.”

  He opened the door and crossed the floor, quiet until he stood behind me. “You want me out of here, admit it.”

  My face flamed and I turned. “Say anything you want. Find a way to cover the guilt, no matter how bad I feel.”

  He laughed and shook his head. “Except for the last five minutes, you haven’t said more than hi or bye to me in two months.”

  “I never realized we’d run out of time.”

  “I didn’t know about Dad taking us back until the week after my birthday.”

  “Does it really matter now?”

  “Look, Jes, I’ve stayed away because I knew how upset you were about Chase leaving. Bailey told me everything.”

  I collapsed into the beanbag and lowered my head.

  “No one can help that Chase isn’t coming back, but I’ll be back after school is out.” He held out a box. “Happy birthday.”

  The paper loomed before me, stripes of yellow against dark green. I thought of the glasses Chase gave me, in a similar box, on his birthday. “I won’t be sixteen until tomorrow.”

  Pade pushed the box into my hand. “You know we’re leaving tonight.”

  My fingers trembled as I ripped through the paper and opened the lid. White silk lined the box, a soft bed for the gold chain that shined from the center. “It’s beautiful.”

  “You don’t sound impressed.”

  “I’m tired, that’s all.”

  “You know I’m coming back.” A storm began in his eyes. “I promise.”

  When he reached for my hand, I retreated, toppling from the beanbag. With a stumble, I dropped the box and stood, back against the wall.

  “Why are you so afraid to touch me? It can’t be that silliness about our parents, not when we’re alone.”

  I took a long breath. “No.”

  “My parents don’t have to know. Your parents…” His voice lowered. “Do you know how much I care about you?”

  “Don’t,” I whispered.

  His face neared mine, until his breath tickled my cheek. “Say the words and I’ll stay.”

  “You’ve promised your dad and Aunt Charlie. I won’t make you choose between them and me.”

  “But it was okay for Bailey to choose?”

  “That was different.”

  He sighed. “It was never Tosh. That night in the locker room, it was only you. I had to kiss someone to know I wasn’t going crazy. You can’t understand but I think I love you, and it’s the insane kind of lose-my-head love that scares me.”

  I stared at Pade, heart racing
, and in that moment I realized I’d tarnished him, cursed our chances just like Jessica Naples was born to do. Anger burned inside me. I slammed my fist against his chest.

  Pade put a hand to his ribs, his face twisting. “Do you hate me that much?” He placed his other hand under my chin, gently forcing my eyes to his.

  I wanted to cry. Instead, I screamed.

  Before Pade could figure out what to do next, Mom and Aunt Charlie rushed through the door, planting themselves between us.

  “What’s going on in here?” Mom’s hands were on my arms.

  Pade’s voice transformed to cool and calm. “Jes was upset about Bailey leaving. I was trying to cheer her up.”

  “Is that true?” Mom asked, releasing my arms.

  I looked out the window but never saw beyond the metal lace. “Yes ma’am.”

  Aunt Charlie whirled me around to face her. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

  “Like he said, I was upset. Everyone is leaving.”

  Mom hugged me. “Pade and Bailey will be back before you know it. And your dad and I will never leave.”

  Aunt Charlie rubbed my arm. “The kids might come home for spring break. That’s only two months away.”

  I smiled as a robot might if a computer could translate desolation. “Thanks.”

  Mom hugged me again and pushed Aunt Charlie toward the door. “We’ll be in the kitchen if you need us.”

  “Maybe Pade should come with us,” Aunt Charlie said.

  “I’ll be down in a minute,” he said quickly. “I just need to talk to Jes about Bailey, to make sure she’s okay.”

  “Fine,” Mom said. “Five minutes.”

  Pade exhaled as the door closed, his eyes darting back to mine. “That was close.”

  “Get out.”

  His eyes widened.

  “You asked me to say the words. I never want to see you again.”

  His face paled. Pade took a step in my direction, hand outstretched.

  I shoved him away and ran from the room, locking myself in the bathroom. Footsteps stopped outside the door. A shadow fell across my feet.

  Pade didn’t jiggle the handle or threaten to break down the door. A soft thud sounded against the door, about where his head would have touched the wood. “Goodbye, Jes,” he whispered.

  I sat before the toilet and stared at the dome light above my head, until my eyes burned. The pain in his voice was enough to make me cry for most of the night. Sometime, maybe hours later, I climbed to my feet and opened the door, stepping into the hall. Something gleamed on the door and I reached down.

  A gold chain hung from the handle.

  * * * * *

  When I finally slept, I dreamed again of the spaceship. Fear followed me down the long hall and onto the platform. At the end, I gripped the metal rail along the bridge that separated me from the ship, closing my eyes and picturing myself on the ledge that protruded from beneath a lighted door. With a deep breath, I opened my eyes to the door six inches away and a gold mesh of metal at my feet. Swirls of wind weaved my hair as I touched a keypad and the door split. Before I could step inside, the voice thundered again.

  “Chadsworth!”

  I spun, catching sight of a boy on the bridge below, back against the rail. Beneath him stirred water, strong circular currents made by wind from the ship’s engine. When he turned, blue eyes cut through the wind as my heart and head met in sudden agreement. “Come on,” I screamed, extending a hand.

  His hands rose in desperation, only seconds before a patchwork of cloth covered his entire body. Great arms lifted the mass like a rag doll. The hooded figure glared up at me, but I saw only the amber eyes, alive with hatred. In one calculated move, my brother was lifted over the rail and into the water. One hand flailed from under the blanket, fingers that were last to disappear from sight.

  The whistle of a door closing sent me stumbling backward. I jumped through the gap, falling against black glass as the ground plunged beneath me. I lowered my head and poured out a decade of tears.

  It was never me in the water. It wasn’t my fear, but his. Seeing him over and over had me shaking again. My brother was dead. No one could survive beneath the surface of that dark water. But somehow Chase had.

  When sunlight finally silenced darkness, a lifetime of regret and loss had passed. My birthday had arrived, but the day meant nothing. Voices filled the floor below, those once marked by a daily offer to rise and join the family. Now the invitation felt hollow.

  Until that morning, my sixteenth January second, I never understood losing the closest person in the world. Chase was my brother, I knew with every part of me, every beat of my heart. He would have come for me already, if he could have. I felt the fear, the evil eyes that watched me, stole him away while I stood on that platform. One memory, one night was all I had. A thousand questions flowed through my head, but none mattered. Once again, Chase was gone.

  I pulled out Mrs. Pearson’s lingering assignment, the black marbled journal, and penned the first page. Had the woman been my mother all along? Or was she his captor? The only way to know was to remember, so I started with the beginning. Every word from Chase became a clue to the mystery of my past and every detail of her another step to remembering. Soon, I found that writing flowed easier than drawing.

  Eventually thoughts of Chase gave way to Pade and I closed my eyes, seeing only an image of him pacing the length of his front yard like a tide refusing to give up the beach. The smell of his cologne, the feel of his fingers touching mine bombarded my senses. His lips were moving, maybe he argued with Sarah Beth or Tosh on the other end of the phone he gripped, and I tried to convince myself it no longer mattered. He no longer mattered.

  What a joke when I was the one who sent him away. The only guy I’d ever loved, and he would never know the truth. Maybe I wasn’t Jessica Naples, but at least I could ensure he never made the mistake of loving me again. Pade was gone like Chase. Like Bailey, leaving me alone as I’d always feared. Only my parents remained, but at what point would they burn the bridge out of Credence in an effort to escape me?

  I opened the backdoor with care, each exhale a fog of crystals as I snuck onto the porch. Pulling the jacket close, I laughed bitterly, for even the seasons had changed overnight. Dad reclined in a padded iron chair along the banister.

  “When were you going to tell me Frank and Marsha weren’t my real parents?”

  His eyes remained closed until I stepped back, bitter about wasting all that nerve.

  “When you remembered they weren’t,” he said, his words almost fading into the breeze.

  “So all this time you and Mom lied to me.”

  “We did what was required to protect you.”

  “Protect me from what? For the last eleven years, I thought my real parents abandoned me. Isn’t that bad enough?”

  “Jessica Naples disappeared the same week you appeared.”

  “But why lie and say I was her? Of all people?”

  His eyes flew open. “You still don’t get it. You have no name, no parents, no background waiting for you to discover. According to New York State, you never existed before the night I found you.”

  “How is that possible?”

  “The doctors said to wait, that you would remember eventually. You had to remember on your own for it to be real, for you to feel safe.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “You were terrified. From the fear in your eyes to the distorted words you cried out in the night, you witnessed someone die and you wouldn’t go near water. You spent most of the first month hiding under your bed, but we couldn’t let you go. Lorraine and I couldn’t let them take you away from us. It made sense to tell the world you were Jessica Naples. Otherwise, I never would have gotten you out of New York.”

  “But what about the real Jessica Naples?”

  “I’m sorry to say she’s most likely dead. She was my only regret in all of this. Claiming you were her prevented the police from arresting those horrible peop
le.”

  “What really happened to them?”

  “I can only assume they were smart enough to disappear before someone found out the truth.”

  Did I ever tell him about Chase? “What about my fear of water?”

  “Honestly, I’m not sure why you feared water. Whatever happened to you was before that night in New York.” He leaned forward, taking my hand. “This is great, really. We can finally talk about what happened back then without doing this little dance around the pins and needles.”

  “Her birthday was January second, not mine. So much for Sweet Sixteen. Today means nothing to me now.”

  “Since you couldn’t tell us when you were actually born, I didn’t think keeping hers would break your heart after all these years.”

  “But I know now. It’s October fourteenth.”

  Dad released my hand. “How do you know for sure?”

  I thought of Chase, of the day at the lake, one of the happiest in memory. He owned that day as I did, and I couldn’t betray him again. “I can’t explain. It’s in my head, like a date I’ve known forever but just now remembered.”

  “What else have you remembered?”

  “My real name was Kayden.”

  “And?”

  Two pillars of my past and he wanted more? “That’s about it so far.”

  His lips pressed together in the faintest of smiles. “Now we know where the name Kay Ray came from.”

  I hadn’t made the connection. “Now that I know, what should I do?”

  “We find more doctors, better doctors who can help you remember.” He touched the side of my face. “We find a way to jog that fuzzy head of yours.”

  “We?” I asked, holding my breath.

  “You’re still my daughter. We’re still a family. Whatever it takes, however long it takes, we fight this one together.”

  I fell into Dad’s open arms, for the first time thanking fate.

  * * * * *

  Please be on the lookout for Leftover Girl: Secrets Return, coming in January of 2017.

  Acknowledgements

  I want to thank everyone who has read this book and especially those who are willing to give a few minutes of their time for an honest review. It means more to me than you can imagine.