by Rachel Jonas
Hearing him ask made me forget everything except that I needed to breathe. “Uh… 6:40.”
He nodded again. “Cool. I’ll wait for you Monday.”
He’ll wait for me.
He’ll…
“Cool,” I said back, far more chill and relaxed than I felt on the inside.
With that, Nick walked away and I practically floated the rest of the way to the porch. I had no idea what or how any of this happened, but… I was now sure I’d been wrong about him and, perhaps, Seaton Falls wouldn’t be so bad after all.
—
Chapter Three —
Evie
Street lamps whizzed by as we traveled way over the speed limit. My father used to be so sensible, but, if I had to guess, he wasn’t worried in the least about getting a traffic ticket. Paying the fine would be a drop in the bucket, given how much more he made in his new position versus his previous one.
One hard left and I double-checked my seatbelt. He may have forgotten there was precious cargo here in the backseat, but I sure-the-heck didn’t.
“Slow down, Honey,” Mom warned with a laugh. “This is why I’ve said for years that you don’t need a sports car.”
The vague use of the term sports car earned my mother a swift scolding in the form of a look passed her way from Dad. She saw it, knew a lecture was coming, and rolled her eyes as another laugh slipped out.
“This exquisite vehicle must never be referred to in that manner,” he joked, stroking the sleek, black steering wheel as if to coddle his new baby after Mom’s insult.
She waved her hand dismissively.
“And, for the record, Becks,” Dad began, using the nickname he’d always referred to my mom by, apparently thinking Rebecka was two too many syllables. “You never let me get one because we couldn’t afford it. Not because of my lead foot. Just sayin’…”
Mom shrugged, choosing not to argue with his logic. Maybe because both reasons were true. Instead, she planted a kiss on his cheek, leaving behind a ruby-red lip print neither bothered to wipe away.
At the entrance of our neighborhood, we paused at the gate, inching forward after Dad entered the code. We each waved to Lou, the security guard, as we passed his station on the left. I gripped the pizza box warming my lap as the winding street eventually led us home.
Dad eased the overpriced cliché-on-wheels into the driveway and the roaring engine went silent. Before exiting to open my mother’s door, he theatrically placed a kiss on the steering wheel and told the new object of his obsession he’d see her in the morning. As amused as I was embarrassed, I climbed out of the car and made my way toward the front door with our dinner in hand.
We typically had ‘family date night’ at the top of the weekend, so we opted for pizza after leaving the movie theater. My parents trailed behind me as they came up the walkway, laughing and holding hands like newlyweds. Not like a couple who’d been at it for twenty years. While, yeah, the PDA was a bit hard to stomach at times, I considered myself lucky to have parents still so very deep in love.
Dad unlocked the door and then let Mom and I go in first. I stopped at the front closet to kick my shoes off inside it and then hung my jacket. Right after, I headed to the kitchen sink to wash my hands while Mom grabbed a small stack of plates. Dad took three glasses from the cabinet and we all met at the kitchen table.
With only the one light above our heads lit, it cast awkward shadows around the room. This house seemed so big, so empty. Compared to our old place, it was like a castle—not big enough to get lost in, but definitely big enough to avoid family members if you wanted. There really was far more space than we needed, but I always thought of that as being the American way—take more than you need.
It was just so… excessive. All of it. Everything.
I took a slice from the box and my thoughts were random—mostly going over events that punctuated the day until I got snagged on one that stood out; one of Nick and our conversation earlier. With him on my brain, I barely even heard my mom’s question.
“Earth to Evie,” she teased. “How was school?”
“And where are we on the hunt for friends?” Dad cut in.
I leveled a glare his way before taking a bite. “First of all, ‘hunting’ for friends sounds super desperate and I’d sooner befriend a stuffed animal before I’d beg someone to hang out with me. Second,” I went on, chewing with my hand over my mouth, “… since you asked, I actually did kind of hit it off with someone today.”
Mom perked up. “See? I told you it wasn’t a lost cause, Todd!”
I frowned when she held her hand in the air to high-five my dad. “Seriously?”
She shrugged at my question. “Honey, you can’t blame us for being a little worried. You know you tend to be somewhat…”
“Unapproachable?” I interjected, thinking this was the word she searched for.
Her gaze lifted toward the ceiling as she considered my offering. “I was thinking more along the lines of ‘scary’, but… ‘unapproachable’ works, too.”
I didn’t even know what to say to that.
“So, anyway, tell us all about her!” she squealed, clasping her hands together on top of the table.
“Well… she’s about six-four, she’s got short, dark hair, and blue eyes.” A vision of Nick approaching with the umbrella, like a knight in woven prep-school blazer, brought a smile to my face. “She’s got these really broad shoulders and a little stubble on her chin. Oh! And she plays for the football team.”
Both my parents’ faces went blank, but Mom caught herself and managed to straighten her expression. “Um… she sounds… lovely?” she said with a smile.
I burst out laughing. “And you’re full of it.”
It dawned on me that my father might not want to hear this, so I gave him fair warning. “Dad, plug your ears for a sec.” It took him a moment to do as he was told, but, eventually, I was pretty sure Mom was the only one who could hear me. Leaning in, I whispered four words to her that said it all.
“Tall, Dark, and Smexy!”
Her eyes lit up. “Get out! You finally got up the nerve to talk to him?” She offered me one of her customary high-fives this time.
Shaking my head, I obliged, slapping my palm against hers where it lingered above the table. “Thanks, but... he talked to me. And, apparently, he’s walking me to school Monday morning.”
Mom squealed again.
“Wait a second,” Dad cut in. “This Tall, Dark, and Might-not-live-to-see-his-next-birthday lives how close?”
Apparently, this wasn’t just me and Mom’s conversation after all. “Relax. We’re just friends. He’s cool, though.” It didn’t seem like my explanation soothed my father’s anxiety any.
“Cool and cute,” Mom whispered.
I nodded in agreement. Nick was definitely that.
“I don’t like it,” was Dad’s final conclusion.
Mom placed her hand on top of his. “Lighten up, Todd. We knew this would happen someday. Our little Evie has grown into a beautiful young lady and it was only a matter of time before some big, buff… handsome hottie—”
“Okay. I’ve heard enough,” he cut in as Mom and I shared a laugh. There was this vein that popped out in his forehead whenever he got upset and, sure enough, it was visible now. When Mom settled down, a kiss was placed on my father’s cheek and all was right with the world again.
Well… at least I thought it was.
A long bout of silence crept in and I sipped my drink, wondering why my parents had shut down so suddenly. I got the feeling there was a lecture, or some other uncomfortable conversation, on the horizon. But neither spoke yet; just ate and drank quietly, which was far from the usual. We were loud and expressive, so dinnertime was usually a colorful experience.
Not… quiet.
In the seat across from mine, my mother took a deep breath and her eyes finally found me. There was definitely something there.
“So… how are things?” she asked, doing
her best to sound casual, but I knew better.
I focused on her now. Mostly because there was a second question buried within the first. I already told her about school, meaning, she was asking about something else. Maybe inquiring about my session with Dr. Cruz. She’d been trying to feel me out for weeks and I always played dumb. I hated talking to my parents about that stuff. To them, it must have seemed strange that, over and over again, I’d given my word about coming to terms with the idea of being adopted. However, my previous psychologist contradicted me at every turn, especially when she recommended that I keep up with my treatment even after moving here to Seaton Falls.
Deep down, I knew it was mostly because of the odd dreams, maybe completely because of the odd dreams—which my parents knew absolutely nothing about. Dr. Rivers, and now Dr. Cruz, both suspected these visions, if you will, were somehow a manifestation of deeper issues. To date, I hadn’t been able to convince either otherwise, so, for the foreseeable future, I’d be at Dr. Cruz’s mercy.
“Everything’s fine,” was the only answer I saw fit to offer my mother.
Her warm brown eyes studied my face and she finally got her real question out. “Are things going well with Dr. Cruz? Is she as nice as Alice?”
Taking a breath, I focused on my mother’s question, but couldn’t, for the life of me, figure out why she’d want to ruin a perfectly good night talking about this.
I stuffed my mouth to keep from having to speak. Instead, only nodding.
In truth, over the years, I’d felt a myriad of emotions about being adopted. Displaced, angry, and sad were among them. Lately, while I was perfectly content and happy with Rebecka and Todd being my parents, it’d gotten harder and harder to ignore the fact that there was this whole other side of me I didn’t even know about.
I never questioned whether they were my real parents before that dinner with Gram. Never. To me, I even looked like I was theirs. So often, when we were together as a family, strangers would comment how I had my mother’s eyes, my father’s height and smile. I even attributed my ‘in-between’ complexion to the combination of my mother’s pale, freckled tone and my father’s rich, dark skin. Even my streaked, dark curls—when I didn’t bother straightening them—seemed like a combination of their textures; my mother’s silky-straight and brown, my dad’s coarse and jet-black.
In a way, I guess it made sense that they chose me. My ambiguity made it easy for them to maintain their lie.
I instantly hated myself for letting that thought enter my head—that my life had all been one, big lie—but I couldn’t take it back. These were my true feelings, the ones I held in and wouldn’t dare tell a soul. I fully believed they intended to keep up the ruse my entire life, choosing to keep a secret that wasn’t exactly theirs to keep. I had no idea who I was, where I came from, who I came from.
Did they honestly think I didn’t deserve to know?
I just… I felt out of place.
It hit me, as I sat thinking all these unspoken thoughts; I wasn’t fine. Not like I’d been pretending. No, I wasn’t depressed, or thinking of hurting myself, or running away, but… I suppose I wasn’t all right like I tried to let on.
There was a lingering, nagging question that consumed more of my headspace than I liked to admit:
Who am I really?
My parents shared a glance as if they heard my thoughts. It was a quick look, but I caught it.
“Evie… I know you tend to shy away from the conversation when your dad and I bring it up, but—” She paused, turning toward my father again—maybe for reassurance, maybe for support. He took her hand and she went on. “We need to establish some sort of dialog, concerning you being… when it comes to you being…”
How the heck were we supposed to talk about this and she couldn’t even say the word?
Adopted.
I, Evie Callahan, am adopted.
A cool sheen of sweat doused my forehead—the kind you can feel, but no one can see. At least I hoped they couldn’t. I didn’t know what she wanted me to say, what she expected. And where was all this openness when I was younger? When it counted? It would have been so much easier to understand them keeping this from me had they sat me down and told me everything themselves. I would have understood them wanting to wait for the right time. But finding out the way I did just made it a much more bitter pill to swallow. Partly because it made me question if they ever intended to let me in on the big secret at all.
“I don’t want to do this. Not now. As a matter of fact, why… now?” I blurted. “Why today?” That seemed like a fair question. I mean, it’d been three years? Were they afraid I’d suddenly crack under all the pressure? Did they think that moving to someplace new would suddenly cause a dam to break and I’d snap?
My question made Dad breathe deep before offering an answer. “Because, with all that’s going on, your mother and I thought you might be… I don’t know… a little overwhelmed.”
So, they did think the pressure would break me.
“We just figured, since you’re a little older now, better able to articulate what you’re feeling, you might be ready to talk.”
“I do talk,” I clarified with a smug grin. “Remember? You two stuck me in therapy without even asking how I felt about it?”
My parents exchanged another look. “I meant talk to us,” Dad added cautiously. “And your sessions with Dr. Cruz are hardly therapy. She’s a trained—”
I rolled my eyes so hard they nearly touched the back of my skull when I cut my father off. “Being on school premises doesn’t change the context of my visits with her. It’s therapy,” I countered.
Mom sat up to add her two cents. “Evie, the point is, you can’t keep shutting us out. If we never talk about it—”
“But isn’t that what you wanted? To never talk about it? To keep this from me?” The words left my mouth before I could catch them, before I could tweak them, make them softer, lighter.
Two sets of eyes stared at me from across the table and I found myself wishing I had a time machine. Even if it could only take me back a few seconds.
My father cleared his throat and his gaze shifted from my face, lowering to the surface of the kitchen table, choosing, instead, to keep his eyes trained there. “I, uh… I guess that’s fair,” he exhaled. “I suppose we do owe you an explanation as to why you had to hear about this from someone other than your mom and I.”
Air passed through my nostrils in erratic bursts and I couldn’t remember a time I’d been more uneasy.
“The simple truth is that we didn’t really know how to initiate that conversation. It felt like you were always either too young, or too innocent, or… maybe it was just us,” he said next, still unable to look me in my eyes. “We wanted so bad for you to know you were a part of our family. I guess, on some level, we thought we were protecting you.”
“We never wanted you to question your place with us simply because our blood doesn’t run through your veins,” Mom added.
I blinked profusely, doing my best to get rid of the tears that began to pool. My lashes were wet, but I refused to cry. Not in front of them. I’d done my share of that in private for about the first six months after finding out, but… not now. I wanted so desperately to be over it.
For the second time today, a meal would go cold before me as the result of this exact conversation.
Mom shot out of her seat the second she noticed the wetness on my cheeks, coming to sit beside me. The next, a warm arm encircled my shoulders. I knew this had to be hard for them, too. Hard in a different way, but hard nonetheless.
“Do you know anything about them?” I mumbled, clarifying right after. “About the people who gave me up.”
Mom shook her head. “No. Nothing. In fact, the adoption agency didn’t know either. They simply told us someone dropped you off on the front steps of a church and then you were taken into the system right after.”
My eyes slammed shut, realizing my past was nothing but a gaping, black hole;
a vacuum of information I’d never unearth. The news was devastating, but I hid it by taking a deep breath. It was like… I didn’t really exist.
Like I didn’t belong here.
Anywhere.
I was a nomad… just like Liam.
My eyes opened as the comparison fluttered into my mind. A nomad… just like Liam.
For the first time ever, I wondered if my psychologists were on to something. Maybe there was a link between my dreams and the adoption. Maybe they were some sort of manifestation of how I felt on the inside because I didn’t feel at liberty to express the truth. As much as I hated to admit it, it kind of made sense.
We finished dinner in silence. Both my parents told me they loved me about a hundred times, and I said it back, but there really was nothing else to talk about. There weren’t any questions I could ask that they could answer. I’d reached the most devastating, frustrating dead-end possible, and there was nothing to do but accept it.
Accept that I would never know more about my past than I did at this very moment.
I went right up to my room after clearing my place. There, I could be alone. I slipped out of my jeans and into a pair of gray sweats. Seeing the name of my old high school printed down the side of them, more sadness crept in. This place would never feel like home.
Maybe no place would… because I simply wasn’t meant to fit in.
As soon as the thought flitted into my brain, I did my best to shove it out again. Slipping and saying things like that out loud would turn my twice-a-week sessions with Dr. Cruz into an everyday occurrence and I wouldn’t survive that.
But the thought hadn’t just slapped me in the face out of nowhere. I felt different from everyone else in general. Always had; even before.
And then there was the guilt. That part was new. While, yes, I was still trying to wrap my head around some things, it wasn’t lost on me that my parents had done an extraordinary thing by taking me in. Not everyone had the capacity to love a child that wasn’t biologically theirs and mine had done such a great job of making me feel like I belonged, I had no idea I didn’t.