Most Likely

by Sarah Watson

Tears leaked out of the corners of Martha’s eyes. Victoria reached out and took Martha’s hand. “Hey,” she said, giving it a squeeze. “You are.”

  Martha nodded. She wasn’t thinking about Scott anymore. She was only thinking about Victoria and how good it felt to stand there with their hands together. “Victoria… I want to tell you something.”

  Suddenly, the theater doors slammed open. Startled, they both dropped their hands and turned. Logan was walking up.

  “God, Diffenderfer,” Martha said, quickly wiping her eyes. “Learn to open a door.”

  Logan rushed over without apologizing. “Do you know where Ava is?” he asked.

  “Why? What’s wrong?”

  Logan turned his phone around and showed her something that was on it.

  “Oh my god,” Martha said.

  “I know,” said Logan. “Is she home?”

  Martha pulled out her own phone. “I’ll find her.”

  Victoria looked back and forth between them. “Is everything okay?”

  Martha nodded. “Yeah. It’s a long story. Ava’s been looking for her biological mom—”

  “I know,” Victoria said.

  Martha looked up with surprise. “You do?”

  “Logan told me about it.”

  Martha didn’t have time to think about it or fully absorb just how much Logan and Victoria had been talking lately. She looked up from her phone and turned to Logan. “Ava’s home. AirDrop me the file.”

  He hesitated. “Shouldn’t I…?”

  Martha leveled her eyes at him. “I know you have the best of intentions here. But I think it would be better if she heard this from me. And CJ and Jordan.”

  To his credit, Logan didn’t argue. “Yeah, okay. You’re probably right.”

  He selected the file, and Martha waited for the electronic beep that told her it had come through. “Thanks.” She turned to Victoria. “Can you cover the theater?”

  “Sure. Of course.”

  Martha grabbed her coat from the cupboard. She pulled it on as she walked. When she got to the door, she paused and looked back. Victoria gave her a small wave and a look that was impossible to read.

  CJ had never just shown up unannounced at Wyatt’s house before. She regretted it the second she knocked on his door. She hoped nobody was home.

  The door opened a second later.

  “Clarke,” Wyatt said. “What are you doing here?”

  “I have no idea. And you’re probably in the middle of something.”

  “I am, actually.”

  “I’m sorry. I’ll go.”

  “Clarke, wait. It’s the kind of something you can join in on.”

  He opened the door wider. She entered but kept her coat on. She didn’t know how long she’d be staying. The house was warm and quiet. He led her into the dining room, and she saw that the table was covered in a thousand puzzle pieces. She laughed. “A puzzle? That’s what you’re doing?”

  “Clarke. I did not invite you into my home to be mocked. Now sit down and help me. When I’m done, it’ll be a kitten scaling a set of drapes. I believe it also contains an inspirational message, but I lost the box top.”

  CJ sat and started to look for edge pieces. She thought that’s how everyone in the world did puzzles, but Wyatt had started with the center. It was positively barbaric.

  “So…” Wyatt said, scanning the table for the piece he needed. “What brings you out on such a blustery night?”

  CJ connected two edge pieces together. “I was heading home from a football game, but I realized I didn’t feel like going home. So I was just driving around and… ended up here. But if you want me to go…”

  “Clarke. I don’t want you to go.”

  CJ reached for a puzzle piece, but it was the same one that Wyatt wanted. Their hands overlapped. CJ felt the same zing she felt every time they touched. She pulled her hand back quickly. “Sorry,” she said.

  “I forgive you.”

  She liked him. She was sure of it now. She also knew why she pulled her hand back every time. It was the wheelchair. She wasn’t proud of it. It was just the truth. She knew that it shouldn’t matter. If she was a good person, it wouldn’t matter. She wasn’t a good person, though. Because she couldn’t stop herself from thinking about all the complications. All the places they couldn’t go together. The things they couldn’t do. She didn’t even know if he could have sex or not. She was still a virgin. She’d barely even made it to third base, and yet she was always thinking about sex when she was near him.

  “What are you thinking about?” he asked.

  “Nothing.”

  “Clarke. You were thinking about something. Tell me.”

  “Oh god. Please don’t ask me again.”

  “Clarke.”

  “I was wondering if you can have sex.”

  Wyatt’s hand hovered over a puzzle piece. She’d probably offended him. Of course she’d offended him. It was an offensive thing to ask. But when he looked up, he was smirking. “Clarke Jacobson. Are you propositioning me?”

  “No. Of course not.” Her eyes immediately darted back to the table. “I’m so embarrassed. I should have never asked—”

  “Yes.”

  She looked up. He nodded, slowly, carefully, and deliberately. “I can. Is there anything else you’d like to ask me?”

  CJ felt her face get warm. “Have you?”

  She wanted to look away. She didn’t want to look away.

  “Yeah. Not since the chair. But, yeah, I have.”

  “Oh.” CJ went back to the puzzle and fumbled for another edge piece. She didn’t like thinking about Wyatt with another girl. She was probably beautiful. She was probably a normal height and totally unselfconscious.

  “I had a girlfriend before the accident. We didn’t break up because of what happened to me or anything. We made a mutual decision to end things when we both left for college. So you don’t have to hate her.”

  “Can I still hate her?”

  “I would love for you to hate her.”

  CJ escaped into the puzzle again.

  “Okay, Clarke. Now I get a question.”

  She suddenly became very focused on looking for the puzzle piece she needed. “Sure,” she said. “That seems only fair.”

  “Okay, my question is why did you ask that question?”

  CJ found the puzzle piece she wanted. Tell him. Tell him that you have feelings for him. She turned it over in her hand. Tell him that you’ve never felt this way about anyone before. She put the puzzle piece back down. Tell him everything. Tell him! CJ looked up. “I was just curious.”

  She watched him nod. He betrayed nothing. Then he went back to the puzzle. CJ connected a few more edge pieces and wished she were a better person. That’s when her phone buzzed with a text from Martha.

  Jordan paced the sidewalk in front of Ava’s house. The snow had lightened up for a while, but now it was coming down hard. She turned when CJ’s car pulled up, and when she saw that Martha was in the passenger seat, she immediately felt awkward and awful.

  “Hey,” Jordan said sheepishly, as both of her friends climbed out of the car.

  Martha responded in kind. “Hey.”

  It was hard to tell who made the first move. Jordan only knew that one minute they were standing there kicking at the snow and the next minute they were hugging.

  “I am so sorry,” said Jordan, pulling back from the hug. She found Martha’s eyes and said it again. “So, so sorry. I should have told Scott to shut up. I wish I could take it back.”

  “It’s okay. I know you didn’t mean it.”

  “Do not let me off the hook. I feel horrible.”

  “I know you do. And I feel horrible too. Because I know you’ve dealt with stuff like this times a million and—”

  “This is not a privilege-off. I love you, Martha.”

  “I love you too.”

  They hugged again. This time neither one of them pulled away until CJ cleared her throat and said, “Um, guys?”<
br />
  Jordan told CJ that she’d already tried the front door. She’d slammed her palm against the side window like an octopus so Ava would know it was her. “No answer.”

  “She must be in the shower. Or asleep,” CJ said.

  Fortunately, they knew another way in.

  The night was bitterly cold, and their breath came out in steaming clouds as they walked around to the side of the house where Ava’s bedroom was. CJ found the flowerpot that they could turn over and use as a step stool. It had been almost four years since they’d climbed through Ava’s bedroom window. Back then, they didn’t know what was wrong with her. They only knew that sometimes she couldn’t seem to get out of bed. They thought they were helping when they encouraged her to try harder. They thought they were doing the right thing when they tried to drag her out. Everything they did only made Ava want to burrow in deeper. It also made her lock the door. But that’s the thing about best friends; they’ll always find a way around a lock. Jordan would never forget the night they broke into her bedroom. Ava was so tired that she didn’t even roll over. She directed her words at the wall. I’m not getting out of bed. CJ was the one who responded. You don’t have to. But we’re coming in. And then they did. All three of them. They climbed in and surrounded her. One of them—there would forever be a disagreement about who it was—took Ava’s hand and gave it a squeeze. “This means I love you,” she said. Whichever one of the shes it was. “If you love me back, you don’t have to say it, just squeeze twice.” Ava’s hand was weak, but she did it. Two squeezes.

  The snow fell in thick flakes as the three of them congregated outside Ava’s window for the first time in years. CJ balanced on the flowerpot and worked her fingers into the small opening at the base of the window. She pushed up and it opened easily. Ava never told her mom that her friends had broken the lock, so she never knew it needed replacing. The first thing Jordan noticed was the music as it flowed outside. Tinny and hollow. Like it was coming from a pair of earbuds that were cranked up way too loud. Which is exactly what it was.

  Ava was at her easel, lost in music and lost in her work, but as soon as CJ thrust the curtains open, she screamed. She was so startled by the faces of her three best friends that she hurled her paintbrush at the intruders. She hit CJ square in the middle of the forehead.

  “What the hell?!” shouted Ava.

  CJ wiped brown paint off her face.

  Ava tried to catch her breath. “What the actual hell?”

  It was Martha who answered. “We have the name of your birth mother.”

  Ava pulled the earbuds out of her ears.

  A few minutes later, all four girls were sitting on the floor of Ava’s room, their muddy shoes in a pile by the window. Ava’s mom was away in Chicago for a conference, and Ava would always remember how empty and quiet the house felt that night.

  “I can’t do this,” Ava said. She was holding Martha’s phone. The file was just waiting for her to open it. “I can’t. Someone else do it.”

  She held the phone out and CJ took it from her. Ava shut her eyes as CJ clicked the attachment open. Then all three of the girls with their eyes still open uttered some version of “Whoa.”

  “What?” Ava kept her eyes shut tight. “What’s happening?”

  “Um… she’s…” The voice sounded like Martha’s. But it also sounded like it was tearing up. So it couldn’t be Martha. Martha didn’t cry. “She looks like you, Ava.”

  Ava opened one eye slowly. Then the other. CJ handed her the phone, and Ava gasped when she saw the picture. “Oh my God. Is that… is that me? With my—” Her voice cracked before she could say the word.

  The photograph showed her birth mother lying in a hospital bed looking wide-eyed and terrified but also overcome with love. There was a baby in her arms. Baby Ava.

  “Wow,” Ava said to the picture. The image was clear and focused. This woman would never be a fuzzy image again.

  “Isabel Castillo,” Martha said. “That’s her name.”

  “Ava Castillo.” Ava said it like she was trying it on. The name felt clunky and awkward in her mouth. “But I guess I would have had a different first name too.”

  Ava read through the rest of the information. Isabel Castillo lived in California. There was an address in East Palo Alto. There was even a phone number.

  “It’s still early enough there,” CJ said. “They’re three hours behind in California if you want to call.”

  Ava didn’t need to think about it for long. She shook her head. “No. I can’t.” Ava had never intended to get in touch with her biological mom. She only wanted to see her, to have some sort of image to put in that blank space. And now she had it. That was enough. It was more than enough. “Thanks for coming by,” Ava said. “But I kind of want to be alone.”

  Her friends understood. They gave her long and lingering hugs, and said they’d keep their ringers turned on all night if she needed anything. Ava honestly didn’t know if she would or not.

  After her friends left, Ava stared at the canvas she’d been working on. She’d decided to paint the park. Not abstract this time. She was painting from an old photograph taken when the girls were fourteen. It was one of the best summers Ava could remember. Though looking back now, she didn’t know if the summer was truly that special or if it was because it was the last one before depression. Before Dr. Clifford, before Lexapro, and before Logan Diffenderfer had called her stupid.

  She knew she needed to call him. He’d found the information for her. He’d given her the gift of a picture. She needed to at least say thank you. Every time she picked up her phone, she couldn’t do it. She sent him a text instead.

  Thnx.

  Logan was weird when she saw him at school on Monday. Well, not weird, exactly. Cautious. He asked her how she was doing, in a way that was loaded and full of meaning. She knew what the question meant. How was she doing now that she knew what her mom looked like?

  “Fine,” Ava said.

  Only she wasn’t fine. When her mom had come back from Chicago on Sunday night, Ava had been weird and jumpy. She was angry at her mom—her adoptive mom—for keeping this information from her. But she also felt horrible for seeking it out on her own. She felt both betrayed and like the one who was doing the betraying.

  It turned out that having the tiny taste of a biological mom was worse than having no taste at all. Every time Ava stared into the mirror, she would see the face of Isabel Castillo staring back at her. It was there when she walked past windows, and it startled her when she glanced in the mirror. She even saw it in the puddles that filled the sidewalks when the temperature spiked that Wednesday and all the snow melted at once. Logan was early to art class that day. He’d been early every day that week.

  “How are you?” he asked in his new heavy way.

  “I’m okay.”

  It was his idea to look up Isabel’s address in Google Maps. Ava just wanted to see where she lived. To get some small clue about what her birth mother’s life was like. Maybe she was poor. But maybe she was rich. While Logan plugged the address in, Ava caught herself silently singing “Maybe” from Annie. Maybe far away or maybe real nearby.

  Ava leaned over Logan’s shoulder and watched while the address came into focus. The apartment building was blank and ordinary and frustratingly nondescript. Facebook and Instagram were their next stop, but there were so many Isabel Castillos that it took the entire art period and all of their lunch hour to look them all up. None of them were her Isabel Castillo.

  The next day, Logan showed up early to art class again. “I think I know a way you could fly out to California to see her.”

  Ava shook her head. “She doesn’t want to meet me.”

  “I’m not saying you have to meet her. Just see her. Wait for her outside her apartment until she comes out.”

  “Like a stalker?”

  “Like a daughter who just wants to know something.”

  Ava shook her head. “No way. Hard no.”

  “Can I
just tell you my idea?”

  “No means no, Logan.”

  At lunch time, Jordan showed off the new dress that her grandmother had helped her make, and that stupid song from Annie popped into Ava’s head again. She had to duck into the bathroom so nobody would see her cry.

  After school, she found Logan. “Hypothetically, let’s say I’m not totally opposed to stalking my mother. You said you had an idea to get me to California?”

  Logan showed her on the map how East Palo Alto was only about a fifteen-minute drive from Stanford. “Tell your mom you want to apply to Stanford.”

  “But I don’t want to apply to Stanford.”

  “Tell her you might. And that you want to see the campus to help you decide. There’s a prospective-students’ weekend a little after Thanksgiving. You could fly there, and then it’s only a short bus ride to your birth mom’s.”

  Ava looked down. “I don’t know.” It didn’t feel right. Tricking her adoptive mom into paying for a flight so she could see her biological mom.

  “I could even go with you,” Logan said. “I’ve already seen the campus. But I’m sure my parents would say okay. They’re pretty desperate for me to go there.”

  Ava stared at her toes. “I’ll think about it.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  WHEN THANKSGIVING break came, CJ drove the three hours to Ann Arbor with her parents to eat dried-out turkey at her oldest sister’s house like they did every year. She called Wyatt when they got there. “Just reminding you that my family left early for Thanksgiving break,” she said. “So I won’t be there tomorrow.”

  She’d already told him. Several times.

  “You’re just calling to rub it in, aren’t you? Since I’ll be stuck in the Cleve.”

  “Won’t most of your friends be back from college? That should be fun, actually.”

  Wyatt sighed dramatically. “Define ‘fun, actually.’”

  “I feel like that doesn’t need a definition.” Her niece was racing through the house in a pink tutu and fairy wings. She was petite and feminine, a mirror image of CJ’s oldest sister. She stopped in front of CJ and did a cartwheel. CJ gave her a big thumbs-up.