chapter 1
LET ME BE clear: I am not the biggest fan of small children. Now, I don’t dislike all of them—the cute ones are hard to hate, and my seven-year-old brother is sort of awesome, too—but most of them I actually do loathe. They’re obnoxious, they’re messy, and they have not yet acquired the level of self-discipline I think is necessary to function in this world. Like I said, I hate them. So when my parents told me they were thinking of fostering a young kid, I wasn’t exactly overflowing with joy.
And rightfully so. I mean, they already have two lovely and highly intelligent children. Do they really need another one? No, they don’t. But it’s not my place to tell them that.
Why not? Well, because I’m a people pleaser. I believe that there are two kinds of people in this world: those who live to make others happy, and those who live to make themselves happy. You can’t be both; you have to choose one. Because let’s face it: you can’t please everyone and yourself at the same time. It’s impossible. If that was in the realm of possibilities, we would all be living in a problem-free world, and God knows that’s never going to happen.
I fall into the first category, which brings me back to square one: I’m a people pleaser. Actually, let me correct that: I’m a parent pleaser. I like to make my parents happy, and my acquiescing, being compliant, makes them happy. So even though my insides completely object to their decision to foster some wrong-side-of-the-tracks kid, I wear a smile as if everything is okay, because it’s what I’m supposed to do. It’s what they expect me to do.
“Time to wake up, Emma,” my mom says on the intercom system that is hooked up in my room. When my parents first told me that they were fostering a kid, I volunteered to give up my room for him or her. I didn’t want anyone else to have to sacrifice one of their rooms. My dad would die if he had to give up his socially primitive man cave, and my mom and I didn’t want Matthew to have to give up his playroom. According to my mom, “a playroom is essential to the growth of cognitive and motor skills in a child, and blah blah blah…” So I relocated to the pool house. I told them that it would free up a room so they could keep an eye on my new sibling, and that because I’d be moving out of the house for college soon, this arrangement would make the transition easier on them, and on me. That’s what I told them, anyway. Truth is, I don’t want to be anywhere near the kid who is replacing me in their hearts, and twenty feet of distance is going to achieve just that.
“I’m getting up now,” I lie as I pull the covers back over my head to block out the sunlight. This is the point in my day that I love the most, and I’m not going to let her wake-up call ruin it.
According to Folgers, the best part of waking up is having their coffee in your cup, but I beg to differ. It’s actually the stage right before we wake up, or the Middle, as I like to call it. To me, it’s as if my mind has registered that I’ve lived to see another day but it’s not ready to pull away from its dreamland yet. It’s the overlapping of waking and dream states, and every day, I take a few minutes to relish this moment.
I use this time to do my deepest thinking. It’s usually something nonsensical or philosophical, like how many stars are in the sky, or why glue doesn’t stick to the inside of the bottle. I never really answer these questions, but they wake my mind up just enough to get my day started.
Today’s Middle topic is death. People die every day, and we all will die one day. It’s an inevitable truth that we have to overlook if we want to live a happy life. I mean, think about it: the world would be a morbid place to live in if all we ever thought about was death and when it was coming and how it would happen. I’m not really scared of dying, but I’m kind of afraid of what happens after that; it’s the only unknown that humans will never be able to figure out. I believe that death will come when it’s supposed to, but I just want it to come after I’ve experienced a few life-changing moments—well, one in particular.
I want to fall in love. Who doesn’t? In movies, it’s made out to be a defining moment in our lives. Girl meets boy, and they share a season of love. He does something stupid to lose her, then wins her back with a grand gesture at the end so they can live happily ever after. Now, I’m not so naïve as to think this actually happens in real life. I know it doesn’t. Somewhere between the first kiss and falling in love, life happens. Messy entanglements ensue, summer flings end, hearts break, et cetera, et cetera. That’s just the way it is. Falling in love sounds agonizing, but if it means I find the other half of my heart in the end, I think it’s worth it.
I roll over and look at the calendar on my wall. It’s Monday, September 3. This day marks not only my last first day of high school, but also the day that I’ll get to meet my possible new foster brother or sister. My parents are going to bring them to live with us for a while, and if all goes well, the courts will make them an official member of our family … well, eventually. Apparently, getting parents to sign over their rights can be a long process.
It will be nice for Matthew to have someone to keep him company, but having another sibling—technically—around is only going to force my parents to divide their attention even more. I don’t want to come off as selfish, but aside from my brother, my parents are all I have, and I don’t want some ungrateful brat coming in here to take them away from me. Especially not when I only have this year left with them before I leave for college.
I drag myself out of bed and saunter over to my closet. “What to wear?” I ask myself as I place my hands on my waist. I was supposed to figure this out last night, but I got distracted by the book I’m reading. A love story, if it’s compelling enough, has the ability to make you forget that you have a life outside its fictitious world. And that’s exactly what happened to me last night. I got lost between the pages of a story with a messy love triangle. So much so that I forgot all about today being the first day of school.
Figuring out what to wear is an impossible decision today. What you wear on the first day of school can make or break your year. At least, that’s what most teen magazines preach to their readers. You are what you wear, they say. Wear too much black and you’re a gothic freak. Show too much skin and you’re a slut. To be popular, you have to find the perfect blend of casual and cool—with a hint of sexy and sassy—and I’ve gotten it wrong every year.
Now, I’m not drop-dead gorgeous, but I’m not completely unfortunate-looking either (thank you, Mom and Dad). I’m stuck in the plain-Jane middle of the spectrum, and most of the time I’m okay with that, except when it comes to one aspect of my life: boys.
Even though I’m decent-looking, I still haven’t been able to land a boyfriend. I want that to be because I’m brilliant and my intelligence intimidates the boys at school—I skipped two grades in middle school (which just screams socially well-adjusted)—but I know it’s not. It’s more likely because I’m the “freaky genius girl” who cares more about my grades than how many points the football team scored in their last game. It’s the things I care about, like intelligence and individuality, that make me invisible to them. All of them.
“I’m ready,” I say as I enter the kitchen through the back door. My mom is waiting with a Polaroid camera in her hand, just as I expect her to be. We’ve done first-day-of-school photos for as long as I can remember. When she spots me, she pulls the camera away from her eye, and I see her thin lips press into a tight, straight line.
“Jeans and a T-shirt?” she asks. Her eyebrows are raised so high that they disappear behind her low-cut blond bangs. “I thought you were gonna wear that dress you bought last weekend. You know, the one that brings out your eyes?” As she says that, I pull my glasses out of my bag and slip them onto my face. “No contacts today either, huh?”
Well, it’s not like I have anyone to impress. “Nope.” I don’t mean it, but it comes out in a moodier tone than I intended. “Sorry,” I say as her eyes drop to the floor. “The first day of school always stresses me out.” I grab an apple and swing my bag over my shoulder. It has only a notebook, a pen, and my wallet inside it, but it feels heavier than usual, because I’m not looking forward to going to school today. Not because I don’t like school—I actually love learning—but because I don’t really have any friends right now. Most of the girl cliques at school have already been established, and I don’t think they’re looking to add anyone else to their unwritten roster, which means I have to sit at the loner table at lunch. Yay me.
“Well, it’s nice to know the hundreds of dollars your father and I spent on your corrective contact lenses are getting put to good use.” I fold my arms across my chest and sigh. I’ve heard this speech so many times that I can probably recite it verbatim. “I don’t get it. You beg us for contacts, and then you never wear them.”
I didn’t beg you for them. You decided to buy them all on your own. “They itch my eyes, so I’m going for recreational use only.”
But that was a lie. My contacts don’t bother my eyes at all. I just feel more comfortable wearing my glasses at school. They give me something to hide behind.
“Well, excuse me,” she says, pointing the camera at me once again to take my picture. The flash temporarily blinds me, and it isn’t until I see her fanning herself with the photo that my vision returns to normal. “Are you happy with this?” she says, showing me the photograph.
I don’t have to look at the photo to know that I don’t look good enough for the first day of school. I never have and never will. That’s just the way it is. I take another look at my mom’s camera in her hands and sigh. This is our last first day together; I can’t disappoint her.
“On second thought, I’ll go change.” I come back ten minutes later in a white button-down blouse and a pair of black shorts. I almost never wear shorts in public—they are so revealing!—and putting them on to appease my mother kills me. “Better?” I ask upon returning. After receiving a nod of approval from my mom, I reach for my keys on the wall. As I do, I spot an old picture of my dad hoisting me in the air at the end of one of my softball games. I used to be really into softball, but that was only because my dad wanted me to be. “Did Dad leave for his morning run already?”
My father used to play professional baseball back when I was younger, but he had to retire early after he hurt his back sliding into home plate during a World Series game. So now he’s the coach of an unstoppable junior baseball team in the neighborhood, and when he’s not focused on that, he’s trying his best to be a father to my brother and me.
“No, he skipped it. He’s upstairs getting ready for our meeting with the group home.” I see my mother tighten her ponytail, which can mean only one thing: she’s worried that the kid won’t like her. Why that would be, I have no clue. To me, she’s pretty awesome—aside from the unspoken-pressure-to-please-her thing. “We don’t get to choose, but we told them that we’re looking for a child between the ages of eight and sixteen, so hopefully he or she is on the younger side of that spectrum.”
“That’ll be good for Matthew,” I say. “He’ll have someone to play with when I leave for college.” I look over at my little brother. He’s at the table eating a bowl of oatmeal. I imagine he’s devising an elaborate plan to get out of having to go to school today. He says he hates it there, but the Fulton Academy of Advanced Math and Science is the only school in our area that will challenge him. Last year, when we were informed that he was gifted in mathematics, we were advised to send him there. I know this is what’s best for him, but I can’t help wondering if he misses being a normal kid sometimes. I know that I missed being normal when I skipped two grades four years ago.
“You sure you’re okay with this?” my mom asks, tucking a couple strands of my hair behind my ear. I get almost all of my physical features from her: hair color, eye color, and height, just to name a few. From my father I get my intelligence, and that’s about it. “I know the idea of having another sibling probably has you feeling unwanted, but I need you to know that that’s not the case at all. Your dad and I will still love you just as much as we do right now.”
“I’m fine, Mom, really. This is a good thing.” It’s not exactly a lie, but it’s not exactly the truth, either. I’m happy that they’re going to give a kid with a troubled past a second chance at what their life should have been. But at the same time, I don’t want this new family member to replace me. After all, I was here first. “I’m gonna be late. Give Dad a hug for me.”
I don’t breathe until I escape out the front door. The only reason they’re fostering this kid is because of my early graduation, and that kind of makes me ineligible for righteous birth-child indignation. No, I refuse to lose it in front of her. I’m the one who’s leaving the nest two years ahead of schedule, prompting them to refill it as quickly as possible. This is basically my fault, but we’re in too deep with the fostering process for me to beg her not to go through with it now. We’re in too deep for me to break her heart with a confession.
After fighting for a good parking space at school, I get out to see tons of other students smiling and laughing with their friends. There are girls running across the courtyard, flinging their arms around each other, and guys fist-bumping buddies that they haven’t seen all summer. The sight of their giddy reunions unfolding before me puts a bitter taste in my mouth; I’ve never been able to do any of those things on the first day of school.
Instead of reuniting with the friends I wish I had, I head to the counselor’s office. From down the hall, I can see the white pieces of paper taped to the inside of the glass window on the door. Two big, bold words typed across the top of it come into view as I creep closer to the window: CLASS RANKINGS. I don’t have to search for too long before I find my name. It’s sitting at the top of the list, next to the number one. Top in my class. That should make Dad happy. He hates it when others beat me out. The warning bell rings, signaling that I should begin to make my way to class, and as I do, a proud smile creeps its way across my face. I’m number one. Valedictorian, here I come.
The school day is very uneventful. It’s the same as every other first day in high school: the teacher introduces him- or herself, goes over the syllabus with us, distributes the class books, and then opens up the floor so that we can say a few things about who we are. Name, favorite pastime, and something interesting about ourselves. After third period, I’m so sick of this monotonous routine that I instinctively cringe when it starts all over again.
“I’m Emma Ellenburg,” I mumble when it’s my turn, adjusting my glasses. “I like writing and going to school.” I get crickets from my classmates, but a nod of approval from my teacher. “Anyways, um, an interesting fact about me is that I’m the daughter of the youngest record-holding retired baseball player in America, Daniel Ellenburg.”
There are times when I wish I had a different factoid to share about myself—something that is actually about me—but this is all I have.
My statement usually sparks a conversation about baseball, which I have no interest in anymore, and ends with a sports-obsessed boy jumping in to tell the class about an upcoming football or basketball game and why everyone in the entire school should attend. The jocks here are always looking for an opportunity to promote their sports teams, but I don’t blame them. I would probably do the same thing if I were in their position.
The day drags on in this boring and repetitive cycle. But things change at lunch when a girl I have never spoken to sets her lunch tray down beside me. She doesn’t have any food on her tray, but she does have a rather large stack of papers.
“Hey.” She smiles at me, her dark green eyes glowing. She’s too peppy for my liking, and before she speaks again, I almost leave the table to finish reading my book in peace. But I don’t. That would be rude, and my parents taught me better than that.
“Hi.” I don’t mean for it to come out as flat as it does, but I can’t help it.
“Karmin Ortega,” she says, extending her perfectly manicured hand toward me. She flips her silky dark brown—almost black—hair over her shoulder, and that’s when it hits me. She’s the captain of the dance team, vice president of the Hispanic Heritage Club, and possibly the best dancer in our entire school.
The longer I stare at her, the more tiny snapshots of her come to mind. She’s the girl that I used to see making out with some surfer guy in between classes last year. I always used to think that their PDA was gross and intrusive. I mean, they never came out and said it, but the way their hands roamed over each other’s bodies screamed that they were having sex on a regular basis.
“You performed at the dance benefit concert last year, right?” she says, pulling me out of my mental rant. “The one that helped raise money to save the Cedar Pointe Dance studio?”
“Yeah.” Finally, someone notices me. Maybe I’m not so invisible after all. “I’m Emma Ellenb—”
“I know who you are. I wanted to invite you to try out for the dance team in two weeks. That lyrical routine you did last year was mind-blowing. We could really use your skills.”
Her compliment catches me off guard. Before the dance benefit, my feet hadn’t touched center stage in years, but when my parents signed me up to perform in it—“You need to pay your respects to CPD. They taught you everything you know!”—I had to throw something together last minute. “Really? You … you think I’m good?”
“Definitely.” She lifts her phone, which is acting as a makeshift paperweight, off the stack of papers and slides one of them to me. The highlighter-yellow color of the flyer makes me squint as I read the information about the tryouts. “I hope to see you there.”
* * *
“Dance team? I thought you were going to give tennis another shot this year?” my mother says when I call her at the end of the school day. She lowers her voice, and I expect she’s trying to hide it from my dad, who is probably close by. “You know your dad’s not going to be too happy with you switching it up again.” The disappointment in her voice almost tears me up inside. My mom and dad like to think they know what’s best for me, and my divergence from their plan isn’t going to sit well with them.
“I know.” I can see my dad now: stretching out his tie and unbuttoning the top button on the collar of his shirt as he turns red with anger.
“I’m not going to tell your father. I’m leaving that up to you. But if I were you, I’d do it sooner rather than later.”
“How about this: if I make the team, I’ll tell him.”
She goes silent on the line for a moment, and I imagine her weighing the options in her head. “Fine. But again, you have to tell him. I’m not getting in the middle of this. You know how he is.”
I feel my stomach knot and twist as I think about telling him. He’s not exactly going to be delighted when I do, and so I’m going to have to make sure he’s in a semi-good mood when I fess up.
“And I still expect you to stay on top of your grades. I expect nothing less than what you’re giving right now.”
Of course you do. “I will. I promise.”
“I didn’t think you liked school enough to want to join a spirit team of any kind. But if it’s something you really want to do, I’m behind you all the way.”
I love how empowering my mom is. Whenever I want to pursue something, she always hears me out. Once, when I was ten and wanted to learn how to play the guitar, she bought me one of the most expensive ones and paid for a year’s worth of lessons. I quit after two classes, but that’s beside the point. The point is, she has always been willing to invest in my dreams, no matter how pipe-dreamy or irrational they may seem.
But my dad is the complete opposite. He hates that I switch activities so much, and he has no problem showing it. I’ve started and quit too many things—softball, guitar, gymnastics, soccer, tap and jazz dancing, ballet, and now tennis—for him to just sit back and accept it. The way I see it, he should be happy that I’m actually getting out to do something, instead of sitting on my ass all day, watching Netflix. But of course, he doesn’t take that into account.
“I’m on my way to pick up Matthew from school, but I just wanted to call and run that by you.”
“Okay, honey.” I can hear a muffled sound in the background; it’s someone talking, but I can’t tell if it’s a woman or a man, an adult or a kid. Is that my new brother or sister? Or is that just Dad? “That’s the social worker,” she says, answering the question before I can ask it. “We’re going to be here for maybe another hour or so. There’s a ton of paperwork that we have to read through and sign, but we should be nearing the end of it all pretty soon.”
“Is everything okay?” I ask as I pull up to Matthew’s school.
“Everything is fine, Emma. We’ll be home with Dylan in about an hour.” I can hear her smiling through the phone. “You’re gonna love him.” Dylan, I repeat in my head. So it’s a boy. I guess I’m okay with that. This means that I’ll still reside as the only princess in the Ellenburg residence.
A ton of questions that I want to ask her pulse through my mind, but I decide to keep them to myself. I don’t want to ruin the surprise. “I’ll see you soon, Mom.”
Matthew’s school reminds me of some of the best times in my life. In elementary school, I used to have a lot of friends. Back then it was easy. Nobody was competing to be the best athlete or the prettiest or the smartest. All you had to do was be yourself, and people liked you for that. I would give anything to return to that time.
When he sees me enter his classroom, Matthew runs up and gives me the biggest hug that he can. He’s in a room full of parents trying to ask how their kid’s day went, and it must be nice for him to finally see a familiar face. I don’t want a conversation with his teacher like everyone else coming through the door; I just came to grab him and go. I’m tempted to tell him about our new brother, but I’m not sure how much he knows, so I choose to wait until he brings it up first.
“Where’s Mom and Dad?” he asks as I strap him into his booster seat. He was a premature baby and has always been smaller than other kids his age. It wasn’t until I saw his classmates that I realized how much smaller.
“They’re out running errands.”
“Does ‘errands’ mean picking up our new brother or sister?” He must see my eyes widen, because he quickly tacks on a reason for how he knows what’s going on. “I heard you guys talking about that this morning, and Dad told me things would start happening soon. So is today the day?”
“That’s not exactly ‘errands,’ I guess. But yes, they told me that they’re going to be home soon, and that’s when we’ll get to meet him. Or her,” I throw in to keep the gender a mystery to him. “So, are you ready to meet the newest member of our family?” He gives me a goofy grin, as if to say, Hell, yeah, in kid language, and then spends the entire ride home bombarding me with his thoughts on how our new sibling is going to look and act.
“It’s definitely going to be a boy. I can feel it.”
I have to choke back my grin as he speaks. He’s going to be convinced he’s psychic when he finds out that we really are fostering a boy.
“I think he’s going to have brown hair and brown eyes, just like me,” he says. “And he’s going to love playing hide-and-seek with me, too.”
His excitement for our new brother is contagious, and before I know it, I’m giddy, too. But even that moment doesn’t last. After a while, my resentment resurfaces, as if it never left my heart to begin with.
We head home, but the idea that I’m going to be a big sister again doesn’t officially hit me until I hear my dad jingle his keys outside the front door. I set my homework aside and flex my fingers to get the feeling back into them. I don’t want this new kid to think we’re slobs, so I fluff and karate-chop the top of each pillow that I was sitting on. That’s the way Mom likes to fix them; she says it makes them look like they belong on a spread in a furniture magazine.
My dad once told me that there’s a thin line between love and hate, and sides are chosen when two people meet for the first time. The crossing of two paths, he called it. “The first interaction is what people will remember most about you, and it will be the basis of your relationship with them,” he said in a serious tone. In about ten seconds, my path and the path of my future foster brother will collide, and all I can think is I hope he likes me, and I hope I like him.
When I see the door handle start to turn, I feel time stand still. Like, for a moment, I’m frozen in space and I can choose whether I really want to go through with this, or run and hide under my bed. But that would be cowardly, and I don’t want this kid to feel anything but welcomed.
Matthew and I stand in front of the sofa closest to the door and wait. First, our parents walk in, drawing out the anticipation. There is a sparkle in my mom’s blue eyes and a grin across my dad’s face. “Hey, guys. This is Dylan,” he says as he extends his hand toward the door.
I expect to see a rambunctious eight- or nine-year-old race through the door, grinning from ear to ear, but instead, a teenage boy walks in—a very cute teenage boy, I might add. I fold my arms across my chest and wait for him to speak, but he doesn’t say a word. He just keeps shifting his weight from one foot to the other as he looks us up and down.
Plot twist.
chapter 2
THIS ISN’T REAL. This can’t be real, I repeat in my head as I pinch myself. There is no way that my parents have brought a teenage boy—again, a very cute teenage boy—to live under the same roof as me. There’s just no way.
I squeeze and squeeze until the skin just above my elbow glows a deep shade of pink, but nothing happens. The image of Dylan standing next to my parents doesn’t fade into darkness. It stays there. This is not a dream.
“This is Emma,” my dad begins as he leads him toward me. “You guys are around the same age, and you’ll be going to the same school now.” He fails to mention that I skipped two years of school and won’t be in the same grade as him, but I figure it’s so that Dylan doesn’t feel insecure.
“Nice to meet you, Emma,” he says in a voice that’s not too high and not too low. “I’m Dylan. Dylan McAndrews.” The corners of his mouth twitch upward for a split second, and his dimples flash across his cheeks so fast that I would have missed it if I had blinked. I’m glad I didn’t blink.
“It’s nice to meet you, too, Dylan.” I extend my hand to give his hand a shake, but he catches me a little off guard when he pulls me into a hug. Leaning in, I catch a whiff of his soapy scent. It’s so potent as I inhale that I can visualize the manly scented suds on his tan body. As we embrace, I feel my parents’ eyes on us. I was the one who showed the most discomfort with the entire fostering process, and now that he’s here, I’m sure they’re trying to see how I’m taking it. Their facial expressions don’t change, so I’m guessing that they approve of this awkward welcome hug.
“This little guy down here is Matthew. Go ahead, Matt. Say hi.” My dad is trying his hardest not to make this awkward for us, but from the way Dylan keeps fidgeting and cracking his knuckles, I can tell that my dad is failing miserably. Dylan’s hardly meeting any of our gazes, and when he does, it’s so brief that I start to wonder if it’s because we’re not as disarming as I think we are.
“I have one question and one question only,” Matthew says, wagging a finger in Dylan’s direction.
“What’s that?”
“Do you like to play hide-and-seek?”
“I love hide-and-seek. We can play after I’m settled in. Okay, buddy?” He extends his pinky finger toward Matthew, who nods his head feverishly and then looks at me.
“I think I’m gonna like him,” he tries to whisper, though everyone can hear him. “He already knows our secret sign for promises, and I didn’t even have to teach him.” When Matthew was four, I taught him how to make a pinky promise. I said that no one else in the world knew about it, or how to do it. I guess he still believes that.
Matthew hooks his tiny pinky finger around Dylan’s, and that’s when I see it. A full smile emerges across Dylan’s face, and in an instant, I can tell that he feels like one of us. Like he belongs.
“Daniel and I are gonna grab your bags out of the car for you. You guys,” my mom says, turning to Matthew and me, “should show him around the house.”
We speed through a tour, showing him the basics: the garage—which we never use because it’s cluttered with dusty family photos, trophies, and other memorabilia—the kitchen, the bathrooms, the bedrooms, the office, and the living room area. Along the way, Matthew tries to show him where all of the best hiding places are. He points out the nooks and crannies that can drag a game of hide-and-seek on for hours.
“I don’t want you to think I’m cheating because I’ve lived here all my life,” he says, giggling.
“Good looking out, Matt.”
Matt? Dylan has been here for less than an hour, and he’s already using our nickname with Matthew. Are they that close already? Out of the corner of my eye, I see them bump fists, and I feel my stomach twist and knot with discomfort. Matthew’s only seven, and he already has better social skills than I do.
“I’m going to go pick out my pajamas for bed,” Matthew says as we prepare to descend the stairs. “Wait for me.”
As I stand along the railing, I try to think of something good to say to Dylan. So, how are you doing this evening? Do you like everything so far? Do you need me to get you anything? Everything I come up with sounds as if we are running a bed-and-breakfast and he’s a guest for the weekend rather than my new brother, so I give up on conversation starters and just look up at him and smile.
When I raise my eyes, I see that he’s already looking at me. But the second our eyes meet, he looks away. I take it he’s embarrassed that I caught him gawking.
“You guys have an amazing house,” he says, now staring at the floor.
“Well, it’s yours, too. Seeing as you’re technically part of this household now.”
“I guess you’re right.” Another awkward silence fills the gap in our conversation, and I feel obligated to keep it going—I don’t want him to think that I’m callous or socially inept—but as I open my mouth to speak, so does Dylan. “I hope you don’t feel threatened by me. I’m not here to step on your toes.” As he says the word toes, I see his gaze travel over my feet, and his eyebrows scrunch up in disgust.
“I was betrayed by the beach,” I offer as an explanation, curling my toes under. “Last summer, I stepped on some sharp shells, and they cut into my foot. One week later, I found out it was infected, and I guess my feet are still recovering from the trauma of it all.”
“Damn,” is all he says, but I get it. My freak accident story is a little too involved to share on his first day here.
“I know. Poor me.”
“Poor you? More like poor me for having to look at them,” he jokes. “I think I just lost my appetite.” He chokes back a laugh, and before I know it, we are both giggling uncontrollably. “It’s okay. I’ve got plenty of scars, too.”
I know I shouldn’t, but the words spill out before I can command them to stay put. “Let me see.”
He checks over his shoulder—I guess to make sure Matthew isn’t around. Are they that gruesome?—and then pulls at the collar of his T-shirt to show me the heavily scarred skin just below his collarbone. He casts his eyes down as I run my fingers over the raised lines on his skin, as if he’s ashamed of the marks on his body.
“What made you do this to yourself?” I whisper into his dark brown eyes. The room starts to spin as I imagine him taking a razor blade and slicing into his skin, and I have to hold on to the railing to keep my knees from buckling. I can’t imagine ever marking my body up with the intent of leaving scars.
“What makes you think I did this to myself?” he spits at me. And just like that, the fire in his eyes dissolves. The guy who was clutching his stomach in a fit of giggles two minutes ago is gone.
“I just thought—”
“That I’m a foster kid, and so I must be messed up enough to want to cut myself, right?”
“I didn’t mean it like that. I—”
“I get it. You think I’m troubled and traumatized, and so you expect me to do things like this.” He releases the collar of his shirt and takes a step closer to me, making me flinch. Even the aroma of the soap I smelled on him earlier isn’t enough to calm the fright in my heart. “I’ve seen stuff that no person, let alone a kid, should ever have to witness. Horrors that I couldn’t unsee even if I tried. You don’t know my story, and you don’t know me. So I would appreciate it if you didn’t jump to conclusions, because your assumptions are only making an ass out of you, not me.”
My heart is beating too loud for me to think of a good comeback, and my mouth has gone dry from the mini panic attack I’m having, but somehow I still manage to whisper, “Got it.”
“It’s my first day. Please, don’t ruin this for me,” he says, backing away from me. The hurt in his eyes is almost tangible, like the scars near his collarbone.
“I’m sorry. For assuming, I mean.”
“Yeah, I know.” It’s only been twenty minutes, and I’ve already gotten him to hate me. How is that possible? When Matthew rejoins us at the top of the stairs, I try to keep to myself. If I open my mouth, I’ll only make things worse.
“And that concludes the tour,” I murmur as we make our way back to the kitchen.
“What’s over there?” Dylan asks, pointing outside the back door. There’s no trace of a lingering rage in his voice and no flickers of fury left over from his blood boiling over, either. It’s steady, as if he didn’t just jump down my throat a minute ago.
“Oh, that’s the pool house, where my room is,” I say, my voice cracking beneath my words. He’s acting as if the conversation we had at the top of the stairs didn’t happen, but unlike him, I don’t have the luxury of forgetting that easily. “I volunteered to give up my room when they decided to adopt you, so my parents let me have it.” His thick eyebrows furl when I say the word adopt. Surely, he must know that adoption is a possibility. If my parents have anything to do with it, he won’t stay in the system forever, but it’s not my place to tell him this. At least, not after the scolding I just got about jumping to conclusions.
“Foster,” he corrects. “I’m not your brother yet.”
But eventually you will be, I start to say, but I flash back to our conversation on the stairs, and decide not to.
My parents are finishing up with his things when we complete our tour. “I don’t want you to think that I never cook, because I do.” My mom laughs. “But we figured you’d like something simple for your first day here.” She hands me two boxes of pizza, and I lead the way to the kitchen table.
We pass around plates and then the boxes of pizza, each person taking two slices for themselves. It’s not the usual Ellenburg family dinner that’s filled with random banter about how everyone’s day went. Tonight, all of the attention and interest are on Dylan.
“I’m sorry about your room,” my mom says. “Emma took her queen mattress and wrought iron bedframe to the pool house. We were expecting to bring home a boy around Matthew’s age and thought a smaller bed would be more fitting. Now obviously, that twin bed isn’t going to do you much good, so I’ve ordered you a bigger bed, which should be in tomorrow. But for tonight, is it okay if you take the couch?”
“No worries, Mrs. Ellenburg. Believe me, I’ve slept on worse.” He laughs, but no one else joins in with him. Once again, it occurs to me that I know nothing about him or his past. I’m curious to know what horrific thing happened to him that led to him being placed in foster care as well as how many foster families he’s had, but I don’t ask about it now. His deep, dark secrets are hardly appropriate for dinner conversation, especially with Matthew listening. He’s still young and so impressionable that we’re not even allowed to curse in front of him—even though I know for a fact that both of my parents love to use colorful words.
“You can call me Mom, if you want.” Mom’s trying to bridge the gap of awkward silence with something light and fluffy; she doesn’t handle discomfort well. “Or Lauren, if Mom doesn’t feel right. Whatever makes you comfortable.”
“Thanks.” Dylan’s mouth stretches into a grin that resembles that of a clown: deceiving and full of secrets. What’s he hiding?
As he looks away from Mom, he catches my eyes. I mouth the words I’m sorry across the table, and I see him make an arc motion with his hand, as if to say that it’s water under the bridge. I lean back in my seat, finally able to relax again.
“What’s your favorite color?” Matthew asks, pointing his half-eaten pizza crust at Dylan. We’ve told him a million times that pointing is rude, but then again, he’s only seven. We can’t expect him to be as refined as the rest of the family yet.
Blue, I answer for him in my head. I know I’m right just by looking at him. The blue in his T-shirt and shoes is a dead giveaway. People always wear their favorite color the most.
“It’s blue.”
“Mine is green. What’s your favorite book?”
“I’m a big Harry Potter fan.” Dylan holds up his pizza crust as if it’s a wand and casts a fake spell on Matthew. “That series will always be close to my heart.”
“Emma has all of the movies. Maybe we can watch them together sometime,” Matthew suggests.
“Maybe.” Our eyes meet again, and a flutter jolts through me. But it doesn’t last long; Matthew’s asking his next question before a full smile can spread across my face.
“What about your favorite—”
“Matthew, let’s ease up on the interrogation. We haven’t even touched on his hobbies yet. What are you into, son?”
Dylan swallows hard when he hears the word son come out of my father’s mouth. I know my dad doesn’t mean it literally—he calls Matthew’s friends son as well, but something about it feels alarming now. “I-I’m not the biggest sports fan,” he admits after taking a sip from his glass. “I’m more into the arts. Painting, sketching, sculpting. That kind of stuff. More painting than anything, though.” I watch as my father sets down his piece of pizza and clasps his hands, darting his eyes toward Dylan, who quickly edits himself. “Not saying I don’t like to play sports. It’s just that it’s always come second to my art.” He stuffs a piece of pizza crust into his mouth, and I can’t help but snort, trying to hold back a laugh.
“Well, Dad, I guess Matthew is your last hope for a baseball star. Hopefully he has good hand-eye coordination.” I pat my dad’s shoulder, faux apologetically, and sneak a look at Dylan. He’s smart. He got out early, I think to myself.
“Did you used to play baseball in high school and college?” Dylan asks, ignoring my interjection and turning the conversation back to my dad.
“Here we go,” I whisper under my breath. “You’ve done it now.”
“Speak up, Emma. I’ve told you about the mumbling. It’s not very ladylike,” my dad snaps.
“Just wondering if you’d like me to start cleaning up, Dad.” Before he can answer, I pick up his plate, which has four pizza crusts on it, and head to the kitchen to avoid his walk down memory lane. I’ve heard my dad’s stories so many times that I know them by heart now.
“I went pro when I was only nineteen years old, played for seventeen years, and became the youngest batter ever to get over two hundred hits in a single season…”
Out of the corner of my eye, I catch sight of Dylan. He’s nodding his head and grunting every once in a while, but I know he’s not into it. I mean, he did just say that he’s not a sports person. But my dad has no clue that this is happening; he just keeps going on and on about the “good ol’ days” like he usually does when we have a new guest in the house. I don’t blame him, though. He hardly ever gets to talk baseball with us anymore. Mom and I have outgrown his stories from the big leagues, and Matthew is too young to fully understand them all, so my dad must be ecstatic to have someone new to tell them to.
I shuffle through the kitchen, eavesdropping on their conversation until I can no longer hear what they are saying. I expect they are talking about his adjustment here and going over the rules, so I start to clean up the kitchen. As I fill the sink with dishwater, I let myself get lost in thought. The only thing that keeps passing through my mind is Dylan. He seems like he’s gonna be a good fit for our family, and I’m surprised that I’m kind of all right with having him here, since just this morning I was still on the fence about the whole thing. And aside from the confrontation we had at the top of the stairs, he seems to be pretty nice, too. I mean, I haven’t seen my dad talk and smile this much in a long time.
The “welcome home” festivities don’t last much longer, and after Mom and Dad remind us that it’s a school night, we take our showers and retire to our bedrooms—well, Matthew and I do. Dylan has to get comfortable on the sofa tonight.
I’m just about to crawl into bed, when I notice that the pool lights are still on. Dad has been on my case about remembering to turn them off, and if I’m going to get (and stay) on his good side, I need to start remembering to do my only chore.
My fingers are a second away from flipping the switch when I see Dylan exit the back door of the house and lie down in the grass near the edge of the pool, his arm hooked over the back of his head. After a minute or two, he closes his eyes.
Confused, I rush outside. “I know Mom messed up your sleeping arrangements, but come on, the sofa isn’t that bad,” I joke as I approach him.
“I’m just admiring the sky. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen the stars. Too much light pollution in Los Angeles.”
“Yeah. They are pretty amazing, aren’t they?” He closes his eyes once again, and I can’t help but wonder how he’s “admiring the sky” if his eyes are closed. Maybe some of his screws really are loose, and he failed to mention that to my parents before they brought him home. “I’m sorry, again,” I say to fill the silence between us. “I know I said it earlier, but I just wanted to reiterate it. I don’t know why I assumed that about you. It was very wrong of me.”
“You haven’t gotten over that yet?” he asks, opening his left eye and patting the ground, inviting me to sit with him for a moment. “I was over that when the conversation ended. I don’t hold grudges. It’s emotionally draining.”
“I agree. It is.” I lie back on the grass and look up into the sky in silenced bewilderment. Why are we lying in the grass when we’ve both taken showers already? Isn’t this defeating the purpose?
“I don’t remember much from the actual accident. I blacked out from blood loss before we even made it to the hospital,” Dylan rattles off as if I know what he’s talking about. It takes me a minute to realize that he’s talking about his scar again.
I feel my breath start to shorten as he talks about his old wounds. There’s a reason that I never dreamed of becoming a doctor, and I’m reminded of the impossibility of this career option whenever I hear someone talk about blood and broken bones and other gory things like that.
I’m so busy trying to redirect my thoughts away from the image he’s creating that I don’t catch the end of what he’s saying. Instead, I’m wondering whether I should take another shower when I get back inside.
It’s quiet, I observe after a moment. Should I say something so things don’t get too weird? I pull my hair over my left shoulder and begin to braid it while I think of something to say to fill the void. I wonder what he’s thinking about. Is he thinking about his family? Is he thinking about us? Is he thinking about … me? I’m halfway down my mane when I figure out how to start a conversation with him. “So how does it feel? Has it all sunk in yet?”
In his set of navy blue pajamas, he looks over at me and then shakes his head. His hair is wet from the shower, and a couple drops find their way to me as he answers my question. “Nope. I still feel like I’m gonna wake up tomorrow and have this all be a dream. Like I should still be in LA. It just doesn’t feel real yet.”
“Well, believe it, bro,” I say leaning up on my elbows. Bro? That was a weird thing to say; I’ve never called Matthew bro. “This is your life now, so start enjoying it.” He’s quiet for a moment, and out of the corner of my eye, I catch him looking at me. When I meet his gaze, he doesn’t look away. “What?”
He closes his eyes once more, before answering. “What’s our school like?”
“Oh, it’s nothing special. Just a place where a bunch of popular, yet dumb, girls and guys convene to cheat off of each other to matriculate into their dream party-central, I mean college. Not too different from any other high school, I’m sure.”
“Matriculate,” he repeats. “Big-word points for you.” I smile and wait for him to speak again. “Sounds like fun. So … you’re not popular, I’m guessing?” I furl my eyebrows and tilt my head to the side as if to ask why he would say such a thing. “I’m only asking because you called them dumb. Nobody would describe themselves as dumb to a total stranger, new foster sibling or not.”
He’s wittier than I initially gave him credit for, I think to myself.
“No, I’m not. Quite the opposite, actually,” I admit with a frown. “But I don’t care. Pretty soon, I’m going to graduate and move on to college, while they learn how to shotgun a beer.”
“You don’t like it? School, I mean.”
“The social part of it, no. I’d rather walk slowly across hot coals every hour, on the hour, for the rest of my life than to go to that place every day. It’s mostly a hellhole, aside from the learning-new-things part. I like that part very much.” I don’t feel like venting my feelings anymore, so I turn the conversation back on him. “You’re gonna be the center of attention tomorrow, so get ready.”
“Why?” he says, opening his eyes once more.
“Because you’re new and mysterious, and you kind of look like pre-Miley Liam Hemsworth—so without the beard—and with brown eyes instead of blue.”
I imagine him coming home with a notebook full of girls’ numbers, and another wave of jealousy washes over my body. He’s going to be popular. I just know it. He’s going to spend one day at my high school and end up doing the one thing that I couldn’t for four whole years.
“Yep,” I say, rolling my eyes, “they’re gonna be all over you.”
“Who’s Liam Hemsworth?”
“Ha, very funny,” I say, pushing his shoulder playfully. I’m surprised that I can feel his muscles; for a guy who isn’t into sports, he’s sure built like an athlete. “You know, the little brother of that actor who plays Thor in all the superhero movies with the perfectly messy brown hair, toned biceps, and dreamy blue eyes.”
“‘Dreamy blue eyes’? You mean like yours?” The hair on my arms rises slowly as the aura of electricity settles around us, and it isn’t long before I feel my cheeks and ears grow warm.
“Yeah, sure.” I look away from him, but I can still feel his eyes dancing across my face, as if he’s trying to memorize the precise placement of every freckle on my nose and cheeks. “It’s getting late. I’ll, uh … I’ll see you in the morning. Okay?”
“Sounds good.”
Leaving him to lounge on the ground, I set the pool lights to turn off in two hours, just in case he wants to lie out there and gaze—with closed eyes—at the stars a bit longer.
I toss and turn all night, my mind alternating between thinking and dreaming about Dylan and the last seconds of our conversation by the pool. I know that he’s going to be my official brother on paper one day, but a piece of me wants to explore the side of Dylan that I saw before we parted ways tonight. The side that I think was flirting with me.
Copyright © 2018 by Tiffany Brownlee
