SNEAK PEEK - The Girl Who Never Was

Chapter Three

Chapter Three

School the next day feels unbearably long. It’s so hard to concentrate on things like the Pythagorean theorem when I have decided that it’s possible my aunts are immortal creatures. I meet up with Kelsey for American literature class. She is complaining because she lost a button on the brand-new cardigan she’s wearing.

“Oh,” I note. “I picked up a button this morning.” I fish it out of my pocket, avoiding the old book pages occupying the same space, and hand it to her.

“Of course it’s a perfect match,” Kelsey sighs. “I don’t know how you do that.”

“I’m a good best friend,” I tell her.

“That you are.” Kelsey tucks the button into her own pocket. “You okay, by the way? You seemed quiet in Salem, but I thought you just weren’t having a good time. But you don’t seem yourself today, either.”

“I’m fine,” I say.

But I’m not, of course.

I decide that I have to go see my father. I just have to. I spend a sleepless night worrying about all the questions in my head and knowing that my aunts will never answer them, but somebody has to. I know my aunts are convinced I should know who I am without knowing anything about my mother, but I feel like I just can’t. How can I? And the fact that my aunts are so dead set against it makes me feel like I really have to know. I’m not usually such a brat, but in this case I can’t help it. I just have to go see my father. He is not always lucid enough to answer questions like that—the poem about my name being a prime example—but I can at least give it a try.

The day is mostly sunny, although there is a chill in the air, and Ben is doing a brisk business in sweatshirts. I wait impatiently for him to give change to a customer. I haven’t seen him glance my way, but as soon as he’s done, he turns toward me, his pale eyes sharp.

“What’s wrong?” He has obviously immediately seen my agitation.

“I’m going to see my father,” I say.

Ben and I have never discussed anything about our family lives—Ben and I know both everything and nothing about each other—but he doesn’t ask me anything about why my father is someone I have to visit. He just says, “Why?”

“Because I have so many questions, Ben. I don’t have a mother—”

“Everyone has a mother,” Ben interjects calmly. “You have a mother; you just don’t know your mother.”

It seems like a pointless distinction for him to be making right now. “Fine,” I agree. “Whatever. I don’t know her. And no one will tell me anything about her. I have to ask my father. I have to try to ask my father. I have to know. I feel like I have to know. I need to hear the words.”

Ben is silent for a moment. His eyes darken as the sun passes behind a cloud. He says carefully, “Do you think he’ll tell you?”

“I don’t know. But I have to try.”

There is another long moment of silence. Ben’s eyes search mine. I feel like he is asking me a question that I don’t understand.

“What?” I say.

He just shakes his head, and it might be my imagination, me projecting my own emotional upheaval onto him, but I think he looks sad, and on impulse, I hug him. I have never done this before, and the awkwardness of having done it strikes me as soon as it happens, and I let go so quickly that I don’t even have time to register how it feels. I am suddenly embarrassed, and I have no idea why I’ve done it—why am I constantly doing things without thinking?—and I have the fleeting impression that Ben looks surprised before I turn and flee to the subway station like a coward. I am almost relieved when the train predictably gets stuck underground for a little while; it gives my cheeks time to stop burning.