“Okay,” Grace said. “You’re sure?”
Joaquin nodded. “I’m sure.”
“Then I’m sure, too,” Maya said.
“I’ll drive,” Joaquin replied. “Next weekend?”
“Damn straight,” Maya said.
Grace had never thought that it could feel so good just to breathe again.
MAYA
Maya was really good at keeping secrets.
That’s probably because she had so much practice at it.
She never told anyone about the envelope in the safe, at least not until Joaquin and Grace, and she didn’t tell anyone that she was going to drive three hours to see if her biological mom was still at the address on the envelope. That secret was making her feel like something was pushing under her skin, desperate to get out.
And that made her think, of course, of Grace.
Even though she had already said sorry, she had texted Grace at least once a day since then, apologizing for stealing her phone.
Did I tell you how sorry I am? Because I am.
My, it’s fine.
I’ll buy you frozen yogurt next time.
I actually hate frozen yogurt.
Gah! I am so bad at apologizing!!!!!!
Maya still had questions, of course. She wanted to know when the baby (she couldn’t call her Peach no matter how hard she tried) had been born, if it had hurt as much as everyone says it does, if Grace had been scared before and after. She wondered if Grace would feel bad forever, if that look on her face when she had first told them about the baby would ever truly go away.
And at three a.m., when that same old insomnia crept back, Maya wondered if her mom, the one who was in rehab, missed her the same way that Grace missed her baby.
She had seen pictures of the rehab place online. It seemed nice, if a little sparse. It advertised sunshine and palm trees and recovery, but Maya thought that behind all the perks, it just looked lonely. She hated to think of her mom being lonely, or afraid, or sad, and at the same time, she was so mad at her. On the one hand, it was her mom’s own stupid fault for even being in rehab in the first place. If she really loved Maya and Lauren like she said she did, she would have stopped drinking a long time ago. She would have changed for them.
But on the other hand, Maya knew that the problem was bigger and more complicated than that, and it scared her that she didn’t know how to figure it out.
On Wednesday night at dinner (homemade meal again; her dad was really pulling it together), Maya’s dad cleared his throat and said, “So. Mom can have visitors this weekend.”
Maya’s fork froze halfway to her mouth, sauce dripping off the spaghetti and back into the bowl.
“It’s Family Weekend this Saturday at the center,” he said. He never said addiction recovery or rehab. It was always the center, like their mother had spent the two weeks at a YMCA doing water aerobics.
“I know she’d really like it if both of you were there,” Maya’s dad continued. “I’m going to go, and I’d like it if you came, too, but it’s your decision.”
“I’m totally going,” Lauren said. Maya wasn’t surprised. Lauren had always had a soft spot for their mom. The week before, Maya had spotted her standing in their parents’ closet, sniffing one of their mom’s blouses. Maya had snuck away before Lauren could see her, but it had made her feel funny and sad for the rest of the day.
She wished she had never seen her sister look so vulnerable. It made her want to zip Lauren into her hoodie and hide her away from the rest of the world.
“Maya?” her dad asked. “No pressure, of course.”
Maya raised an eyebrow. “Really? No pressure?”
Her dad just shrugged and stabbed (there really wasn’t a better word for it, Maya thought as she watched his fork) at his salad. “No pressure,” he repeated. “If you want to go, we’d love to have you. But if you still need more time, I understand. And Mom will understand, too.” His eyes were gentle as he looked over at Maya, then reached over and patted her hand. “I know it’s intense, sweetie.”
Maya just nodded. Dad, she thought to herself, you have no idea.
She had absolutely zero intentions of going out to her mom’s rehab center, not when she had possibly life-altering plans with Grace and Joaquin.
Maya also had zero intentions of telling her dad about said life-altering plans. She knew he would squash them immediately, or insist on going with her, or sending a letter first before going to the house, and Maya wasn’t interested in any of those options.
She had no idea if Grace or Joaquin would tell their parents or . . . whatever it was that Mark and Linda were. Maya could understand why Joaquin had said no to the adoption. The story about Natalie had been frightening, but the idea of Joaquin being yanked out of his home, of being hospitalized, of hurting—it was almost too much to bear. It made her teeth ache when she thought about it, so she tried not to think about it too often.
Lauren knocked on her door that night after dinner, then came in without waiting for Maya to respond. “Are you seriously not going this weekend?” Lauren said, her arms crossed over her chest.
“Um, why do you even knock if you’re just going to barge in anyhow?” Maya said, folding another shirt from her clean laundry pile. “How do you know I’m not dancing around naked in here?”
“You’re not, so it’s a moot point.”
“PSAT word?”
Lauren ignored her. “You’re really going to make me go alone with Dad this weekend?”
Maya wanted to tell her so, so bad. She knew Lauren felt left out, that she was worried about the two new people in Maya’s life, but there was no way in the world that Maya was going to tell Lauren anything about the envelope, the address, the upcoming trip. She was at least 90 percent sure that Lauren would tell their dad about it, and even if she didn’t, Maya would never have asked her to keep such a big secret.
So instead she just said, “Yep. Road trip with Dad, how fun! Maybe he’ll get you a slushie from 7-Eleven.”
“Slurpees are from 7-Eleven!” Lauren corrected her. “Not slushies!”
“You pick the strangest things to get upset about sometimes, Laur.”
“Well, okay, how about this, then? I’m upset that my big sister isn’t going with me to see our mom for the first time since we found her bleeding to death on the floor.”
Maya sighed, setting down her shirt. “I just need more time, okay? You go see her if you want, but I’m not ready.”
“Are you mad at her?”
“Yes,” Maya said. “I’m mad at her for picking wine over us. I’m mad that she got so drunk she fell down and let you find her like that. I’m mad that she left us here to answer everyone else’s questions. We are literally cleaning up her mess, Lauren. So yeah, I’m mad.” Maya picked up another shirt and started folding it with way more intensity than necessary.
Lauren just stood in the doorway, watching her. “Well, don’t you want to say that to her?”
Maya wanted to say and do a million things to her mom. She wanted to scream at her, shake her, ignore her forever, crawl into her lap and cry.
“I’ll say what I want to say to her when I want to say it to her,” Maya replied. “And not before.”
“Dad says that we need to start going to a family therapist.”
Maya raised an eyebrow but didn’t look up. “Dad’s just getting that now? Because I could have told you that five years ago.”
“My,” Lauren said, and she looked up this time. “Don’t make me go by myself. Please.”
“You’re not going by yourself. You’re going with Dad, remember? Slurpees!”
“You know what I mean. Please, Maya. You promised you wouldn’t leave me behind.”
Maya walked over to her, putting her hands on Lauren’s shoulders. “Laur,” she said. “I promise I’m not leaving you behind. We’re just on different paths right now. They’ll meet at the end, okay? I promise,” she added again when Lauren looked unconvinced. “I’ll see Mom
when I’m ready. If you’re ready, though, you should go now.”
Lauren sighed heavily. “Fine,” she said, then flounced out of the room. “Betray me, that’s fine!”
“Okay!” Maya said. “Good talk, Laur!”
The only response from Lauren was a slammed door.
By Friday night, Maya thought she would burst.
The problem with keeping secrets, she was starting to realize, was that they were too big to carry by yourself. When the girls had been little, Lauren had always been her secret keeper, but they weren’t little anymore.
There was only one person she wanted to tell, Maya realized on Friday night, after everyone else had gone to bed and the house sounded louder and emptier than it did during the day. Only one person would truly understand.
She reached for her phone and texted Claire.
you up?
The wait time was excruciating, and Maya rolled over onto her side, the blue light from her phone illuminating everything in the room. She closed her eyes for a moment, trying to will herself back to sleep, convinced that Claire would never write back.
Her phone buzzed.
Maya almost fell out of bed trying to read it.
are you seriously texting me right now?
I’m going to meet my birth mom tomorrow.
Maya held her breath and waited.
whoa.
I know. can you meet? please?
Why should I meet you, My?
Maya hesitated, then typed.
because I’m scared. and I’m sorry.
i’ll be at the park in 20 min.
Maya threw herself out of bed and went to get dressed.
She was almost out of the house when she hit the bottom stair and ran straight into Lauren.
“Where are you going?” Lauren asked.
“What are you doing up?”
“Eating ice cream. Where are you going?”
“You got up to eat ice cream and didn’t wake me? I’m hurt.”
“Where are you going?”
They were both whispering fiercely, trying not to wake up their dad. Maya was pretty sure if the circumstances weren’t so dire, they would have looked like they were doing a comedy routine.
“Just . . . somewhere.”
“Are you sneaking out?”
Maya nodded. “Don’t tell Dad, okay? I’ll be back in an hour.”
“Are you meeting someone?”
“I’m meeting . . . someone.”
Lauren’s face lit up. “Are you meeting Claire?”
“Shh!” Maya practically fell on top of her sister trying to keep her quiet. “You are the worst at being sneaky, you know that?”
“Only you would think that was an insult,” Lauren replied, but she didn’t sound too upset. She was even grinning. “Oh my God, are you and Claire getting back together?”
“Just cover for me if Dad wakes up, okay?”
“How do I cover for you?”
Maya was fairly certain that she was going to murder her sister that night. “Lauren!” she whisper-cried. “Just be quiet and go back to bed, okay? I’ll text you when I’m back.”
“Okay, okay, fine.” Lauren looked positively gleeful. “Just apologize for whatever you did and get back together, okay? You’ve been moping around for weeks, and so has she.”
Maya had no idea if this was true, but she wasn’t going to waste time arguing with Lauren about it. “Good night,” she said. “Also, stop eating all the ice cream. Leave some for me next time.”
Lauren threw her a mock salute, then climbed the stairs as Maya slipped out the front door.
By the time she got to the park, everything was a pulsing red behind her eyes, each burst of color in perfect sync with her heartbeat. Maya wasn’t sure if it was love, fear, or just plain stupidity, but the colors picked up speed when she saw Claire waiting in the parking lot for her.
Claire had her hands jammed into her hoodie pockets, the hoodie pulled up over her hair so that Maya could only see her face. She thought it was still one of the most beautiful faces she had ever seen. “Hi,” Maya said as soon as she was close enough.
“Hey,” Claire said. She sounded disaffected, cool, all blues and violets, the opposite of the hot ember glow that burned inside Maya.
“Hi,” Maya said again. She suddenly felt as dumb as she had the first time she’d met Claire, tongue-tied and awkward. “I just, yeah. I just wanted to tell you. About my birth mom.”
Claire nodded her head toward one of the picnic benches. “You want to sit?”
Maya nodded and followed her.
“So,” Claire said. “Talk.”
Maya wished she had planned this out a bit. She didn’t know what to say or how to say it.
So she told Claire everything.
She told her about Grace and the baby, about Joaquin and Natalie and the failed adoption. She told her about Lauren and their fight, how their mom had looked on the floor with blood coming out of her head, the way her dad had flown home and cried in the hospital when he saw his daughters. She told Claire about the safe and the envelope and the address, their scheduled trip for the next day and how she was missing Family Day at the center. She told Claire everything she could possibly think of to say, and at the end, she felt wrung out and exhausted.
“Okay,” Claire said when she was done. “But My, how do you feel about all of that?”
Maya blinked. “What?”
“How do you feel?” Claire turned to look at her. “Don’t you get it? Every time you get scared or feel all these big things, you run.”
“I—”
“You pushed me away.” There was no missing the wobble in Claire’s voice when she said, “You can’t just keep opening and closing this door, saying nothing to me and then texting me in the middle of the night. Shit, Maya, you broke my heart!”
Maya felt very small sitting in the dark. “I didn’t mean to break anything,” she said. And suddenly she thought of Joaquin. Why? He was saying he didn’t want to be adopted by the two people who loved him more than anything in the world, and . . .
“Oh, no,” she whispered. “I’m doing it, too.”
“Doing what?” Claire asked, but Maya was starting to cry.
“I’m doing it, too,” she wept. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t want you to know. About my mom, about any of it. I got scared and I . . . I panicked. I—I don’t want to be alone!”
“My, My, calm down.” Claire’s hands were soft on her face, softer than Maya had any right to feel. “You’re not alone. A lot of people love you and care about you—what are you talking about?”
“I’m so sorry!” Maya said again. “I’m so sorry, Claire. I miss you so much and I hurt you and I thought that I was only hurting myself, but I hurt you, too, and I’m so sorry . . .”
“It’s okay,” Claire whispered. “I forgive you, it’s okay.” But now she was crying, too, and when she leaned in to kiss Maya, Maya could taste the white-hot salt of their tears mingling together. “It’s okay,” Claire whispered again. “Just don’t do it again, okay?”
“Okay,” Maya whispered back, then kissed Claire again before wrapping her up in her arms. “I don’t ever want to leave you again.”
“So don’t,” Claire murmured against her hair. “I told you last time, I’m not going anywhere.”
It was more than Maya deserved, she realized, but she would take it anyway.
JOAQUIN
Joaquin didn’t tell Mark and Linda about going to look for his birth mom.
He wanted to, though. He wanted to tell someone—anyone—but he didn’t know how. Ana would have made him talk about his feelings. His social worker, Allison, would have probably said something about rules or paperwork. Birdie was—well, Birdie was no longer an option. Joaquin was pretty sure that Mark and Linda would have listened to him, at least, but he wasn’t sure how to look at two people who wanted to adopt him and tell them that he was going to find his birth mom. And after they had given him a car of his very
own?
No way.
Joaquin decided to keep this one to himself.
And that turned out to be a huge, huge mistake.
That week at school, Joaquin had turned the corner down the hallway toward his English class and come face-to-face with Birdie and Colin Maller.
They were kissing, Birdie’s long arm wrapped around Colin’s neck the same way that she used to wrap it around Joaquin’s. If he thought about it too much, Joaquin could almost feel the warmth of her skin, the heat of her mouth, the way she always smelled good, like soap and shampoo.
Joaquin had thought that nothing would ever hurt as bad as breaking his arm, but he could have broken both arms and legs and it still would have been a drop in the bucket compared to how he felt when he saw Birdie in Colin’s arms.
He stumbled backward, not caring if he missed English class, or the rest of school, or even the rest of his life. He had to get out of there, and he was almost out the door when someone called him back.
It was Birdie’s friend Marjorie. “Joaquin, wait!” she yelled, chasing after him, and Joaquin stopped with his hand on the door, his chest heaving like it had after he’d pushed Adam against the wall, adrenaline flooding his system and overwhelming his senses.
“Wait,” Marjorie said again, even though Joaquin hadn’t moved. “Joaquin, she’s just trying to make you jealous. She doesn’t even like him.”
Joaquin laughed. He couldn’t help it. “Looks like she likes him a lot,” he said, running a hand through his hair. “Tell the happy couple I said congratulations.”
And then he was gone, Marjorie calling after him, the school behind him as he started to run.
By Saturday morning, Joaquin was a mess. On the outside, he looked pretty good. He showered and washed his hair and wore the shirt that Birdie had bought for him when they’d first started dating because she said it made his eyes look good. Joaquin had dark brown eyes, so he wasn’t exactly sure how a blue-checkered, button-down shirt could make them pop (Birdie’s word, not his), but Birdie had always been smart about things like that, so he trusted her opinion.