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The First To Know
Abigail Johnson
Don't miss the second gripping and heartfelt story from the author of If I Fix You! A girl's plan to find her father's birth family turns potentially devastating when the secret DNA test she has done reveals that she has a half brother her age she never knew about.Dana Fields's father never knew his parents. When Dana secretly does a DNA test for her dad, hoping to find him some distant relatives for his birthday, her entire world implodes. Instead of a few third cousins, Dana discovers a half brother her age whose very existence means her parents' happy marriage is a lie.Dana's desire to know her half brother, Brandon, and the extent of her dad's deception, clashes with her wish not to destroy her family. When she sees the opportunity to get to know Brandon through his cousin, the intense yet kind Chase, she takes it. But the more she finds out about Brandon, her father's past and the irresistible guy who'll never forgive her if he discovers the truth, the more she sees the inevitable fallout from her own lies. With her family crumbling around her, Dana must own up to her actions and find a way to heal the breach–for everyone–before they're torn apart for good.
Are some things better left unknown?
Dana Fields’s father never knew his parents. When Dana secretly does a DNA test for her dad, hoping to find him some distant relatives for his birthday, her entire world implodes. Instead of a few third cousins, Dana discovers a half brother her age whose very existence means her parents’ happy marriage is a lie.
Dana’s desire to know her half brother, Brandon, and the extent of her dad’s deception clashes with her wish not to destroy her family. When she sees the opportunity to get to know Brandon through his cousin, the intense yet kind Chase, she takes it. But the more she finds out about Brandon, her father’s past and the irresistible guy who’ll never forgive her if he discovers the truth, the more she sees the inevitable fallout from her own lies. With her family crumbling around her, Dana must own up to her actions and find a way to heal the breach—for everyone—before they’re torn apart for good.
The First to Know
Abigail Johnson
For my sisters, Mary and Rachel. You are both my favorite.
Contents
Cover (#u2d731df9-d6fe-59c3-a2c2-43527b4a0430)
Back Cover Text (#ua62be9d0-769c-5eca-b407-96218abd2a4a)
Title Page (#u93d04f5d-3d4d-5c16-b339-7f08a60afa64)
Dedication (#uffc903b2-3f3c-59b9-8994-a4d5f88c2a24)
Chapter 1 (#ue0ba66d9-7e7e-54b3-bff8-78be31814906)
Chapter 2 (#u0f45d46b-8778-5dd6-adce-982c2131af26)
Chapter 3 (#ue6f40b10-e9c1-56bf-94a9-36bdd36e96da)
Chapter 4 (#u00d4c3c2-2eef-5f2d-b90a-b8cfd01d33ea)
Chapter 5 (#u6f4c4e33-0a32-56a5-8914-5158aa731e15)
Chapter 6 (#u8a074cfd-4478-5334-9576-bb9a833baf05)
Chapter 7 (#ucbafd98a-498a-5279-a092-18f03b50b7a9)
Chapter 8 (#u37036d0d-9d79-583e-9921-6a942f2305af)
Chapter 9 (#u30692e02-6bd6-5d61-ac82-ea91811c648a)
Chapter 10 (#u9b5cd96a-749b-572c-9e2b-fd7eb000ff6e)
Chapter 11 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 12 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 13 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 14 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 15 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 16 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 17 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 18 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 19 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 20 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 21 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 22 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 23 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 24 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 25 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 26 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 27 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 28 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 29 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 30 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 31 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 32 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 33 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 34 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 35 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 36 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 37 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 38 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 39 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 40 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 41 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 42 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 43 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 44 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 45 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 46 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 47 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 48 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 49 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 50 (#litres_trial_promo)
Acknowledgments (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 1 (#u6a963fff-0fd4-5720-87cf-eb6ead14ac17)
The swing was so smooth and effortless I barely felt it. Adrenaline slammed though my body as I hit a screamer into right center, knowing it would find the gap. It had to. I dropped my bat and bolted for first, picking up speed as I rounded to second. I had at least a triple. I made the split-second decision to ignore the stop sign from my coach, kicking up dust as I passed third and charged for home. We needed this run to go to extra innings. From the corner of my eye, I saw the second baseman pivot and rear back to throw home. My heart rate skyrocketed and I slid, taking out the catcher staked over home plate.
She fell onto me in a cloud of orange dust that choked us both. We were still in a heap on the ground when the sound of the cheering crowd shifted from one side to the other—from our team’s fans to theirs. The Hawks swooped out of their dugout in a flurry of teal and black and tackled their rising catcher in a massive hug.
Only one of my fellow Mustangs came and offered me a hand up: our shortstop and my best friend, Jessalyn. I brushed her off, despite my eagerness to get away from the celebration going on around me.
“Way to go, Dana.”
“I was safe,” I told her, yanking off my batting glove to check my nose. I’d hit the catcher’s knee pretty hard.
“Actually, you weren’t. Otherwise Coach would be screaming at the umpire right now instead of—”
“Dana!” Coach was descending on me with a look that sent Jessalyn retreating to our dugout. His eyebrows were practically touching his hairline and his face was blotchy red from the blood roiling just below the surface. “What are you doing? Huh? What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
“I was trying to win.”
“For us or them?” He got in my face, so close that I felt exactly what it meant when someone was spitting mad. My own anger receded under his frothing fury. “Are you wearing teal?” He jutted his chin toward my uniform. “Is that the color you’re wearing?”
“I’m wearing red,” I said, but so quietly he made me repeat it. “I’m wearing red.”
“I gave you the stop sign because you were never going to beat that throw. Damn it, Dana!” He turned away, hands on hips, and then faced me again. “You don’t get to decide what rules to follow. They—” he pointed at my teammates, who were watching me get chewed out from the dugout “—all know that.”
My temper flared again, but I held in my response.
“That’s it? You got nothing to say?”
Nothing that would make him stop yelling at me any faster. Silence was my best bet. I’d had more than a little practice getting yelled at by coaches, especially this one.
“You’re not starting on Tuesday—”
My head jerked up. “What?”
“—and I’m benching you for the first three innings.”
“You can’t—” When he walked away, I was right on his heels but skidded to a stop when he rounded on me.
“What? What can’t I do?”
It took everything in me to bite my lip. I clamped down so hard I tasted copper. I wasn’t responsible for us being down by one with two outs in the bottom of the seventh. And I sure hadn’t made a lineup that put Amanda Watson at bat after me. I’d had to take the chance. Amanda was the least consistent batter on our team. She either hit moon shots or struck out, the latter being more often the case when the pressure was on. But I couldn’t say any of that, not if I wanted to play at all the next game.
He was in my face again. “You think Selena would have pulled a stunt like that? No. Because Selena listened to her coach.”
My eyes stung at the mention of my sister, whose gaze I could feel from the stands. Every time I messed up, he compared me to her. I rotated my jaw and looked at my cleats. Selena had led her team to the state championships as a senior two years ago, something I was determined to do my junior year. And I couldn’t do that by risking wins with unreliable players. Why was I the only one who saw that?
“I was trying to win,” I repeated, half through my teeth.
“Yeah. All by yourself.” He thrust my discarded bat into my hands and went to join the rest of our pissed-off team as they lined up to congratulate the Highland Hawks on their win.
After the less-than-sincere—at least on my part—congratulations were given and I’d sat through our coach’s spiel about how well we’d played—not well enough, or I wouldn’t have had to try to save the game—and how we won and lost as a united team, I ducked out before anyone else could yell at me and headed around the bleachers.
“Hey, slugger.”
My scowl evaporated at the sound of Nick’s voice and became a smile when I turned to see the hulking Samoan guy who’d been one of my closest friends since junior high. Since then, he’d grown a lot bigger, a lot cuter and, frustratingly for me, a lot more shy too. It had gotten so much worse since we got partnered together in biology that semester. I thought he was developing more than friendly feelings for me, but with Nick it was hard to tell, which made it really hard to tell if I was developing any feelings of my own. Still, he’d come to my game, so maybe he was trying to be bolder. He even spoke to me first, though I could tell he was regretting his choice of the word slugger based on the way he lowered and shook his head.
“I should have just said Dana.”
“Nah, slugger’s a classic. So, the first game you got to see this year ended with me losing. Awesome.”
“I thought you were great.”
“Thanks,” I said, not really meaning it. “I didn’t see you.”
“I had to come late, so I only caught the last inning.”
“Even better,” I said.
He smiled, ducking his head a little. “It was only the first game, right?”
“Said like a guy who doesn’t play sports.” I stopped walking when Nick slowed. Then I mentally shook myself in an attempt to beat back my venomous mood. “Sorry. I’m the worst loser on the planet.” I also wasn’t looking forward to the car ride home with my endlessly disappointed dad and the shining sibling I’d never live up to. At least Selena would have to head back to her dorm eventually. Dad could berate me all night if he wanted.
Nick recovered from my semi-insult and kicked his foot to dislodge a cricket that had landed on his shoe. It was mid-March in Arizona, which, in addition to being the start of softball season, meant the weather was losing its cold bite. That was all the invitation the crickets needed. They weren’t at summer-level swarming yet, but the chirping was an ever-present sound outside, and it was already hard to avoid the little hopping bodies, try as Nick might.
“Aren’t you going to ask why I was late?” he asked.
I hadn’t known he was coming at all. I’d told him in class that I was playing, but that was all. “Everything okay? Did something happen with your grandmother?” Nick’s newly widowed grandmother had recently moved in and was still grieving deeply.
“She’s actually doing a little better.”
“Oh, good.” I squeezed his forearm, and he half jumped like I’d touched him with an iron.
“Yeah, so, that’s not why.” Nick slid the backpack from his shoulder and unzipped it for me to see inside.
“No way.” I grabbed the sides of the bag and stepped right up to him. “Why didn’t you text me?” I looked up when Nick didn’t answer and found him staring at me.
“I thought it’d be worth it to see your face.” He swallowed. “And it was.”
Nick’s skin was as rich a brown as my glove, but I thought he was blushing. Still, I couldn’t dwell on the cute-but-shy thing he had going at the moment. I had eyes only for the white rectangular box he’d brought me. “I’m still pissed about losing, but a lot less now.”
“Have you figured out how you’re going to do it?”
I nodded. “Selena finally agreed to help, despite her massive reservations.” I took a deep breath as I put the box in my duffel bag. “I think this will be the best thing I’ve ever done, and she’s convinced it’ll be the worst.”
“You know if it doesn’t work out, you don’t have to tell anyone.”
Right. But it had to work out. “I guess tonight’s the night.” I couldn’t help bouncing on my feet a little. “Okay.”
“And you can call me if you have any questions or anything.” He reached out like he was going to pat my arm or something but pulled back before touching me.
That was fine. I’d need to get used to taking the lead with us, if we ever became us. I hugged him. “Seriously, thank you, Nick. I wouldn’t be doing this without you.”
It had been only a couple weeks since our biology teacher had started class by sticking his rolled tongue out at his students. A few people laughed at the continued display; the rest waited for the inevitable explanation. When at last Mr. Rodriguez raised his arms and gestured for us to imitate him, he was quick to point a finger at Nick.
“Thank you, Mr. Holloway—no, no. Keep your tongue out. You too, Miss Fields.” He shifted his finger to me. “Here we have a perfect display of a dominant phenotype for tongue rolling.” He pointed back at Nick. “And a recessive phenotype for tongue rolling. I’m assuming you cannot roll your tongue, Mr. Holloway?”
Nick shook his head while a slight flush marched up the back of his neck.
“Then my original statement stands. Now, what is a phenotype? As you all should know from last night’s reading, it’s simply the collection of observable traits, like a widow’s peak.” He pointed to his own hairline. “Or freckles or any number of characteristics that are physically demonstrable, like our tongue rollers here—feel free to close your mouths now,” he said, addressing the half of the class who still had their tongues out. “What I’d like you all to do with your partners is complete a chart listing several phenotypes, note which are dominant and recessive, then felicitaciones! You’re going to have two children and, from your original data, determine the phenotypes of each child.” He began passing out packets. “Refer to chapters eight and nine of your textbooks if you need further reminders about phenotypes, genotypes, alleles, gametes and the marvelous process of meiosis. I’ll be circulating the room to answer questions. Now learn, students, learn!”
I leaned into Nick, who still hadn’t fully recovered from being singled out. “I think our kids are screwed. Between my attached earlobes and your flat tongue, what can they possibly accomplish in life?” I got a pity smile for my lame humor, but Nick made eye contact for more than two seconds. “Though maybe there is something awesome hidden on my dad’s side that they could inherit. He was surrendered at a hospital as a baby, so we have no clue about his birth family.”
Nick nodded. “I never knew that about your dad but I guess that goes for me too.”
Nick had grown up knowing he was adopted—his family had their own mini holiday, Nick Day, celebrating the day they brought him home—and had never shown the least bit of discomfort talking about it. The opposite, really. Score me for bringing it up. I had Nick’s full, unguarded attention. He turned to face me.
“Did I tell you I recently took one of those online DNA tests to try to figure out more of my heritage? I’m obviously Samoan, but turns out I’m 8 percent Inuit too. I even found a few fourth cousins floating around the country.”
I’d forgotten to care that he’d been holding my gaze for longer than his usual few seconds. “Wait, like actual blood relatives? A DNA test can tell you that?” My heart rate spiked as the possibilities began darting through my brain.
“Yeah. A lot of people are doing them now, so you never know who you’ll find. Cool, huh?”
I’d almost kissed him that day in biology class. Instead I’d pumped him for every speck of info on the company he’d used and started planning something I’d hopefully get to finish that night. The knowledge now made me hug Nick tighter despite the duffel bag smashed between us.
From over his shoulder, I saw my mom heading toward us. I pulled back a scant second after he’d worked up the nerve to hug me back, noticing that I’d transferred a good amount of orange dust from my uniform to him in the process. I left him beating dust from his spotless white T-shirt and quite possibly ironed jeans with a promise to text him once I’d succeeded—which I absolutely would. I wasn’t about to lose twice in one night.
Mom didn’t care about dust and gathered me into a hug while whispering a disparaging comment about the umpire’s vision before releasing me.
“Tell that to Dad.” He was still in the dugout talking to a couple of the girls before making the final shift from Coach to Dad again, a distinction he and Selena had established back when he’d coached her softball team. Honestly, I never noticed much of a difference.
“Oh, I will.”
That made me smile, because she would. My parents often had loud, passionate disagreements that, to an outsider, might seem like fights. But they didn’t see the way Mom would goad Dad even after she’d made her point just to watch the heated color infuse his pale skin, or the way Dad would bait her until she slipped into her native Spanish because she had even less of a filter in those moments than normal.
“Who was the boy and when do I get to meet him?”
I tightened the grip on my duffel. “That was Nick, and you’ve met him a dozen times.”
“Not since you started hugging him like that.”
I so wasn’t having that conversation. “Where’s Selena?”
Mom gave me a knowing look at my obvious subject change. “Ask him to come to dinner. He’s not a vegetarian, is he?”
To my mom, being a vegetarian was slightly less offensive than being a Dodgers fan. “He’s not a vegetarian. And he’s still just a friend.”
“Hmm,” Mom said, which meant we’d be revisiting the topic later. “Selena’s waiting for us at the car.”
“Where’s her car?”
“She got in early, so we drove together.”
Great. I get both her and Dad the whole way home.
As soon as we were within earshot, Selena started. “I can’t believe you ran through a stop sign.” Her shoulder-length brown hair, a shade darker than mine, swished as she shook her head. “I get that when the adrenaline is flowing, it’s hard to stop, but, Dana, you don’t get to make that call. When I was playing...”
I tuned her out. Selena had this way of seeming to support and motivate me that undercut everything I did, and it had only gotten worse since she left for college. The University of Arizona was only a couple hours from Apache Junction, so she still tried to make most of my games—largely, I was convinced, to remind us all of her glory days as a Mustang. She was no doubt relaying one of her many victories, where she single-handedly played every position and hit so many home runs that the other team’s coach begged her to transfer schools, or my personal favorite, Dad crying when she told him she wasn’t interested in playing college ball. Those were all slight-to-gross exaggerations. Dad never cried; he’d just looked like he wanted to.
“Got it. I’ll play better next time. Hey, weren’t you telling me that you need Mom and Dad to help you with some school project tonight?” I moved my duffel bag in front of me and widened my eyes at her. Selena could be an annoying braggart when it came to softball, but she was also the only person on the planet who could read my mind with only the slightest cue.
“I was,” she said, without missing a beat, then forestalled Mom’s inevitable question. “It’s an extra-credit thing. I’ll tell you about it when we get home. I’m sure Dad’s gonna want to talk about that last out first.”
I groaned. “Can we just not? Let’s talk about something lighter, like teen-pregnancy statistics. Besides, it was a bad call.”
“You looked out to me,” Selena said.
Blood heated my face, but Dad was there before I could respond.
“That’s because she was.” He unlocked the trunk, not looking at me. “The umpire called it.”
I came up alongside him, wishing he could be a little more my dad and a little less my coach the next time a close call cost us a game. “You know, you used to get thrown out of games all the time for arguing when you coached Selena. This would have been a perfect opportunity.”
“Not all the time,” Selena said, though I was positive she was calling a list to mind same as I was.
“More than once,” I said, before turning back to Dad and waiting with raised eyebrows for his response. “There was that game against Chandler. You almost took a swing at the umpire.”
“I was never going to hit him,” Dad said. “Back then I was more of a...” He searched for the right word.
“Calentón,” Mom said, smiling.
I thought it was more than Dad being hotheaded, but I didn’t get to protest before he went on.
“I told you to stay, you didn’t, and we lost. And even if you’d been safe—run through a stop sign again and I’ll bench you for more than a few innings.” He opened the front passenger door for Mom, a practice he’d apparently started on their first date and was still doing more than twenty years later.
“You’re not serious.” But the look he gave me said otherwise. “Fine. Am I supposed to apologize to my dad or my coach?”
“What was that?” he asked, though we both knew he’d heard me.
“Nothing.”
He sighed, coming around to where I stood. “What is this attitude?”
“Why didn’t you fight the call?”
“Because you were out. Hey—hey.” He called my attention back when I looked away. “I’d have fought for you if you weren’t. Same as I did for your sister.” He lowered his voice so that Mom and Selena on the other side wouldn’t overhear. “You are one of the best players on the team. You could be as good as Selena if you worked harder.”
Except Selena never had to work the way I constantly had to. And she’d never cared enough to see how much better she could have been if she had. That was maybe the one bone of contention between her and Dad. So I worked twice as hard to be half as good, and it still wasn’t enough.
“Take the loss and work harder next time. We’ve got the whole season ahead of us, and you’re no good to me or anyone else on a bench. I need you.” He clapped a hand on my shoulder and squeezed. I nodded and worked my mouth into a small smile for his benefit. He needed me. I wanted more than that, but I’d settle for need just then.
I cradled my duffel in my lap during the car ride home, feeling the shape of the box within. And I smiled for real.
Chapter 2 (#u6a963fff-0fd4-5720-87cf-eb6ead14ac17)
My plan went off without a hitch. Selena was calm and cool, explaining that she needed family DNA samples for a criminology class she was supposedly taking. Selena was still technically undeclared, but she’d expressed enough middling interest in pursuing a sociology degree that neither of our parents questioned this. I think they both took it as a sign that she was finally committing to a career path. Mom happily swiped the toothbrush-like swab on the inside of her cheek. Dad was equally willing, joking about taking Mom on the lam if they connected him to any unsolved murders. They had no idea what we were really doing—what I was really doing.
After that, Selena passed me Dad’s swab and was officially done with the whole thing.
“I’m officially done with the whole thing,” she said, when we were in my room afterward.
“Fine.” I didn’t even look up from the DNA Detective website open on my laptop. “But don’t come back to me when I’m about to give Dad the birthday present to end all birthday presents.”
Selena peered over my shoulder, chewing on her thumbnail. “You really think you’ll find someone he’s related to?”
Arizona’s Safe Baby Haven Law allowed newborns to be anonymously handed over at hospitals or fire stations without having to provide personal information, which meant Dad’s birth certificate was basically blank. But none of that would matter if we found even a single DNA match. “Yes.” I turned sideways in my chair. “Nick found a bunch of fourth cousins when he took his test, and he sent me links about other people who were orphans just like Dad finding half siblings and even parents.”
“What if it tells us something he doesn’t want to know, something we don’t want to know?”
I frowned. “What, that he’s related to some douchey celebrity? The whole point of doing it as a surprise is that if we don’t like what we find out, then we trash it and he never knows.” I couldn’t believe I still had to convince Selena about this. She knew as well as I did how much it would mean for Dad to find his own relatives. That was part of the reason he and Mom got pregnant with me. They wanted to make sure Selena had a sibling, someone she was directly connected to. Dad didn’t have that. There was such a huge contrast between Mom’s sprawling Mexican clan back in Texas and Dad’s blank unknown. We didn’t see Mom’s family all that often, but they were still there, and I always felt like I was a part of something. Dad didn’t know what that was like. This was a chance to give him a family that consisted of more than the three of us.
“I needed your money and your criminology-class excuse, both of which you gave me. If you want out now, that’s fine. Go ahead and give Dad a tie for his birthday.”
Selena dropped her arms in obvious irritation before fishing her car keys out of her bag. “Fine. I have to get back to my dorm.” She hesitated at the door. “Just don’t tell me if he’s 86 percent more likely to get colon cancer or something. Good stuff only, okay?”
I gave her an exaggerated eye roll. “But if it’s good?”
“Then, since I paid for half of this, my name better be on the birthday card too.”
Under my breath, I said, “A little more than half,” before turning back to the computer and filling out the final field on the registration form.
Selena strode back to my side and blocked the touch pad before I could click Send. “I paid more?”
Oh yeah. “I’m a poor high school junior who has to constantly put money into your old car.”
“And I’m a poorer college sophomore who gave you that old car for way less than it was worth.”
“It was my idea, and I’m doing all the work. Plus, now you’re making me go through the potentially traumatic results all on my own.” Not that I expected them to be traumatic. When Selena still didn’t seem convinced, I glanced at her hand covering the touch pad, then up at her while simultaneously clicking Enter on the keyboard.
She dropped her hand. “Fine. Was that it? Is it done?”
“I mail the sample back in the morning and the results come in six to eight weeks.”
“Six to eight weeks. That seems fast.”
Not to me. Plus, Dad’s birthday wasn’t for another two months after that. Nick told me it could take time to hear back from any potential matches I found and contacted, and longer still if I needed information from any of them to track down closer relatives. Still, I couldn’t stop the excitement buzzing through me. Family for Dad. Family that I found—with Selena’s help, but that I made happen. That would be worth more than all the softball games she ever won him.
* * *
I turned out to be right: six to eight weeks did not go fast. As we approached the six-week mark, it became impossible to focus in Biology, my last class before lunch. Not even Nick working up the nerve to ask me out—something he’d started but abandoned the last three days in a row—could completely hold my attention.
He sucked in a deep breath. “Dana, I was wondering if... I mean...do you...” A sheen of sweat broke out on his forehead and he gave up yet again. “Can I borrow a pen?”
So close, I thought, passing Nick a pen. I could have asked him out, but I really needed him to find that initial bit of courage. Otherwise I’d end up running all over him in a relationship and that wouldn’t be good for either of us.
Glancing at the clock again, I didn’t have any more time to give Nick in the hopes that he’d try again before class ended. “Hey, so if I leave early, can you cover for me with Mr. Rodriguez?” I was already packing up my stuff and eyeing our teacher, who was helping a student in the back row. “I need to be home when the mail is delivered or else my dad might get it first. Just tell him I went to the bathroom if he notices I’m gone.” And then I slipped out the door, mouthing thanks to a dumbstruck Nick as I did.
Our house was only a few miles from Superstition Springs High School on the outskirts of Apache Junction, tucked into a development of identical midsize homes that were distinguished from each other only by the cars parked out front. In our case, Mom’s red mini SUV and Dad’s silver hatchback. We had a corner lot, which meant we had twice as much backyard as our neighbors and could practice a little without having to drive to a park. That had been the number one selling point of the home, the trade-off being that it had only three smallish bedrooms, one of which we converted into Mom and Dad’s office because the large bay window afforded it the most natural light. It also gave me a perfectly unobstructed view to spy through. I slowed as I drove by, banking on the hope that they’d both be too consumed in their work to look up and recognize my car. Sure enough, Mom was fastidiously writing code on her computer, while Dad was filling his with design mock-ups for whatever website they were currently working on—I could never keep track. It was a good business, one that allowed Dad to set his own hours and still coach our high school softball team while giving Mom’s analytical mind the challenge she craved since she had to code whatever designs he came up with. A right brain and a left brain working together in near-perfect harmony.
Neither glanced up as I drove by, but they would if I pulled into the driveway, so I had to be insane and park around the block, skulk/sprint through neighbors’ yards and duck behind the bougainvillea bushes in front of our house. Then I spent the next twenty minutes crouched and pulling pink petals out of my hair while waiting to accost the mail carrier before she reached our house.
I’d never felt more excited in my life.
As soon as I heard the distinctive sound of the mail truck, I started disentangling myself from branches, emerging from my hiding spot just as Dad stepped outside. I didn’t know how he missed me diving back into the bushes, and I really didn’t know how he failed to hear my strangled breathing as I watched him share a greeting with the blue-clad mail carrier and then slowly walk back into the house with a stack of envelopes. The DNA test results were addressed to me, but I hadn’t wanted to risk Dad seeing my name along with the DNA Detective logo in the corner and asking questions—and he would ask questions—so I could only hold my breath and wait while he stood in the entryway, shuffling the first letter to the back, then the second, and on and on while I tried not to have a heart attack. But then he tossed the stack on the table and closed the door behind him. I leaned my head back against the stucco-covered wall, my heart jackhammering in my chest.
After that day, I started leaving Biology earlier and earlier, as soon as attendance was taken, so that I could be home before the mail in case it came early. But the real problem was Dad. Twice more that week he beat me to the mail, which meant two more near heart attacks for me. Not good. Plus, while Nick might have had trouble expressing his feelings for me, he was a lot less reticent when it came to his thoughts on me skipping out early.
Nick had a perfect attendance record. He’d even come back to school after having his wisdom teeth removed during lunch hour. He understood why I was leaving early, but he really, really didn’t want to be a part of covering for me. So far, Mr. Rodriguez’s move-around-the-room-as-you-will policy had kept my absence from being noticed, but Nick was growing increasingly unsettled by the prospect. It probably didn’t help that he abandoned several more attempts to ask me out. Each class, it was worse, the sweating, the nervous glances, the bouncing leg under our shared desk. I made a huge mistake one day when I pressed Nick’s knee still with my hand. He made the most insane noise, somewhere between a yelp and a gasp. Needless to say, the entire class—including Mr. Rodriguez—turned in our direction. Nick’s face was on fire, and I was too distracted by the need to beat the mail to play off Nick’s outburst convincingly. For the rest of class, Mr. Rodriguez watched us too closely for me to slip away. I was almost as agitated as Nick by the time the bell rang and I could race home. Thankfully, the results didn’t come that day either.
When the mail truck started down our street on Wednesday, Dad heard it as soon as I did. He looked out the window, pushed back his chair and stood up. Mom was softly head-banging to the heavy metal music pounding through her earbuds, oblivious to anything else. I started counting steps while watching the approaching truck. Five to the hall. Ten to the front door. He was going to beat me again.
I pulled my phone out and called home. Seconds later, I heard it ringing inside and, through the windows, saw Dad head back to the office to answer it.
“Dana?”
“Hi, Dad. I think I left my History homework on my desk upstairs. I can come by before lunch is over if it’s there, but could you check for me?” As soon as he moved to the stairs, I slid out of the bushes and waved at the mail carrier while directing Dad to search every random spot I could think of in my room. “It might have fallen behind my desk—can you pull it out and check?”
He put the phone down but I heard his grunt of effort as the mail was placed into my waiting hands.
“I’m not seeing it anywhere. Are you sure you left it? Dana?”
I was only half listening as I sorted through random bills and magazines. “Did you look under the bed?”
He said something about my messy room, but I didn’t hear it, because the second letter from the bottom was from DNA Detective.
The envelope shook in my hand along with my voice. “It’s here.”
“Look more carefully next time. And you’re cleaning your room the second you get home today, do you understand me?”
I hurried to put the rest of the mail in the mailbox. “I will. Thanks for checking. Love you, Dad.”
“You too.”
For once I didn’t care that he didn’t say it back. Mom always said he had a hard time verbally expressing love since he’d had so little growing up without a family, but just because he rarely said the word didn’t mean he didn’t feel it. I did know he loved me, and once he opened his birthday present, I’d get to feel it full force.
As soon as I was around the corner, I tore into the envelope. I skipped the geographic-ancestry and health reports as fast as I could shuffle the pages, until I had it: the possible-relative list. At first the onslaught of information was overwhelming. On the left were default symbols indicating the gender of each potential relative; next to that was the percentage of DNA Dad shared with each person, followed by the predicted relationship. Most were listed as third to fifth cousins, but I barely saw them.
The top result had a 47 percent DNA match, with the predicted relationship listed as “father or son.”
Chapter 3 (#u6a963fff-0fd4-5720-87cf-eb6ead14ac17)
Fourth period had already started when I got back to school, but instead of spending my study hour in the library like usual, I headed straight for Nick’s class. I’d had Mr. Drobitsky for Woodworking the year before and knew he’d be more likely to put me to work than kick me back to my own class, plus, it’d be loud enough that no one would hear me and Nick talking.
Sawdust floated thick in the air when I entered the shop. A few people looked up from their whirring lathes or table saws, but no one stopped me, and Mr. D was in the staining room. After making sure Nick wasn’t working with anything that could potentially cut off his finger if I startled him, I hurried up to him.
“Dana?” He stopped sanding. “What happened?”
I didn’t ask how he knew something had happened. I could feel that shell-shocked expression still carved into my face. “I found way better than fourth cousins.”
“The results came?” Nick lifted his safety gasses to his head and glanced around the room. “Wait, will you get in trouble for being in here?”
I couldn’t care less if I got detention for a month, but Nick wasn’t going to be able to think about anything else until we moved somewhere. I grabbed his hand and towed him into the walk-in project cages in the back. “Nick, I think I found my grandfather.” I laughed and grabbed him in a hug he wasn’t expecting, which only made me laugh more. I pulled back. “Look. Just look at it.”
Nick took the results from me and I moved back enough to run my hands through my hair, all but twirling in triumph. Whoever he was, he wouldn’t be like my Abue, who’d died two years before, but he could be a Grandpa or a Pop Pop or... Screw it. I did twirl. Dad was going to meet his dad!
“Wow. It’s great, Dana. Really.” Nick’s voice stopped my spinning. He wasn’t exactly frowning at the papers, but he wasn’t grinning like I was either. “It’s just...”
“Awesome is the word you’re looking for.” I pointed at the results. “Forty-seven percent! Can you believe it? You told me I’d be lucky to find someone who shared a fraction of his DNA.”
“It’s amazing that you found this guy—”
“My grandfather.” My voice broke imagining the reunion to come. Had I ever been this happy in my life?
“Probably, yes.”
I laughed out loud. “This is because it says �father or son’? That’s why you’re acting like you’ve got a two-by-four up your—” I bit both lips, holding back another smile and the spot-on observation I was making. “It’s okay, you can say it. The test can’t tell father from son, because both relationships share the same amount of DNA. I’ve been reading everything I could find about DNA testing since we started this thing. I know what it means.”
Nick spoke softly. “Then you know you can’t assume he’s your grandfather.”
“He is. Trust me, if you spent an hour with my parents, you’d know there’s not a chance that my dad has some secret kid floating around out there. This is my grandfather.” I eased the papers from Nick’s grip. “The only question is whether or not he’s a serial killer or something.” I went for a worst-case-scenario example, but the truth was, he could be anything. Probably not a murderer, but something else terrible. He could be a Dodgers fan. I pushed off the wall and started pacing the small area.
A loud voice called out in the shop. “Clean up! Five minutes to bell!” One by one, machines turned off and their noise was replaced by talk and laughter, the sound of running water and finally footsteps.
Nick edged toward the cage opening. “I need to clean up.”
I waved him on. “Yeah, go.”
He stood there looking anxious, which I normally found cute. “It’s just that someone needs to lock these cages...”
I tried not to sigh audibly as I dodged a few people carrying pieces into the cage. Nick was just being Nick. Would it have been nice for him to focus on the monumental news I’d just shared instead of worrying about shutting a door? Yes, but to his credit he was much more at ease once everything was put away.
“Sorry,” he said. “But I guess you probably saw it...” He reached into his cubby and produced a small wooden bat with my name carved into the side. “It’s a keychain. You know, for keys.”
“Nick.” I could hardly imagine his large hands making something so delicate. “I love it. But you have to tell me how many you broke before you finished this one.” The grip was grooved and barely half as thick as my pinky.
He shrugged and made one of those guy noises that meant it didn’t matter. “So what are you going to do about your dad’s results?”
“First, I’m going to do this.” I rose up on my tiptoes and brushed a kiss on Nick’s cheek. He really was a sweet guy. I still wasn’t sure if sweet was enough for me, but I wanted it to be. “And then I’m going to see what I can learn about my grandfather.”
I walked through floating sawdust and lingering noise, exited into the silent hallway, before pulling out my phone. I logged in to DNA Detective’s website, scrolled to the relatives and clicked on the top match. Sadly, I wasn’t taken to an expansive profile page complete with photos of an older-looking version of Dad. I knew from Nick’s and Dad’s reports that all users were encouraged to add their results to a database, but they were under no compulsion to divulge any personal details. The website showed the same default avatar from the mailed report. The option to send a message was available, though. And best of all, there was a first name.
“Brandon.” I said it out loud and couldn’t stop myself from envisioning a man with Dad’s reddish-blond hair—heavily grayed—and hazel eyes. Then I jumped when my phone buzzed. Selena was texting me.
Selena: The results came, didn’t they? Is it bad?
I’d been texting her every day after getting the mail, always at roughly the same time. I was an hour late today.
Me: They came.
Then my thumbs hovered over the keyboard. I didn’t know anything about Brandon besides his first name. He was probably a normal, noncriminal retiree living in Florida or something, but until I knew for sure that he belonged in Selena’s good-stuff category, I was keeping her in the dark.
Me: You were right. It’s a bust. There are like two tenth cousins and no option to contact them even if we wanted to.
Selena: So, what, you just weren’t going to tell me? I told you this was a bad idea. And expensive! I’m on week three of ramen because of you.
Me: Sorry.
Selena: Sorry like you’ll pay me back?
Me: Sorry like I’ll wash your car this weekend.
Selena: Because that’s the same. I gotta go, my lunch is getting soggy. Because it’s ramen :P
I was going to be hearing that for the foreseeable future. At least I could show her this conversation when she later tried to claim she’d been on board the whole time.
I pushed my bangs off my forehead, then went back to the website. Because of Selena’s initial “What if we don’t like what we find?” concerns, I’d set Dad’s profile to private when I registered his test kit, so Brandon wouldn’t get any kind of notification for matching with Dad. He wouldn’t see the “father or son” relationship prediction even if I contacted him, which meant I was going to have to come right out and say it and pray he didn’t freak out. No point in delaying that.
Hi Brandon.
I just got my dad’s test results back, and I think I’m your granddaughter. We don’t know anything about his family apart from the fact that he was born in Arizona. I don’t know what else to say at this point except that I hope you write back.
-Dana
There. Done. Easy. I was the first person in our family to talk to one of Dad’s relatives. That was monumental. And when he wrote me back and confirmed what I hoped to be true—that he was a normal guy who maybe made some mistakes in his younger life—it would be the best gift ever. Selena wouldn’t even care that I’d had to lie to her.
Chapter 4 (#u6a963fff-0fd4-5720-87cf-eb6ead14ac17)
I made it through the rest of my classes, obsessively checking my phone between periods. I was anxious, but I’d already waited six weeks; I could survive another day. Except good news was so hard to keep. At home, I kept breaking into a grin for no reason. I did it often enough that after dinner, Mom finally commented.
“Okay, what is going on in that head of yours?”
Without prompting, I’d gathered up the plates and was heading to the kitchen. And I couldn’t stop smiling as I did it. “I’m just happy, is all.” Mom came to join me at the sink. I rinsed and she loaded the dishwasher, waiting for a full explanation. I glanced behind us, making sure Dad was out of earshot. He was, but I whispered anyway. “I got Dad the gift to end all gifts for his birthday. Selena could end up on a Wheaties box and I’d still win.”
Mom closed the dishwasher with a hip bump and added her hands to the sink to rinse them. “Tell me, tell me!”
“No way, joy thief. You’ll tell Dad so fast.” Mom was horrible with secrets, especially good ones, and if Dad was concerned, forget it. Selena and I used to clock her, and her fastest spill time was under a minute. She couldn’t hold in good news no matter how hard she tried.
“I promise I won’t say anything.”
Sure she wouldn’t. “Hey, Dad,” I called. “What’s Mom getting you for your birthday?”
“Diamondback tickets,” was his immediate answer.
Mom put a hand on her hip, opened her mouth, then shut it with a smile. “Fine, don’t tell me. But, in my defense, he’s really handsome.”
“What...” I said, laughing, “...does that have to do with anything?”
Dad joined us then, and Mom turned a blissful smile in his direction. “I like your face,” she told him.
“Yeah?” His arms went around her waist and he gave her a quick kiss and whispered something I was really glad I couldn’t hear into her ear.
“Mmm-hmm.” She snaked her arms around his neck. “Thanks for making dinner.”
“Thanks for cleaning up.”
“Kiss me again.”
He did. Then she did. Then I hightailed it out of there before things got even more uncomfortable. I was halfway up the stairs when Dad called me back.
“Hey, hey, hey!”
I turned in time to catch the ball he threw.
“Grab your glove. We’ve got work to do.”
* * *
The ball hit my glove with a thud. The leather was soft from the lanolin Dad had been rubbing into it each night since I got it, but it didn’t feel like part of my hand yet. I threw the ball back.
“Good,” Dad said. “How’s it feeling?”
“Getting there.” I caught the ball, threw it back.
“Tell me about the guy.”
My throw went a little wide, but Dad caught it. “He’s not the guy. He’s Nick and we’re still just friends.”
“He hasn’t missed a game.” No, he hadn’t. Home or away, Nick had been to all twelve so far. He’d kind of become my good-luck charm. We hadn’t lost since the first game. I was surprised Dad had noticed. “You like him?” He still held the ball, waiting for my answer before he threw it again.
“I guess.” Sure, I liked Nick. He was nice, sweet. Thoughtful. All good things, easy things. The ball soared back to me.
“Your mom wants him to come for dinner.”
“I know.” Mom hadn’t stopped bugging me about it. Dad caught the ball, returned it.
“And?”
“And I’m not sure.” If I officially invited Nick to dinner with my parents, that would be a pretty big step, a boyfriend-type step. There wasn’t anyone else I was interested in, and I already knew Nick would be a good boyfriend—he wouldn’t hurt me or break my heart. But I had this idea somewhere in the back of my head that he should be able to, that I should feel enough for him that a broken heart was a possibility. I didn’t think my heart would ever be at risk with Nick, and I kind of wanted it to be.
“You met Mom when you were both nineteen, right?” Dad nodded, turning the ball before throwing it again. I caught it. “And she was your first real girlfriend.” Another nod, another throw. “Didn’t you ever like anyone before that?”
“Sure,” he said, “but no one caught me like she did.”
The ball hit my glove, I threw it back. “What do you mean?”
“Some people you meet and it’s nice, it’s good, but you can walk away. You’re okay without them.” He gazed toward the house. “I’ve always been that way, good on my own—it never bothered me until your mom. I knew from our first date that I would never be okay without her.”
I was slow to throw the ball back. Dad rarely talked about his life before Mom. I knew pieces, random things he or she let slip over the years. He’d never been adopted, and at least one of the foster families he’d lived with wasn’t allowed to have any more kids after Dad was removed. As for the others, he wasn’t in contact with any of them, which was telling enough. Mom was his first real family, his only family, until Selena and I came around. I wanted him to have so much more. I started to check my phone to see if Brandon had replied, but Dad barked a warning at me.
“No. No phones. Come on, Dana, do you want this or not?”
I couldn’t tell him what I was checking my phone for, so I had to take the reproof. “I do,” I said. I liked softball; most of the time I even loved it. I knew I’d never give it up like Selena had, but what I really wanted was Dad nodding at me again, smiling. I wanted him to be proud of me.
“Then start acting like it.”
My hand came up reflexively as he released the ball. It sank right into the pocket of my glove. “There,” he said. “You ready?”
Our easy game of catch was over. In hindsight, I was surprised it had lasted this long. I sucked in a breath and nodded, knowing he was going to start relentlessly hitting screamers and grounders at me. Dad grabbed the bucket of balls and a bat while I set up the net we used to mark first base, then moved back to the far end of our dirt yard—not the most aesthetic on our block, but that was by design. We didn’t host barbecues or have a swing set in one corner; we ran drills. Endless drills.
The bucket of balls Dad set beside him was close to overflowing. “We’re going through it three times.”
I avoided looking at my legs. Their fate had just been sealed, and sure enough, my shin ate the first grounder Dad hit my way. He’d drilled me enough over the years that I didn’t even think to olé out of the way. As third baseman, I was used to taking hits to the chest and shins, and more than one to the face. But I wouldn’t trade the hot corner for any other position. I scooped up the ball and fired it at the net designating first base.
It was nine by the time Dad started refilling the bucket, and I still had homework to do. When I mentioned that fact to Dad, he gave a little shake of his head and hit a hard shot to my left so that I had to half dive to catch it, barely snowconing the ball in the tip of my glove.
“You do some tonight and get up early to finish the rest in the morning. Selena was out here with me every night.” He picked up another ball from the bucket. “Nothing else took priority, not boys or needing to be on her phone constantly, just this.” The ball stung a little when it hit my glove, reminding me how close Dad had come to playing professionally before a torn rotator cuff in college ended that dream for him. He’d had hopes for Selena, but now all those hopes rested heavily on me. I wasn’t as good as my sister, and no amount of drills in our backyard was going to change that, but I was willing to work that much harder because of it.
I put more heat on the ball I threw toward the net, hitting the target dead center and earning a little nod from Dad.
“Again.”
Chapter 5 (#u6a963fff-0fd4-5720-87cf-eb6ead14ac17)
My shoulder was still aching when I woke up the next morning. It was dark out, and my textbooks were waiting for me exactly where I’d left them the night before. I missed breakfast, but in between checking my phone for Brandon’s reply, I got my homework done in time to grab a few pieces of cold bacon from the kitchen and a kiss from Mom before racing to school.
I half slept through my first hour, rousing every few minutes to check my phone under my desk. Still no response. My disappointment was palpable. I had to keep reminding myself that it hadn’t even been a full day since I’d written to my grandfather, but I really needed this to work out. I rubbed a freshly formed bruise on my shin while I waited for the bell to ring.
I repeated that process until sixth hour—practice. Superstition Springs had recently approved a new policy that not only allowed participation in extracurricular sports to count as PE credits but let us practice during school hours. I couldn’t wait to be outside. The weather was perfect, not a surprise for Arizona in the spring, but the clear, baby blue sky and the hint of a breeze to temper the warm sun were the distraction I needed while I waited for Brandon’s reply. I met Jessalyn in the locker room and plunked down on the bench beside her to change my shoes.
“Don’t you look pretty?” She started lacing up her cleats. “Not everyone can pull off bloodshot eyes, but you?” She nodded, grooving a little and causing her braids to swish against her back.
I dropped my head on her shoulder. “My dad had me taking grounders until eleven last night, and then I had three hours of homework after that. Every night I feel like it gets later. In a month I won’t be sleeping at all.”
“So that’s why you were late.” She raised the shoulder I was using as a pillow. “You know Nick waited for you before first period.”
I lifted my head. “He never said anything.” Though now that she mentioned it, Nick had been waiting by my locker most mornings for a while now.
“He wouldn’t, would he?”
Probably not. Nick would never risk saying something that he thought might make me feel bad. Jessalyn did that for him. She was taller than most of the guys in school, and even without the conditioning that she got from playing softball, she sported totally natural lean muscle definition. I would have swapped arms with her in a second, but there had been more than one idiot boy who was less than impressed with her by-all-rights-impressive physique. Nick had always been a notable exception, which in turn made Jessalyn fiercely protective of him, even with me.
“He stayed until the last second and then had to sprint so he wouldn’t be late.”
My stomach gave a little lurch. “I never asked him to wait for me. I would have texted him that I was running late if I had.”
“The guy follows you around like a puppy dog waiting for any scrap of affection you throw his way.”
I pulled on my T-shirt over my sports bra. “Come on, that’s not fair or true. You’ve been friends with him almost as long as I have. You know how he is.”
“I know what he was like before you became the sun in his solar system. He can barely talk when you’re around now. So I can hang out with either him or you, but not together. It kind of sucks.”
It did suck. A lot. “Then help me. I haven’t changed—why did he have to?”
“Ask your boobs.”
I tried not to laugh, but I failed. “I’m seriously asking you for help right now. You know he’s been helping me with the DNA thing for my dad, but even when we’re talking about that, he’s Nick, so he’s super sweet, but he’s still...I don’t know...uncomfortable around me.” That admission wriggled in my stomach. I hated that I was inadvertently doing that to him.
“Anything back yet from Secret Grandpa?”
My phone was faceup on the bench beside me so I could glance at it constantly. “No, and I’m failing miserably in my attempt not to obsess over it.” I pulled my gaze away to look at Jessalyn. “So what do I do with Nick?”
“He’s got that job interview at my parents’ café after school today. He told you, right?”
I nodded. Nick was trying to save up for a new car. According to Jessalyn, his current rusted jalopy was made of Lifetime movies and people who take their cousin to prom and therefore too sad to drive except under the direst of circumstances. I had to agree it was pretty rough, and it died more often than it ran. Our friend Jill worked as a mechanic at her dad’s garage and had been keeping it alive for him, but she’d recently started begging him to let her put it down.
“I promised to give him a ride and help him with his totally unnecessary nerves,” Jessalyn went on. “I could talk to him a little and maybe subtly hint that his solo silent game around all of us might not be the best way to get a girl to like him.”
I hugged her tight. “Thanks, Jess.”
She gave me a long, considering look when I released her. “Just don’t be that girl, okay? Nick is a sweet guy who really likes you. If you know he’ll never be more to you than he is right now, then save him from worse heartache and cut him loose.”
I appreciated Jessalyn’s concern for Nick, but I did like him, a lot. I just needed to give my heart enough time to catch up to my head. Then there wouldn’t be any heartache at all.
“I’m not going to hurt him,” I said. “But Coach will put the hurt on us if we’re late to practice, so...” I nodded at the cleat she still needed to tie. I checked my phone one last time before putting it in my locker. Most of the girls were already outside, but a few were still here.
“Dana,” Ainsley said, drawing my attention to the far end of the bench. “Will you please tell Sadie that your sister pitched two no-hitters in a row her senior year?”
Technically, it had been her junior year, but I kept that clarification to myself and just nodded my answer.
“Wow,” Sadie said, leaning back and looking sort of dazed. Sadie was our starting pitcher and had, to my knowledge, never pitched a single no-hitter in her life. Ainsley knew that too. She could be petty like that. It was almost as exhausting as fielding grounders for four hours after dinner.
“Don’t sweat it, Sadie,” I said, gathering my hair into a ponytail. “Selena was awesome, but your curveball is nasty.” I looked at Jessalyn. “You’re hitting .400 right now.” Then, to Ivy, “And you’re a vacuum cleaner at first base.” I turned to each girl in the room, naming a unique strength she brought to the team. Even Ainsley, hoping she’d remember we were a team and needed to be strong together. “And your speed.”
Sadie brightened; so did everyone else.
“Nice,” Jessalyn said to me in a low voice as we followed the rest of the girls—all smiling—to the field. “Your dad needs to see you like this. What you do for our team off the field is just as important as what you do for us on.”
With one last thought about the phone inside my locker, I said, “Hopefully, he will soon.”
* * *
Practice was grueling, and my shoulder was screaming by the time I got back to the locker room. It was like my coach had no idea how hard my dad had made me work the night before. I was dreading what Dad would have in store for me after dinner. It was all I could think about as I opened my locker and pulled out my clothes.
My phone was on top of my shirt, and the screen was lit up. I grabbed it...and it was like taking a bat to the gut when I read Brandon’s reply.
Sorry, I live in Arizona too but I think you’ve got the wrong guy. I only just turned 18.
Chapter 6 (#u6a963fff-0fd4-5720-87cf-eb6ead14ac17)
“Hello? Earth to Dana.” Ivy waved a hand in my face, breaking my stare at my phone screen.
“What?”
“A bunch of us are going for ice cream. Are you in?”
Half a dozen pairs of eyes were on me, including Jessalyn’s.
“Something wrong?” she asked, and then started to smile. “Wait, is it...” Her gaze flicked to my phone, and her grin grew. She lowered her voice so that only I could hear. I hadn’t told anyone else on the team what I was doing, because I hadn’t wanted word to get to my dad/our coach. “Is it something from your grandfather?”
I fought to keep my hand steady as I shoved my phone and cleats in my bag, not bothering with anything else. “No, I just need to go. Sorry.” Then I was pushing open the heavy locker room door and bursting into the now-empty quad.
He can’t be eighteen.
He’s my 65-year-old grandfather.
No.
It was a tiny word, so I said it out loud. “No.” A million times no.
No, no, no.
There was no way that Dad had an affair.
There was no way that he fathered a son.
There was no way that I had a brother less than a year older than me.
Dad would never cheat on Mom.
Dad would never do this to us.
It had to be a mistake.
My steps picked up speed as I headed for the parking lot. I broke into a jog as I reached the blacktop, then sprinted to my car. As soon as I was inside, my phone was in my hand and I was typing.
Brandon,
I must have read the results wrong. I do think we’re related somehow. Maybe you’re a cousin? Would you be willing to meet me? I have so many questions and I think you’re the only one who can answer them. Name the place, name the time.
Dana
I dropped the phone in my lap the second I hit Send. My message sounded hella creepy, but I couldn’t take the time for anything more composed. His message had been sent only twenty minutes ago, so there was a good chance he was still online and would—
He wrote back.
Dana,
You should try to get your money back. I’m the third Brandon McCormick, and before that there were five Davids. We are from Arizona though, going back at least four generations. I’d have to check with my dad to confirm that. I’m not really sure how the family side of all this DNA testing works—I was interested in my geographic heritage, not finding relatives—but my family tree is full up, no unaccounted for branches. But, hey, I work at the Jungle Juice in Mesa. Feel free to stop by if you have any more questions.
Sorry I can’t be more help,
Brandon
My breath came out in a rush. The third Brandon McCormick. As in his dad was also Brandon McCormick. As in his dad was not Dennis Fields. Brandon seemed very confident in his family tree. Could it be a mistake? Had the DNA company messed up the samples? People were fallible; it could happen. I did a quick search for DNA-testing failure rates, and pages of results came back. Something loosened in my chest. A mistake would make more sense than Dad having an affair, which made no sense at all. And mistakes had happened before—not often, but more than once. I needed only once. There was an option to send in another sample for a retest, but I couldn’t swing that without Selena’s help, and there was no way I was waiting another month and a half for the results. I wasn’t waiting a day.
I looked up the address for the Jungle Juice in Mesa. It was only a thirty-minute drive.
I started my car.
Chapter 7 (#u6a963fff-0fd4-5720-87cf-eb6ead14ac17)
Jungle Juice was decorated like a jungle, complete with massive plaster trees sprouting from each table and along the walls, and fake wild animals prowling through the immense branches that stretched overhead and covered the entire ceiling. There were birdcalls and cat growls playing in the background, and every time the door opened, a monkey scream spiked. I definitely would have lost my mind working there. But it smelled great, fruity and sweet, like sugared mangoes.
There were a number of small round tables scattered about, along with padded bench nooks in the corners. And people—more than I was expecting. Close to a dozen chatting and sipping from tall foam cups or eating sandwiches. I was glad for the people. They gave me cover to slip in relatively unnoticed.
Ignoring the noise and the people milling around me, I zoned in on the three employees behind the counter.
Two I dismissed right off: a girl with gorgeous ombré teal hair and a guy with coal-black skin whom I heard her call Zere. The last guy wasn’t as easy to exclude. Instant nausea was my involuntary reaction at seeing him. He was cute. But he didn’t look anything like my dad, which helped settle my stomach. Not a single feature was familiar to me, and his olive coloring was the antithesis of Dad’s light skin and hair. He was also big, I’d guess a full foot taller than me, and he looked strong enough to crack a coconut with his bare hand. I drew closer to the counter only to discover that he wasn’t wearing a name tag. But the next second, it didn’t matter.
“McCormick!” the girl called, holding up a blender and bringing it down a little too hard on the back counter. “This thing is sticking again. I’m gonna chuck it.”
“No, you’re not. Let me see it.” He walked to his coworker and pried the blender from her reluctant hands. He rinsed it out with a handheld sprayer and fiddled with something on the bottom. “Here, look.”
The girl moved to his side, sweeping her teal fishtail braid over her shoulder.
“Someone’s been jamming it on the base and bent—”
“And of course you mean me, ’cause it couldn’t be Zere or your cousin or anyone else with half a brain. Fine.” She started to walk away with an expression on her face that made the next customer in line back away from the counter, but he stopped her with a hand on her back.
“I didn’t say you.”
She snorted.
His voice was calm, patient, completely at odds with his I-could-squish-you-like-a-bug physique. “Ariel, I’m not saying you. I’m saying someone, probably a few people. It’s an easy fix.” And he straightened whatever had been bent. With his hands. I was impressed from ten feet away; Ariel was right there and looked at him with disbelief. “See? No problem.”
I watched him show her how to twist the blender onto the base a few times. Her pinched expression smoothed as it clicked easily into place, and dissolved completely when the blender whirled to life. Still, all she said by way of gratitude was, “Huh.”
The conversation was too quiet, or the screaming monkeys were too loud—either way I couldn’t hear what they said after that, but I watched him. Brandon. Every fiber of my being said no, said there was no way this guy was related to me. He couldn’t be. I felt that confidence more keenly as he drew closer to me.
“Sorry about that. What can I get you?”
For the first time in my life, I had no words, nothing. I just stared at him until reality and the slight raising of his eyebrows at the extended silence reminded me that I couldn’t let myself stay silent. It was now or never. Somehow, I didn’t think I could come back here if I left without talking to him. And I definitely couldn’t go home and face Dad with this sword of doubt still dangling over me.
“I’m Dana.”
His brows didn’t smooth back, but they didn’t draw tighter either. “Hey, Dana. Ready to order?”
There wasn’t a single spark of recognition at my name. Now my brows furrowed. He’d typed it, told me where he worked and that I could drop by barely thirty minutes ago. There should have been some kind of recognition.
Behind him, Ariel walked past.
I extended a finger in the direction she’d gone. “I’m sorry, I thought I heard her call you McCormick earlier.”
The guy that I was suddenly convinced wasn’t Brandon nodded. “Yeah, she calls me and my cousin by our last name.”
My stomach twisted in two different directions. “What’s your first name?”
He wasn’t frowning at me anymore; he looked concerned. “Are you okay?”
“Low blood sugar.” I gave him the first excuse for my sudden pallor that I could think of. “I think I thought you were someone else.”
“I’m Chase,” he said.
I nodded and tried to smile. “My mistake.” I turned and left in a cacophony of monkey screams. The door didn’t shut all the way behind me. From inside, Ariel caught it and stuck her head out to talk to a guy sitting at the table outside.
“Break is up in ten. Also, your cousin just bent metal in front of me with one hand—one freaking hand. If that’s how he flirts, tell him it’s scary and that I get off at nine.” She paused, eyeing his hands. “Do you think you could...?” When he didn’t respond, she shook herself. “Forget it.”
I didn’t watch her leave, but the guy did with the kind of smile that said he’d be trying to bend metal with his hands in the very near future. The hairs on my arms stood on end as I watched him return his attention to his phone.
It wasn’t just the cleft chin or the sprinkling of red in his otherwise brown hair. It wasn’t the way his brow lifted higher on the left than the right in response to whatever he was reading on his phone, or the height he couldn’t conceal even sitting down. It was all of that and nothing. I knew him. Forty-seven percent shared DNA slammed into me, and I couldn’t find a breath to say even that tiny word of denial. I was twenty feet from my brother. My brother. He was my brother. I couldn’t doubt it for a single second more. Dad had had an affair. He’d cheated on Mom and had a kid—this kid—guy—the one who looked so much like Dad that I couldn’t blink, much less turn my head away from him.
I stopped beside his table, waiting for him to look up. “Brandon?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m Dana.”
Chapter 8 (#u6a963fff-0fd4-5720-87cf-eb6ead14ac17)
Brandon recovered from his initial confusion quickly, returning my bleak stare with a smile. “Oh, hey.” He stood up right away, considered extending his hand but moved his drink to his side of the table instead. “I didn’t realize you were going to come right away.” He indicated the chair across from him, but I couldn’t sit or even move. My skin prickled, waiting for him to see me and know, to make the connection the way I instantly had. But he didn’t. He sat there, still smiling Dad’s smile. “Like I said in the email, I don’t think I’ll be able to help your dad, but whatever you want to know.” He spread his hands. His smile started to slip the longer I stared at him. “Wow, I’m sorry. I guess this was kind of a big letdown.”
“Dennis Fields,” I said, my eyes unblinking. “We don’t know who his birth parents were, but that’s the name his first foster family gave him.”
Brandon slowly shook his head. “Doesn’t sound familiar.” He paused. “Are you okay? You look a little...”
I was shaking. I could feel the blood draining from my face, and there was a buzzing growing in my ears. I’d never fainted before in my life, but I knew I was seconds from blacking out. I gripped the back of the chair, locking my elbows to keep me upright.
“You wanna sit? I really think you should sit.” He moved to pull the chair out for me, and I lowered myself into it as he returned to his. Both our arms rose in tandem to rest on the metal bistro table. The movement was identical, and for a heartbeat, he froze too. Then he looked at my face, really looked at it. “Do I know you from somewhere?”
“Do you?” My blinking was now sporadic, and apart from my lips, my eyelids seemed to be the only part of me still capable of moving. I watched a pink flush creep up his neck, but then it stopped and started to recede.
“No, I guess not. I mean, how could I? Eighteen is a little young to be a grandfather.” He tried to laugh but saw how incapable I was of joining him and sobered. “I’m really sorry I’m not him.”
“It’s a mistake,” I said, my voice echoing in my head.
“Don’t worry about it,” Brandon said. “I’m sure those DNA places mess up all the time, right?”
Right. A screwup. A mistake, that’s all. Earlier I’d been confident I’d reach the same conclusion as soon as I saw Brandon—it was why I’d rushed over. But I knew—I knew—even if he didn’t, that there was no mistaking who he was.
Sitting, I was still shaking, but the dizzy light-headedness was dissipating. “I needed you to be someone else,” I whispered. “I don’t know what to do.” It felt like a huge confession to be making, especially to him.
“Well, hey, you’re welcome to take a look at my family tree, but honestly, I know you won’t find anything. The McCormick line is extremely well documented.”
But you’re not a McCormick, I thought. You’re a Fields, just like me. My hands covered my mouth, but they couldn’t contain the sudden full-body sob that choked free. Brandon drew back in his chair, as far as it would let him, but I couldn’t stop, and when Brandon came around to pat me on the back in an awkward gesture, I cried harder.
“I’m sorry,” I said, leaning away from his touch. I needed to leave, to get away from him and everything that reminded me of Dad. I pushed back my chair and stood.
“Don’t give up, okay? Just ’cause I’m a dead end, doesn’t mean the next one will be. I’m sure you’ll find what you’re looking for.”
“I don’t want to find anything else.” The words tore out of me, my throat trying to choke them back along with the sobs I was holding in. Brandon was right in front of me, and something made him move back, frowning just a little. His gaze moved slowly across my face. Taking in the slightly squared jaw and full bottom lip, the dark hair that sparked copper in the fading sunlight, just like his. And it stopped. In that moment, I wasn’t sure if I wanted him to see the connection or not. If he saw it, I wouldn’t be alone—and I had never felt more alone in my life—but then he’d feel like me too, stripped and cored and irrevocably severed from the thing that made me me: my family. It was gone—worse, it had never been.
I looked back at Brandon, not seeing the knife that cut me or the cliff I’d been hurled from. I saw my brother. I had no concept of what that word meant; I only knew instinctively that I didn’t want to hurt him.
He backed up again, swallowing. “You—”
I broke the stare, brought my gaze down to where he’d inadvertently kicked over my bag, spilling its contents everywhere. I dropped to my knees, grabbing keys and sunglasses, reaching for a tube of lip balm that was rolling away. Brandon knelt too, but he wasn’t handing me an errant pack of gum. The top of the paper I’d stuffed inside had unfolded, the DNA Detective logo clearly visible. “Don’t!” But it was too late. Brandon was already pulling it free from my bag, his eyes scanning. And then they stopped.
His name. Forty-seven percent shared DNA. Relationship prediction: father or son. It took half a second, and he could never go back, never not know. I felt just as alone watching him, seeing the page tremble in his hands, except worse, because I was the reason he knew.
“What is this?” he asked, but he knew. The way he’d looked at me... His eyes rose to meet mine. His lips kept pressing together, opening for a breath, then closing again when I didn’t answer. I didn’t want to say it, to make it more real than it already was. “You said grandfather.” His eyes were wide, like he was pleading with me. I was silently pleading with him just as much.
“I didn’t want to believe it either, but you...”
Brandon’s eyes narrowed at me.
It came out in a whisper. “You look like him.”
He shot to his feet. “Bull. Shit.”
I wanted his conviction so badly that I reached for him. “How can you be his son? My parents are happy. They’ve always been happy. I don’t understand how you—”
The muscles in his neck and arms were clenched tight, but he was making an effort to control himself. He didn’t yell. “You said grandfather.”
“I didn’t know how old you were. I hadn’t seen...you.”
“Then it’s a mistake.”
Except it wasn’t. Seeing him, I knew it wasn’t. We both did.
“My dad is... And my mom never...”
“Mine neither,” I said.
His movements were jerky as he crumpled the paper into a tight ball. “I’m not your brother, okay? I can’t be. It’s a mistake. I’m sure if you talk to your dad or the website, you can figure it out, but I’m not your guy, so...”
I tried to match the calm tone he was striving for, but I could hear the desperation strangling my voice. “My parents have been married for more than twenty years, but we’re not even a year apart in age, which means...” I couldn’t say it out loud. The idea that Dad had had an affair was unbearable.
“It’s not possible.” His lips were barely moving, but I heard him perfectly. “My father is Brandon McCormick Jr. His father was Brandon McCormick Sr. His father was David McCormick V. I can go back another ten generations if you want. I know their names and their families. Dennis Fields—” he practically spit Dad’s name “—is nothing to me.”
In that moment, he felt like nothing to me too. I wanted to cry for Mom and Selena. I wanted to cry for our family. I wanted to cry for everything that had been stripped away from me in an instant, for the brother I’d never known who was looking at me with fear-mingled contempt. “I’m sorry.”
“Are you? Is that why you showed up like this and tried to tell me my mom slept with your dad?”
“No.” Tears stung my eyes. “You weren’t supposed to be him. I was supposed to see you and know. I was supposed to be able to go home and not feel like my whole life has been a lie.”
He took a couple steps backward. I panicked and grabbed his arm.
“Wait, please. I didn’t know. I came because I needed it not to be true. You’re the only other person who knows, and I—Please don’t go.” I forced myself to release him. I had to calm down, to think. “I can’t go back home and forget you aren’t...who you are. I can’t look at my dad and pretend he didn’t have an affair.” The word hurt to say. “I don’t even know if he knows you exist.” Brandon hadn’t moved, but he was pulling farther away, shutting down with each thing I said. I started nodding before I spoke. “Okay, okay,” I said. “Everything—” my chin quivered “—hurts. Talking, breathing.” Looking at him. “I’m going. I’ll come back when—”
“No.”
I started, both at the word and the flat tone. “Then I’ll message you.”
“No. Don’t come here. Don’t message me. Don’t anything.”
“But...you’re my brother.”
His hard-won composure threatened to snap, but he didn’t deny it.
“Okay,” I said. Neither of us moved. “Will you...when you’re ready?”
He looked at the crumpled paper still clutched in his fist. “No. It doesn’t matter.”
My eyes bulged as I leaned forward. “It doesn’t matter? How can you say that?” The fear and anger I understood—they were both still roiling under my skin—but indifference played no part in my emotions, and I didn’t believe it did for him either. “How can you look at your mom and not scream?”
“I don’t have to,” he said. “She’s dead.”
Chapter 9 (#u6a963fff-0fd4-5720-87cf-eb6ead14ac17)
Brandon didn’t look back as he went inside, and I walked slowly to my car, only to stop in the act of unlocking my door. Where was I supposed to go? Back home so I could watch my parents cuddle on the couch? I couldn’t make Brandon exhume a past that was truly buried in his case, but neither could I ignore what had already been dug up.
I dropped my forehead on the hood and let the sunbaked heat from the metal seep into me, but it couldn’t thaw the ice inside. I couldn’t face Dad or Mom. I looked at my phone, but I couldn’t call Selena and do to her what I’d inadvertently done to Brandon, my brother. That word crashed horrifically into my heart. I had a brother. I could almost have been happy about that, except it meant Dad had committed adultery. He’d cheated on Mom.
I didn’t understand it. How could he have cheated on Mom? How could he have had another child? How could they still be together, happy? Did he know about Brandon? Did anyone? Had Dad loved Brandon’s mom? Had he planned on leaving Mom for her? Did he know she’d died? When did she die? Brandon was as devastated by the DNA test results as I was, but who else knew? Just his mom? Her husband? Dad? Mom? Did Selena know? I dismissed that thought immediately. She would never have helped me test Dad if she thought it might lead to this.
I turned around and gazed at the darkening sky. At home we’d be getting ready for dinner. Mom cooked occasionally, but Dad usually ran the kitchen. Lasagna, I decided. He made that every week, and we were due. There’d be a salad and maybe ice cream after that. My eyes flooded, blurring the sky overhead.
“Hey, Dana, wait up.”
My head snapped straight and I saw the guy from Jungle Juice—Chase, the wrong McCormick. He’d ditched his uniform polo shirt, revealing a plain white T beneath it. He didn’t look pissed, like he was coming to add to his cousin’s stay-away warning. Instead he glanced at the tall foam cup in his hand before jogging toward me. He slowed when he saw my face, but he didn’t stop. I was very obviously crying, so I didn’t rush to wipe the tears from my cheeks as he drew nearer. What did it matter if he saw me cry? What did any of it matter?
“This seemed like a good idea from across the parking lot.”
“What?” I asked, only half seeing Chase and not caring even that much. He held out his cup and an unopened straw.
“Might help the low blood sugar.”
I looked at the drink, then at him.
“You looked like you were ready to pass out when you left,” he said, not lowering the drink. “Take it—make one of us feel better.”
I took the cup and automatically ripped off the straw’s wrapper before I jabbed it in to take a sip. The drink was fruity and cold, adding to the numbness I felt inside. My gaze went past Chase to Jungle Juice. Brandon was hidden inside. My breath hitched.
“So did you find who you were looking for?”
“No.” What I’d found was so much worse. My eyes pricked again. “I was supposed to be meeting my grandfather for the first time. Turns out I got some bad information.”
“Oh, wow. That sucks.”
There was something about him being a complete stranger that made it harder to lie, so I didn’t. “It really does.” I brushed away the last of my tears. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do anymore.” I was frozen, stuck. I couldn’t go back, and without Brandon’s help, I couldn’t go forward. I couldn’t even leave the parking lot.
Chase’s gaze lingered on me, like he was considering something. I must have looked pretty unstable. “I’m fine. I just needed a minute to...” I stopped. I couldn’t sell fine with my red eyes and damp cheeks. “Thank you for the smoothie—that was nice of you. I will be fine. You don’t have to stay or anything.”
He glanced down at the keys he withdrew from his pocket. “I didn’t have the greatest day either, and I was thinking about doing something—” he huffed out a sound somewhere between a laugh and a breath “—the opposite of crying in a parking lot.” His gaze rose to mine and held. “You should come with me.”
That was the last thing I’d expected him to say. I stared at him, and then an unguarded laugh overtook me. “I can’t believe you just said that.”
“Which part?”
I shook my head slightly. “All of it.” I couldn’t get my brain to work right after that conversation with Brandon. And in that moment, I didn’t really want it to. “You’re serious?”
His answer was immediate. “Yeah.”
“Where?”
He smiled.
* * *
I parked my car beside Chase’s, sent a text to Mom that I was hanging out with Jessalyn, got out and looked at the location I’d followed him to.
We’d driven no more than ten miles from Jungle Juice to an area that looked like it might have once been a nice neighborhood but had long since deteriorated due to neglect. The highlights consisted of a strip mall, empty save for a single payday-advance place, and a seemingly abandoned gas station on the corner covered in graffiti. Chase and I were in the parking lot of a six-story tan brick building flanked on either side by empty lots overgrown with weeds so tall they would have reached my waist.
There wasn’t a single person in sight and I hadn’t seen a car drive past since we pulled up. It wasn’t full dark out yet, or I’d have already been back in my car. As it was, I kept my phone in my hand and my car between me and Chase, just in case.
“What is this?”
“This,” he said, “is the Desert Breeze apartment building, and it’s scheduled for demolition in two weeks.” He nodded his chin toward a white sign covered in warnings like Condemned and Do Not Enter in big bold letters and stared at the building like he was seeing a lot more than I was.
“What exactly are we supposed to be doing here?”
“I used to live here a long time ago. It’s empty and they’re blowing it up, so it doesn’t matter, but this was the last place I saw my dad before he took off, and smashing it is the closest I’ll ever get to—” He inhaled through his nose, paused, then looked at me. “I figured you might need to break something too.” Then he sighed. “I didn’t really think this through. I don’t have anything to use to even break a window.”
I let my gaze drift back to the building, taking in the caution tape and the boarded-up windows. I slipped my phone back into my pocket, then headed to the trunk of my car. I popped it open and pulled out a wooden baseball bat.
Chase watched me the whole time, not smiling exactly, but something close to it. “You keep a bat in your trunk?”
“I keep multiple bats in my trunk.” I offered him the wooden bat. “This one’s for you.” Then I pulled out another. “So which window looks good?”
Getting in didn’t turn out to be a problem. There was a garden-level unit with large—for me and possibly somewhat tight for Chase—windows that were no match for my bat. At that first tinkling sound of breaking glass, I felt shockingly alive, and even more shockingly detached from anything having to do with my family.
After kicking out the remaining shards, Chase slipped through the broken window first. As I’d guessed, it was a tight fit around his shoulders, and he did get cut a little on one arm, but when he looked back at me, I followed him without hesitating. I didn’t get sliced—unlike him, I wasn’t built like a superhero—but the feel of Chase’s hands on either side of my waist helping me down was unexpectedly jarring on the bare skin below my slightly bunched up shirt. His hands didn’t linger, though, and neither did my sudden awareness of him.
There was no power, which meant no lights, so we used our phones to see. The glass crunched under our feet as we crossed the dark room and entered the hall. Chase led us up four flights of stairs and down another hall until we stood in front of a door that no longer had a number on it.
“This was yours.” I wasn’t asking a question, just saying something to break him out of his stare.
“Yeah.” He reached for the doorknob, but it didn’t turn.
“Good thing we don’t need a key, huh?” I tapped the door with my bat, reminding Chase of the one he held in his hand.
“Yeah,” he said again, still staring at the door.
He’d said he hadn’t planned this out, and I was beginning to wonder if he was having second thoughts. If not about demoing his old apartment, then at least about inviting a perfect stranger to do it with him.
“I’m going to try one farther down,” I said, already moving.
“No, sorry. I was just caught up for a second.” Chase shook his head, then smiled. “My mom is a photographer, so she took a lot of photos.” He tapped the doorknob with a finger. “I was only like a year old when my mom and I left, so I know it’s just from seeing pictures, but it’s weird.”
“There are tons of other apartments. It’s really fine if you want this one to yourself.”
“I’m up for the company if you are.”
He said it with such easy sincerity that I had to believe him. And if I was being honest, I wasn’t sure I’d actually follow through with breaking anything on my own. I knew the place was getting blown up and there was nothing of value left behind, but it still felt a little off to just start smashing walls. Chase’s childhood claim to his apartment made it easier—allowable, somehow.
“Okay.” We stood for another second facing his door. “I guess we just...?” I pressed against the door with my palm, trying to get a read on how secure it was. “Why don’t you...” I turned but Chase was already stepping back, having reached the same conclusion. “Yeah, go for it.”
He kicked hard. I heard wood crack from the force, but the door held.
“Let’s do it together, ready?” I stood closer to the door than Chase needed to, but we timed it right, landing a double kick that knocked the already injured door clean off its hinges. We both laughed, though mine was partially to cover how much that kick had hurt. I was wearing flip-flops, and I wasn’t built like a Terminator. Chase seemed fine as he walked over the door.
I gave him a few minutes to look around and deal with any more memories on his own and took the opportunity to rub my knee until it stopped throbbing. I wasn’t going to be doing that again anytime soon.
“Dana?”
“I’m here,” I said, walking into the mostly empty room. I didn’t know why I’d expected it to be furnished. Obviously it wouldn’t be. And the few things left in the apartment wouldn’t have belonged to Chase anyway. There could have been a dozen tenants since he’d lived here. There was a moldy-looking love seat, a small table and a couple boxes that had seen their fair share of water damage. I looked at the ceiling and saw water spots and even a large brownish-yellow section that had broken through. That explained the smell.
I tried to envision the space clean and with a family, but my imagination wouldn’t stretch that far. I wondered if Chase’s memories were serving him any better.
“Does it feel familiar?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. That was my room.” He pointed with his bat. “It’s so small.”
“You must have been then too.”
His mouth lifted. “I’m glad I don’t really remember living here. And I’ll be gladder still when it’s a pile of rocks.”
That answered my next question, whether he still wanted to do this. We set down our phones in the center of the room and took up positions in front of the largest wall. I lifted my bat and Chase did the same.
His bat punched right through the drywall like it was cardboard. “Come on,” he said, freeing the bat.
The first swing was hugely satisfying. It was so much better than crying. I smashed windows and door frames. I busted rotted floorboards and broke through cabinets. We didn’t talk much, which was fine because I didn’t want to. I wanted to break things and not think about how broken I felt, and I did. I swung again and again for what seemed like hours until my arms were shaking and I couldn’t grab the bat anymore. Then I sat in a corner and watched Chase until exhaustion finally claimed him too. He lifted the bat to swing once more, then lowered it, breathing heavily as he let it slip through his fingers and clatter to the floor. Then he turned to me. His white T-shirt wasn’t so white anymore, and he was covered in the same sweat and dust that coated me.
“Feel better?”
He looked around and nodded. “You?”
Somehow I did. “Yeah.” I watched him kick through the debris, feeling warmer than the weather and exertion alone could account for. “So what made your day suck so bad that you needed...” I glanced toward the car-sized hole we’d put through one wall. “You never said.”
Chase wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his arm. “Ask me again sometime. This is the best I’ve felt in a really long time, you know?”
“Tired, sweaty and probably covered in asbestos?”
“Yeah,” he said, not making a joke out of it at all.
I traced a piece of window frame near my hip. Other people, other families, had lived in this apartment since Chase and his parents, and he’d told me he’d been very young when he and his mom moved, but he still felt connected to it and the father who’d deserted him. I was suddenly reminded that we barely knew each other, and yet he’d let me be a part of something incredibly personal to him.
“Hey, why did you help me today?” I waited until he looked at me. “The smoothie, bringing me here? I wouldn’t even have seen you if you hadn’t called out.”
“Why wouldn’t I?”
“I was a girl crying by herself in a parking lot. I’m cute, but I’m not that cute,” I said, smiling a little, letting him know I was kidding.
Chase walked toward me, holding my gaze. I was so used to the way Nick couldn’t maintain eye contact for more than a few seconds that I felt my face heating even before he said, “You are that cute. Plus, you needed something to break, and I needed not to do this by myself.”
I was the one to break eye contact, dropping my head to look at the bat I had resting across my lap. “Well, thanks. I never knew how cathartic it could be to raze a building to the ground. Part of one, anyway.”
“You too. I would have brought my cousin, Brandon, but people keep flaking at work. I can’t find a shift for us to both be off.”
A different kind of tingling drifted over my skin at the mention of Brandon, overtaking the former. I closed my eyes for a second and leaned forward. All the thoughts I’d pushed away for the past couple hours raked over me. That ache, that empty dysphoria, settled heavy in my chest.
Chase sat beside me. “You okay?” His hand barely brushed my back.
I leaned away from his touch, speaking before I really thought about what I was doing. “You two are close?”
“He’s more like my brother. We grew up together.”
I glanced around the room we’d demolished, seeing it with new eyes.
“Not here. Our parents, they’re siblings. They bought houses here in Mesa only a couple blocks away from each other after my dad left and his mom died.”
“I’m sorry.”
Chase leaned his head against the wall. “I’m not. His dad was a better father than my own ever was. I don’t remember his mom, but mine loves him like he’s her own. We had it all right.” I felt Chase’s eyes on me and I met them. “Sometimes your family isn’t what you want them to be, but you end up with something better. I did.”
I pushed to my feet, dusting myself off as much as I could. Chase stood too and we started picking our way out of the apartment and back down the stairs.
“Sorry, I shouldn’t have said anything.”
“No, it’s fine.” If I’d been crying over a lost grandfather earlier instead of a philandering father and secret brother—a brother Chase was deeply connected to—his words might have had their desired effect. “Maybe you’re right. Either way, this helped.” I looked up at him when we reached the broken window in the basement. “Really.”
“Anytime.”
I smiled a little and looked away. Just like with Brandon, I needed to stay away from Chase. If he knew who I was, he wouldn’t be offering me anything.
“Or not.”
“It’s just that between school and softball, I don’t have a ton of free time.” And you have no idea who I am, and the brother I just found wouldn’t want me and the bomb I represent anywhere near you, I added silently.
“Ah.”
“And I live in Apache Junction.” It was a lame excuse considering my house in AJ was only thirty minutes away, but I wasn’t able to tell him the real reason I was blowing him off.
“Dana, it’s okay.”
“Sorry.” And I meant it. I took the bat he held out to me and slid it and mine outside. Before I could consider the best way to get myself up and out, Chase knelt down and laced his hands together for me to step on.
“Don’t be. It was a fun night. For what it’s worth, I hope you get to meet your grandfather sometime.”
“Yeah. I’m rethinking that. I don’t think I want to know the answers to the questions I have.” What I really wanted was to go back and undo that whole day, the results, meeting Brandon, all of it. But I couldn’t.
Chase boosted me easily through the window, then pulled himself through, being careful to avoid the glass that had cut him the first time. We walked toward our vehicles, which were mostly wrapped in the shadow of the apartment building. There were streetlights, but they’d either been broken or else forgotten along with the rest of the neighborhood, because they failed to turn on. The moon was shining, though, and it illuminated more than I wanted to see of Chase because I still had to walk away. I already knew I’d have liked to see more of him, which was all the more reason not to linger. Standing beside my car, this time under a star-pricked sky with my heart still hurting but my body no longer consumed by it, I reached for my door and looked one last time at Chase approaching his.
“You kind of saved me tonight.”
Chase stopped, keys in hand. “Well, I’d have been screwed without your bat.”
I laughed a little and opened my door.
“Take care, Dana.”
“You too.”
* * *
I got home and went upstairs to my room with an excuse over my shoulder that I had a headache. The farther I’d driven away from Chase and the apartment building, the more real the day had become, until my head really was pounding. It got worse as I lay on my bed, sleep not even remotely attainable. I curled onto my side. Every part of me was aching to act, to do something, but for once I couldn’t bring myself to move. There was pain in every direction, and nowhere to retreat. I could hear my parents downstairs, working late, their voices dancing around each other with dips of occasional laughter. The sounds, so normal and carefree, spurred me from my bed. I stopped inches from my bedroom door, my hand wrapping around the knob, but I didn’t turn it. I couldn’t go downstairs and look Dad in the eye and tell him I knew. I couldn’t watch Mom’s face, because I knew, as much as she loved me, she wouldn’t believe it. I’d seen the results and stared into my brother’s face, and part of me still wrestled with disbelief.
Underneath all the horror and denial, Brandon and I had said basically the same thing to each other: how could this be true? The facts went against everything I knew, everything he claimed to know too. So how?
I’d told Chase I didn’t want answers, and I didn’t, but my insomnia meant I needed them. My insides were tearing themselves apart, flinging emotions at me faster than I could process. I had to talk to Brandon again. He had to be feeling the same emotional schizophrenia, he just had to.
I opened my laptop on my bed, logged back on to DNA Detective and clicked on Dad’s results. Brandon’s match was gone. Dad’s highest match was now a predicted fourth cousin. My brows pinched together as I checked again, then a third time. There was no record of Brandon at all. I dove for my purse, upended the contents on my bed, then froze, remembering that Dad’s results weren’t there. Brandon had left with them still crumpled in his fist. My only hard copy. And he’d deleted the rest.
Chapter 10 (#u6a963fff-0fd4-5720-87cf-eb6ead14ac17)
Wednesday morning I slept in for maybe the first time in my life. And by slept in, I mean hid in my room waiting for Mom to drag herself down the stairs and into the steaming mug of coffee Dad always had waiting for her.
It was hard hearing him up and moving around downstairs. Most days, I’d be up with him—at least, when I wasn’t frantically finishing homework from the night before. We’d always been the early birds in the family, while Mom and Selena were the night owls. Dad and I never did much in the mornings. We never had deep father-daughter conversations, but we’d make breakfast and we’d sit together at the kitchen table grumbling at whatever ESPN was talking about. Eventually, Mom would stagger in like she’d just woken from a coma and Dad would start her coffee IV. Halfway through her second cup, she’d blink at the pair of us as though seeing us for the first time and join our grumblings. It was nice, routine. And I didn’t know if I’d ever have that again.
I waited until the last possible minute to go downstairs. Mom was mostly awake by then, not enough to articulate words, but she pointed vaguely in the direction of the toaster when she saw me. I grabbed an English muffin and a paper towel, acutely aware of Dad’s back as he refilled Mom’s swimming pool–sized coffee mug.
“That headache knocked you out, huh?” Dad’s voice made my eyes prick. It was normal, completely normal.
“Yeah. It’s fine now. I gotta get to school.”
“Hang on.” Dad turned and faced me, causing my stomach to plummet into my feet. I started backing out of the room. “I need you to come straight home after practice today. Selena is driving down and she has some news she wants to share.” He could barely contain his grin. Dad thought it was good news—which for him meant something softball related. For once I didn’t squirm with resentment that he’d never have beamed like that over me. Whatever it was, I knew she wasn’t reconsidering playing again. I also knew I wouldn’t be coming home right after school.
* * *
I found Nick outside the door of my first class when it let out. He smiled as soon as he saw me, which layered guilt into the slurry of emotions sloshing inside me. “Nick. Oh, I’m sorry. I should have texted you not to wait for me this morning.” I remembered what Jessalyn had told me the day before about him having to sprint to class. “I hope you weren’t late?”
“It’s fine. I just wanted to make sure you were okay.”
“Yeah, it was just one of those mornings.” I started walking, Nick keeping pace beside me. He had to slow his stride so as not to outstrip me.
“And everything else is...okay?”
He meant with my nonexistent grandfather, but Nick would never come right out and ask. I could have shown up carrying a severed head, and the most direct thing he’d ask was if I’d had a tough night. He was trying to be thoughtful by not prying, I knew that, but I wished he’d just say what he was thinking so I wouldn’t be able to dodge him. I’d gotten too good at doing that with him.
“Yep.” I half turned and took a few steps sideways. “Oh, you had that job interview at Mostly Bread after school yesterday, right? Did you get it? You did, didn’t you?”
Nick shifted the bag on his shoulder and dropped his eyes to his feet. “I think so. I’m supposed to hear soon.” He swallowed. “But did you—”
“Jessalyn probably gets to tell you in person. Have you seen her yet?”
“Um, no, but—”
“I bet she tells you at lunch.” We reached the end of the hallway. It split left toward my next class and right to his. I turned without stopping. “I’ll see you then, okay?” Our lunch group consisted of half my softball team—no way he’d be able to ask me anything then even if he worked up the nerve. I didn’t doubt Jessalyn’s ability to help Nick loosen up more in mixed company, but I didn’t think one conversation was going to do it.
“Dana.” Half the people in the hallway along with me turned to look at him. Nick could be heard when he wanted to. Whatever he was going to say to me withered under all the eyes trained on him. “I was just—I mean—”
“Tell me at lunch, okay?” Then I disappeared into the crowd of students around me.
* * *
I met Jessalyn in the pizza-cart line in the quad outside. I’d made better time than she had, and I let a couple people cut in front of me so that we could stand together.
“You were supposed to let me cut in line with you, not the other way around.” She smacked her palm lightly against my forehead, but she smiled. “Ugh, I despise cold pizza.” The pizza was never piping hot since Barro’s delivered it ten minutes before lunch started and the insulated delivery bags they were kept in could do only so much. Two people ahead of us weren’t going to make much of a difference, but Jessalyn enjoyed complaining, even when she didn’t have a reason. I thought it had something to do with her being an only child, and a late-in-life one at that. I wouldn’t call her spoiled, but I wouldn’t call her not spoiled either. She leaned toward me, frowning, and pointed at my eyes. “I’m guessing you didn’t get to sleep much last night. Damn, did your dad make you cry? Because you know there’s no crying in baseball.”
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