Far from the Tree(6)

She loved the way Claire’s hand felt in hers, how her skin could sometimes feel like the softest, most electric thing that Maya had ever touched. She loved Claire’s laugh (it was deep and, quite frankly, sounded like a goose being murdered) and Claire’s mouth and the way Claire would pat her hair like she was something sweet and precious.

Maya loved the way that she had spent her entire life trying to figure out where she fit, only to have Claire snap right into place next to her, like they had been waiting their whole lives to find each other.

Maya’s parents, because they weren’t antiquated dinosaurs, didn’t care that she was gay. Or, more to the point, they weren’t just fine with it. They were proud. Her dad even put a rainbow sticker on his car, which scandalized the neighborhood for a bit until Maya gently explained that a rainbow sticker on your car usually meant that you were gay, and maybe the neighbors were getting the wrong idea?

But still, it was a sweet gesture. They gave money to PFLAG and she and her dad ran a 10K together. Maya had all the support she needed in that particular arena, and she was grateful for it. She just wished sometimes that her parents would pay attention to their own relationship, rather than focusing on hers.

Another door slammed and Lauren jumped. Not too much, but enough for Maya to notice.

Do you even care about seeing your daughters?

How dare you say something like that to me!

You didn’t even ask Maya about—

Both girls looked at each other. “Did you get anything from that girl yet?” Lauren asked after a beat.

Maya shook her head. “Nope.”

The night before, Maya’s parents had sat her down—the first time in months that she had seen them together at home when they weren’t at each other’s throats—and they had told her about a girl named Grace. She was Maya’s half sister, who lived with her parents twenty minutes away. For the first time ever, it seemed, Grace had asked about her biological family. There was a boy, too, a supposed half brother named Joaquin, but no one seemed to know where he was anymore, like a set of keys someone had misplaced. “Is it okay if we give Grace your email address?” her father asked.

Maya had just shrugged. “Sure, okay.”

It wasn’t okay, not really, but she didn’t entirely trust her parents to be strong for her anymore. They could barely keep it together around each other—what sort of energy did they have left over for her? She had no desire to cry in front of them, or ask questions, or give them even the smallest glimpse into her brain. She didn’t trust them with her thoughts, not when they acted like two bulls in a china shop. She would have to keep herself at a remove—safe from that sort of damage.

Last night, she had woken up from a horrible nightmare: the tall, dark-haired people were reaching out for her, trying to pull her through the window of her bedroom, and she had woken up gasping, her hands shaking so bad that she couldn’t even text Claire on her phone. She wasn’t sure what had been scarier: the strangers trying to spirit her away or the fact that she wasn’t sure she wanted them to fail.

She never fell back to sleep.

You know Maya. She won’t tell you things, you have to ask her! She’s not like Lauren! If you spent any time with them—

It wasn’t like Maya was thrilled she was adopted, but in times like that, she was sort of glad that these people weren’t biologically related to her. (Sucks to be you, Laur, she would sometimes think when the fights got too loud, too close.) It was easier to imagine a world of possibilities, a world where literally anyone could be related to her. But then, sometimes, that just made the world seem too big and Maya started to feel untethered, like she could float away, and she’d reach for Claire’s hand and hang on tight, shocking herself back down to earth.

“Do you think they’re going to get a divorce?” Lauren had asked her a few months ago, after their dad had stormed out of the house and their mom hadn’t even come to check on them. The girls had slept in the same bed that night, something they hadn’t done since they were little.

“Don’t be stupid,” Maya had said, but then the thought kept her awake all night. If her parents split up, who would they pick? Lauren was biological, just like Emily Whitmore had pointed out. Maya wasn’t.

It was a ridiculous idea, obviously.

And yet.

That night, after everyone had drifted back upstairs, after Lauren had gone back to her room and shut the door behind her and Maya had texted with Claire way past when she was supposed to be off her phone (my parents are totally getting a divorce lol) and no one came to stop her, Maya lay awake in bed.

Everything seemed more terrible at three a.m. That was just a fact.

Her phone suddenly dinged, an email notification, and she opened it. She read somewhere that for every minute you spent on your phone in bed, you lost an hour of sleep. She had thought that was bullshit, but now it seemed possible.

Sister? the email header read.

It wasn’t from Lauren.

Maya opened it up.





JOAQUIN


Joaquin always liked early mornings best.

He liked the pink sky that slowly turned yellow and then blue on clear mornings. When it wasn’t clear, he liked the fog that folded into the city like a blanket, curling itself over the hills and freeways, so thick that sometimes Joaquin could touch it.

He liked the quiet of those mornings, how he could skateboard down the street without worrying about dodging slow tourists or toddlers making a sudden break from their parents. He liked being alone without anyone around him. The aloneness felt more like his choice that way. It was easier than feeling alone while surrounded by people, which was how he always seemed to feel once the rest of the world started to wake up, before reality settled in and the fog blanket was melted away by the sun.