You Have a Match(54)

“Are you doing it on purpose?”

Am I? Sometimes I feel like the last year slipped out from under me, and I can’t even measure it in time so much as things that happened in it. Losing Poppy. The BEI. Finding out about Savvy. The rest is this murky haze, like I’ve been underwater, trying to go with the current, and only just broken the surface and realized how far downstream I am.

“I don’t think so. But … once I started falling behind…”

“It’s hard to catch up.”

“Maybe if they let me. If I just had some time to…” I let out a sigh. “I mean, this whole Reynolds-method SAT prep thing? I don’t hate it. I’m getting okay at it, even. Because we have time to do our own shit afterward. My brain can like, hit flush. Reset. Whatever.”

Savvy nods appreciatively.

“And I will talk to them. Maybe later. When the timing’s not so…”

“Yeah,” Savvy agrees. “And it’s hard, I guess. To get mad about stuff they do because they love us.”

It suctions something in my chest that, in all the chaos, I’ve been able to ignore: I miss them. I almost want things to go back to normal, just so I can hug them, and talk to them about the boring parts of my day that nobody else cares about, and feel that warm feeling of being theirs, without everything else getting in the way.

But the key is the almost. Because I’m understanding now that it’s not just that I can’t undo this—I don’t want to. I don’t want to go back to a world where I don’t know Savvy. Not because she’s my sister, but because, against all odds, I think she might be my friend.

“Yeah.” I crush the protein bar wrapper in my hand, steeling myself. “They love us. So they’ve gotta tell us the truth.”

Savvy nods, and we both get up. I start to head back down the path first, but Savvy’s voice stops me.

“I hope you get to stay.”

I’m not a hugger, really, so I’m not even sure why I’m leaning in until I’m doing it—hugging this girl who is me and not-me, this girl I don’t relate to at all but somehow understand. She stiffens, but then hugs me back and squeezes, and it feels solid, then. The understanding between us. No matter what happens, this isn’t the end of us. There is going to be a whole lot more bickering and sunrise photo sessions and trying to make sense of ourselves to come.

We turn to leave, and I duck down to tie my shoe. Only then do I see the little carving in the old tree, whittled with a pocketknife, faded with time: Mick + Sav, written in a big, carved star.





twenty-one




What commences after that I can only describe as a stakeout. We plant ourselves by the parking lot and wait. By four o’clock that afternoon, we’re all doing rounds: me after breakfast, Savvy before lunch, Mickey right after, and Finn hopping in and out whenever he pleases, like we’re a livestream of some puppies and he’s coming back to see if they’re awake yet.

“Okay, how about this. If things start to go to shit, I’ll leap out before they can leave and be like, ‘It’s ME, your secret son!’ And once we either cut the tension or unintentionally reveal another deep dark family secret, everyone will have a good—”

“Finn, Finn, clam up,” I say, my voice rocketing up by about an octave. “Go get Savvy.”

Finn whines, spotting the minivan coming down the hill. “But it’s finally about to get—”

“Go.”

The road is lengthy and winding, so the minivan disappears in and out as it weaves. But we’ve only got about a minute before they hit the parking lot. Savvy and I discussed what we were going to say, but the closer they get, the more my mind goes blank.

Footsteps are crunching the gravel behind me, but when I whip around it’s not Savvy, but Leo. It is a true testament to my current state of panic that I barely feel the wrench in my stomach reminding me my talk with Leo is still very much overdue.

“Hey,” he says, glancing where I was just staring.

Shit. He doesn’t know what’s happening. In the chaos of this morning I not only forgot about all the drama with Leo, I forgot about—well—Leo.

“Hi,” I manage. “Um—so I’m—”

“Do you want to—could we talk over dinner tonight? I mean after like, regular dining hall dinner?”

“Oh.” Savvy is jogging up from behind Leo, back to her usual put-together self, the sleek ponytail back in place and a strategic layer of foundation hiding her stuffed-up nose. “Uh…”

“I’ll make lasagna balls.”

I nod, only half aware of what I’m agreeing to. “Sure—yes, yeah, okay,” I say as Savvy reaches us.

“Cool,” says Leo. I finally look at his face, at the anxious, tense line that might be an attempt at a smile. I attempt my own, and we make for a gruesome pair, no doubt both bracing ourselves to say things that the other won’t want to hear. “See you later.”

“See you.”

He turns away as I hear the crunch of wheels on gravel and the distinctive lug of the old minivan pulling in. Savvy and I squint at my parents through the windshield, and I immediately regret it. My dad’s mouth is stunned open and my mom’s eyes are wider than I’ve ever seen them, darting between me and Savvy like she’s waiting for us to merge back into one kid instead of two.