You Have a Match(57)

It’s clear neither of them are going to elaborate. “So … what the hell happened?”

My mom folds in on herself. She’s always been small—more Savvy-size than I am—but right now she looks like she could sink into the couch cushions and disappear. “It’s complicated.”

“And the part where you kept a secret sister from me for sixteen years isn’t?”

“Hey,” my dad warns me.

“It’s okay, Tom,” says my mom.

I wave in their direction, a gesture of surrender that comes off a little awkward because I’ve never really had to make one before. Even I’m surprised at myself for challenging them. It isn’t easy, but it’s not as hard as I thought it would be either. Like I’ve been saving up all these little moments over the last year where I could have, would have, should have said something, and something so big that I can’t ignore it has finally pushed me over the edge.

“I already know the rest of it,” I say. “Why can’t you tell me?”

“Because…” My mom shakes her head.

“And—and what about me? I mean, how do I fit into this?” I ask, before I lose my nerve. I’m shaking. “I mean—you gave her up and had me a year and a half later. Were you, like—super accident-prone, or—”

“Honey, no,” says my mom.

“It’s okay,” I say, and I mean it. “I mean, I always kind of figured I was, and I know it doesn’t mean you guys love me any—”

“Honey, you weren’t an accident, you were—”

My mom cuts herself off, because in her haste to reassure me, she’s given something away.

I feel weak, like I’ve climbed up something too tall and don’t know if I have it in me to get back down. “The whole thing … it doesn’t make sense.”

“I know,” says my mom, shaking her head. “I’m sorry. I know.”

I can feel my window to ask shutting. They’re going to find some way to close this, to seal it tight. I try another tactic. “If you can’t tell me now—will you ever?”

They glance at each other, and this time it isn’t a mystery. Neither knows what to tell me.

“Because—because I’m going to have to know someday. Savvy’s a part of my life,” I tell them, and only then do I feel like I might be losing what ridiculously small amount of control I have over the situation. Only then do I realize that this isn’t just about what they lost—I have something to lose, too. “We’re friends. What we did was shitty, and I’m sorry about that, but I’m not sorry about the part where we found each other, because—”

I have to stop, because my mom’s crying again. She puts her face in her hands, shaking her head like she didn’t mean for me to stop. But she breathes in and it comes back out in this big, gasping sob, a noise I’ve never heard her make before, and it clamps my mouth shut so fast that the rest of the words die halfway up my throat.

“I’m sorry,” she says. “I’m…”

My dad pulls his hand from hers so he can put an arm around her shoulders, steadying her. I don’t move, stunned by this unexpected power I have over them, by how quickly it broke them. I don’t want it. I just want to understand. I don’t want all the pain that comes with it.

But the understanding and pain are woven together, tighter than a knot, and together make something so immovable that it doesn’t matter what I mean and what I don’t. It’s all going to end with me yanking on something that can’t be undone.

“We’re going to turn in for the night,” says my dad, helping my mom to her feet. “There’s a deli, just outside, and cash in your mom’s purse—”

“Wait,” I say, leaping to my feet. “I know that … this is a lot. But if you could let me stay—”

“Abby,” my dad starts.

“—because I’m actually making progress. I really am! I got a 720 on a math practice exam two days ago. A 720! Me!”

They’re not even hearing me. I feel like I’m in an alternate dimension. I don’t know what else I can say, how else to make it stick.

“And I’m making friends, and … and I’ve taken so many photographs. Beautiful ones.”

My dad glances at me. I have his attention, but not enough to hold it. The next words are some of the most nerve-wracking I’ve ever said in my life, but I’m desperate.

“Let me show you.”

My dad stops at this, and we stare at each other, trying to figure out which of us is more surprised. I’ve never shown them more than one rare photo at a time before. They’ve only ever had good things to say, but they’re my parents and obligated to say nice things. If anything, it only makes me more self-conscious.

This, on the other hand, might fling my sense of self straight into the sun.

“Send them to us. We want to see them,” he says, and though his voice is grim, and his face ashen, I can tell how much he means it. That he knows how much it means to me. “We do. But Abby?”

Shit. Shit, shit, shit.

“I … I don’t want you to get your hopes up. It’s not anything to do with you, or the summer school thing. It’s bigger than that, okay?”