First & Then(40)

“Adopt?”

“Yes. Adopt.”

Adopt. Adopt. Adopt. If you say any word enough, eventually it loses all meaning.

I blinked, and the only thing I could think to ask is, “Does he know?” After Dad answered yes, I sort of lost the ability to concentrate. My mind was going in too many directions.

I closed the office door softly behind me and climbed the stairs to my room, my parents’ reassurances still floating around in my head and that adopt still pounding in my ears. My heart was racing, and each beat said the same thing.

I was relieved. I was hopelessly relieved, but at the same time, so incredibly pissed off. I hated Elizabeth, and I hated the world, too, because if I was meant to have a brother, why couldn’t I have gotten him the normal way? None of this was right. If I was going to have a brother, I didn’t want him just because Elizabeth was a f*cking coward.

I should’ve been better. But sometimes all you can really stand to do is think about yourself. Sometimes it’s the only way to cope. The only way to make sense of something as colossal and intimidating as the world is to make it about you. I slammed my bedroom door and fell across my bed wondering if my parents would be able to help me with college now that Foster would be their responsibility, too.

And then … then I thought about Foster, and all that selfishness washed out on a tide of guilt. It was one thing to put a kid up for adoption straight out of the gate. But who spends fourteen years with her kid and then decides she doesn’t want him? Whoops, sorry, no—I’m going to need to return this one. Like some sort of cosmic user error. Return to sender.

I dragged myself out of bed. I had to see Foster.

I knocked on his door, and he answered with a perfectly clear, perfectly composed, “Come in.”

I opened the door and there lay Foster on his bed, wearing his bright red TS helmet.

I tried to make my voice sound normal. What do you even say in this kind of situation? How do you even start?

“How’s it going?”

Ugh. An auspicious beginning.

Foster seemed unfazed. “Okay.”

“What … uh … I mean…”

“It’s cool, Dev.” Foster looked at me through the helmet’s grille. “It’s not like it’s a surprise or anything. She called and talked to me, and it’s okay.”

I sat down on the edge of the bed. “Do you … want to watch TV or something?”

He shook his head.

“We could call Ezra.”

He turned his face up to the ceiling. “Okay. But you have to call him.”

“What do you want me to say?”

A shrug. “Tell him the truth.”

I got Ezra’s number from Foster and dialed him in the hallway. It rang, and rang again, and in the space between rings I had another panicky moment of “what the hell should I say?”

“Hello?”

“Uh, hi. Hello. Is this Ezra?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s Devon. Devon Tennyson?”

A pause. “What’s up?”

“Foster.” Gahhh. “I mean, Foster was wondering—and I was wondering—”

If only phones had an Abandon Ship! function that you could press in the instance of a really awkward conversation. Though I guess the End button functions pretty similarly.

“It’s Foster’s mom,” I said after a moment of regrouping. “Has Foster ever told you about his mom?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, she’s … my parents, they’re…” Swallow, breathe, think. “He’s going to be staying with us. Permanently. It’s, like, being made official, and we just found out, and … and Foster and I were wondering if maybe you would just want to come and … hang out. For a little bit, because…”

Why? Because we need you? I couldn’t say that, so I let my “because” fizzle out, and it was silent on the other end of the line.

Then,

“I’ll be right there.”

And he was. Not ten minutes went by and there was Ezra Lynley, pulling up in front of our house in a shiny pickup truck.

We all sat on Foster’s bed and watched Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure. Foster made me sit between them.

After a while, Foster took off his football helmet, snuggled down into his pillow, and shut his eyes. I shifted around a little, very aware of every time my sleeve would brush up against Ezra’s. It was a small bed with three people in it.

I could tell Foster was asleep, and suddenly—even though we weren’t—it felt like Ezra and I were alone.

Something switched on in me, some awareness, and it turned into a need to make conversation.

“What are your schools?” I said, eyes fixed on the television screen.

“Sorry?”

“You said you narrowed it down to four schools. Are they like a secret or something?”

He rattled off the names. All big universities, all within a one-state radius.

“They’re close by,” I said.

“They’re good football schools. But yeah, they’re close, too. I just … my mom…” He didn’t finish. His gaze moved to Foster, as if maybe mentioning moms in Foster’s presence was taboo or something.

But Foster’s breathing was still heavy. No internal alarms went off at the sound of the word.