“Carter said you were an honorable guy,” I told him.
He stopped mid-sentence and looked at me for a moment. “Really?”
I nodded and looked back to my lap, wrapping my hands around each other. “He did.”
“Oh.”
Before he said anything else, I murmured, “Treat her right. Always.”
“Oh.” This ‘oh’ was much quieter than the first one. “Yeah. I’m hoping to. The always part, I mean.”
“Yeah. I got it.”
“Not that you should—” He lifted his hand in the air again.
I cut him off. “She’ll say yes.”
“Oh,” he said a third time, but this one was breathless. His hand dropped to his lap. “Wow. Okay, I mean. Yeah.” He nodded to himself and sat straighter in the seat. “All right. Thank you.”
One more nod. My neck muscles were protesting from the continuous up and down motion. “Yep.” The sign for the hospital came up, and I pointed. “There’s our exit.”
“Oh, yeah.” He swung to the right lane, and it wasn’t long before he pulled up to the entrance, and I got out.
He held a hand up. “I won’t be long. She said they’re in the seventh floor lobby now.” Then he pulled away toward the parking ramp.
The doors slid open as I approached and walked inside. Right away, I heard, “Oh my god, Emma!”
Amanda and Theresa rushed for me. They threw their arms around me, and I was engulfed in the tightest group hug ever. Noah stood back and gave me a little wave.
They were here. I still couldn’t believe it.
“Emma.” Amanda cupped the back of my head, as if shielding me. “We’ve been so worried. Your sister—We can’t—”
“Our daughter was brought in earlier.” A high-pitched voice spoke from behind us to someone at the reception desk.
Amanda and Theresa went back to hugging me, but a nagging feeling tugged at me. That voice… I looked over to see a woman and a man, both wearing winter coats. The man had a hand to the woman’s back as they waited for the clerk to respond.
“Your daughter’s name?”
I knew. Before they said it, I knew. These were Andrea’s adoptive parents.
I pulled away from Amanda and Theresa as the man answered the clerk, “Andrea Nathans.”
Her name hushed conversations in the lobby.
Everyone knew. The news flashed Andrea’s picture, already reporting that she’d been found. The clerk’s eyes widened, but she leaned forward and wrote the information down. Andrea’s mom and dad glanced over their shoulders.
As they did, I saw the wrinkled lines in Andrea’s father’s forehead. He had bags under his eyes. He might’ve been in his late fifties, but he looked like he was in his seventies. I saw the sadness there, too—the way his hand lifted to hold onto his wife’s shoulder, the way he moved closer to her, as if he was worried more about her than himself.
The clerk slid a piece of paper across the counter to them and pointed down the hallway to the elevator. As Andrea’s mom took the paper, the clerk lifted a remote and changed the television channel. A cooking show replaced Andrea’s photograph.
“Thank you so much.” Andrea’s mom held the paper to her chest as they left for the elevators.
“I…” I felt panic rising as my heart longed to follow them, but also to stay with my friends.
Luckily, Amanda and Theresa understood. They stepped back. Amanda gestured after Andrea’s parents. “Go, Emma.”
I didn’t waste any more time. I hurried after them, but I didn’t have to worry about them noticing my face. They kept their heads down and seemed to want attention about as much as I did. When the doors slid open and they got in, I entered and watched to see what floor they hit. Sixth floor. Then I scurried back out. Riding up with them, walking right behind them into her room—I didn’t think I could be that close.
Because, after all, it was my fault. Their daughter had gone to find me. The guilt sat on my shoulders, weighing me down, so I took the next elevator.
When the doors opened on the sixth floor, I heard them down the hallway. They were arguing about something.
“Stop it, Gail,” Andrea’s father said. “We can ask those questions later. We have to make sure she’s healthy first.”
I started for them, but that voice… I recognized that voice. His tone. His pitch. The softness with a hint of authority underneath. Everything about him was familiar, and I froze in the hallway. My feet had a mind of their own. I couldn’t move. I held a hand to my stomach as memories flooded through me, one after another. All of them came at me with lightning speed, and I shook my head. I couldn’t handle all of them at once. They weren’t making sense.
In my mind he argued with my mother.
He shouted at her, threatening to take both the girls. My mom shrieked back. Ally was hers. Andy was his.
Wait. That didn’t make sense.
Then another memory—I was hiding behind a door and knew AJ was coming to see me. I was so excited, hugging my knees with my backpack ready to go. He didn’t come, though. He was delayed, and when I had waited as long as I could bear, I went to the window to see if he was there. He was. He’d been there with this man. They were involved in a heated conversation, their arms waving in the air. AJ looked upset. The man looked tired. He was crying, and as AJ looked over at the window where I stood, I saw that he was crying, too.