Later, frustrated by the feeling that there’s no way I can have a future with Sean, all I can think of is the past. How my family and I got to this point. When I stare up at my night-black ceiling, I remember when Mom came to wake me.
“Lizzie,” she whispered. “Lizzie, honey, wake up.”
“What?” I asked, foggy from having been asleep for only a couple of hours. I’d read long past bedtime.
“I’m going to get you a suitcase. You need to put your special clothes and toys into it and get ready to go. We’re leaving.”
“Where are we going?” I asked, yawning.
“To California,” Mom said.
“Why?” I asked. I remember not really feeling alarmed, just curious.
“There are people looking for us,” Mom said. “We have to leave this house and this town so they don’t find us. And we need to start playing a game—we’re going to start pretending that you and your sisters are just one person. Doesn’t that sound fun?”
“Okay,” I said, not really thinking it sounded fun. But I was a good girl, one who basically accepted things and went with what Mom said. I packed, as did the others, and we left in the middle of the night without ninety percent of our belongings. I’m still not sure what happened to most of it.
Until then, I’d thought I was a triplet.
Little by little, it all came out after that.
And now, little by little, I’m starting to wish I could send it back to wherever it came from.
five
The next day, when I pull into the student lot halfway through lunchtime, I have to circle around three times to find a spot. Ella’s crush David—Dave, as she calls him—is parking three spaces down. He gets out of a silver Lexus, which I hope is one of his parents’, and jogs over, carrying a bulging fast food bag that looks like it might explode.
“Hungry?” I say, nodding to the sack. He laughs loudly.
“Ha ha,” he says, in case I didn’t hear him actually laughing. “It’s not all for me. It was my turn to pick up lunch for the debate team.”
Of course he’s on the debate team.
“Cool,” I say, pretending for Ella’s sake that I care.
I look at David in the reflection on the outside of the building as we approach, wondering what on earth Ella sees in him. I mean, okay, he’s nice-looking enough in a straitlaced sort of way. His hair is blondish brown and combed. His eyes are a standard-issue blue that some people might find welcoming. His shoulders are broad. He’s athletic. But somehow, I just don’t see him the way Ella does. David is that guy who’ll play professional football and then own his own car dealership, or become mayor or something. He’s not me. My preference is more…
“Sean!” I shout when he bursts through the doors, three guys trailing behind him. He smiles, and I try not to blush my face off for shouting his name like a groupie.
“What’s up, Elizabeth?” His tone is casual, but I can tell that he’s happy to see me, too. He stops walking and one of his friends almost runs into him.
“Dude,” the friend says.
“You’re the one tailgating,” Sean says to him, laughing, but his eyes stay on me. But then Sean notices David. And his supersized lunch sack. And my very Lizzie-style ensemble that Ella and Betsey let me choose last night. And finally, my lack of a lunch sack.
Sean’s expression clouds over and I can practically read his mind: He thinks that after I said no to him, I went all blowout fabulous to go to lunch with…
David.
Flipping.
Chancellor.
In protest, I step my turquoise boots a foot away from David. It’s almost a jump, really. Both boys look at me, confused. Then Sean’s eyes narrow a little.
“Guess I’ll see you later,” he says to me. And then he and his friends are gone.
“What’s with him?” David steps in front of me and opens the door just like Sean did the first day I met him, but the gesture seems too obvious this time.
“I don’t know,” I say, passing through. “Thanks.”
Once we’re inside, David looks like he’s going to say something else, but I cut him off. “Well, have a good lunch.”
I rush away, and with every step in the direction of my locker, I feel the pull of the student lot. I want to flip around and explain things to Sean, but I don’t, because what would I say? “Don’t worry, Sean, David doesn’t like me, me; he likes the other me?”
Sure, Lizzie, that’s a splendid idea.
It’s almost painful, but I fake a migraine in dance and watch from the sidelines instead. When Ella was spinning from chatting last night with Dave, I convinced her to flat iron her curls today. It’s vain, but I don’t want to mess up my hair, particularly since Sean seems to be mad. I need all the ammo I can get. So I don’t participate, but all through dance, I tap my boots to the music and visualize myself doing the moves.
When the bell rings, I spring up and leave; less than five minutes later, I’m one of four other students already seated in creative writing. I pull out my Spanish textbook and start my homework to take my mind off waiting for Sean. Second translation in, there he is.
“Hey,” he says as he slides into his seat. He faces front instead of turning around for a pre-class chat. Just when I’m going to tap him on the shoulder, Natasha with the short blond hair and big boobs across the aisle speaks to him.
“Hi, Sean,” she says in a sultry tone that makes me want to hurl.
“Hey, Natasha,” he says. “How’s it going?”
“I’m good. You?”
“I’m okay,” Sean says. There’s a little bite to his words; Natasha must hear it, too, because when her friend starts talking about some surfer, she turns away from Sean.
I lean forward and speak quietly to the back of his right shoulder. “Is everything okay?”
He inches his head to the right and laughs in one forced exhale through his nose. I want to kick the back of his chair to make him turn all the way around and look at me. I check to make sure Mr. Ames is still milling around in the hallway, then lean forward and try again.
“Sean,” I say, a bit more forcefully. Finally—maybe because he’s starting to get that I won’t stop if he doesn’t—he turns in his chair. His light brown eyes are cold.
“Nice lunch?” he asks, still holding my stare. Oddly, warmth spreads through my midsection because Sean’s jealous. It’s confirmation: He likes me, too.
“Yeah… at home,” I say, smiling. “Dave and I just walked in at the same time; he had all that food for the debate team.”
Sean’s eyes stay on mine, so I see them soften. The corners of his lips turn up just a little, right before Mr. Ames comes into the classroom.
“Oh,” he says sheepishly before facing front. I fight back a smile.
“How’s everyone doing today?” Mr. Ames asks, taking his spot at the podium. A few people mutter weak responses; he turns to write on the white board.
“I really did have other plans,” I whisper to Sean’s shoulder. “But I wanted to go to lunch with you.”
“Me, too,” Sean whispers before turning and zapping me once with those eyes of his, leaving me wired the rest of class.