“We’re your parents. We’re the O’Learys.”
It started low in her belly. A flicker, a flame. A fire. Riley tried to hold herself, hugging her arms across her chest. It was all so ridiculous. She started to giggle, just like her mother. A maniacal, loose, bobbing giggle that weakened her entire body, made it shake throughout.
“What do you mean, we’re the O’Learys? We’re the Spencers. I’m not Jane, I’m Riley.”
Riley became very aware of her mother’s hands on hers, gripping tighter. “It’s not important, Riley. None of this is. You’re our daughter, we’re your parents. Forget all the rest of this.”
“But—”
Riley’s mother shook her head, batting at the air like her whole confession was an annoying gnat at her ear—nothing more. “Don’t worry about it. Please, Riley, just trust us.”
Riley yanked her hands free and sat back in her chair. “Trust you about what? You didn’t tell me anything except that Jane Elizabeth is me. Why do I have a different name? Why do we all have different names and I have a fake birth certificate? Are you my birth parents? I don’t understand.”
Riley saw her father pacing in the next room, a cell phone pressed to his ear. He didn’t look like a stranger. He looked like her father who was a goof and called her turnip and did horrible Jimmy Stewart impressions at Christmastime. She saw him mutter something into the phone and then he took it from his ear, pushing it into his back pocket. When he turned to face Riley, he was still her father but his face was ashen and worn, as though he had aged ten years in the walk from the kitchen to the den.
“Riley, you’re going to be late for school.” He picked up her backpack and held it out to her. Riley stared at it blankly.
“What? You tell me I’m—I’m a different person and—and I’m just supposed to go to school and act like nothing happened?”
Her father’s eyes were flat and emotionless. His face was stern, but otherwise void of anything Riley could recognize. “You need to trust us, Riley.”
Riley felt the tears stinging at the back of her eyes as she looked from her mother to her father.
She snatched her backpack. “I don’t see what I am supposed to trust about you two. You haven’t told me anything true. You haven’t told me anything that makes any sense at all!” The tears were falling freely now, heat breaking over her cheeks. “‘We have this fake birth certificate for you, but you should just trust us.’ ‘We’ve been lying to you your whole life, but you just have to trust us’?”
“Riley, we’re still your parents—”
“Are you? How do I know that? Why would my own parents change my name and my birthday? Why would my own parents hide a birth certificate for a girl who doesn’t exist?”
Her father grabbed her shoulder. Riley couldn’t tell if she was hyper aware or if her father’s grip was more severe that he meant. She saw his Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed, saw the desperation in his eyes as they skimmed over her then went to his wife.
“Glen, she shouldn’t go to school today. We should keep her here with us until Mr. Hempstead can get here.”
“Why can’t you just tell me right now? Why do we have to wait for some guy I don’t even know?”
“Please, Riley. It’ll be easier this way. Mr. Hempstead—”
“Forget it. I don’t want to be here! I don’t want to be here with people who are lying to me!”
Riley snatched her jacket and hiked up her backpack, clearing the kitchen in three long strides. She threw open the front door and pounded through it, slamming it with a tremendous snap behind her.
Hands fisted, tears rolling down her cheeks and sliding over her chin, Riley ran down the sidewalk, loving the lone echo of her sneakers as they hit the concrete. It was somehow soothing to know that the sound that reflected back was her own—even if she wasn’t entirely sure who she was.
She heard the garage door opening somewhere behind her. The faint sound of car doors snapping shut, of an engine being revved.
Riley couldn’t stand it.
She crossed behind a bank of nearly finished houses, skipping through backyards that hadn’t been fenced yet, until she was up against the wrought iron bars of the Blackwood Hills Estates. She tossed her backpack over the top and shimmied through the bars, taking one last look over her shoulder. She saw her parents in their car, slowly driving away from the house, her mother scanning the sidewalks, her hands pressed against her cheeks. Riley waited for the familiar pang of guilt or sadness but got nothing. She just pressed her legs harder, face against the wind, and took off running.
It didn’t take long for her breath to burn in her lungs and for Riley to meet up with the street. Her parents, had they gone toward the school, would have already passed her, so Riley walked along the road, backpack hiked up. She was huffing and out of breath, but her anger pushed her forward.