Emery lifts her brow, eyes softening. “I didn’t know you felt like that. I mean, I’m sorry.” She pauses. “You’re not different to me, you know. You’re just my friend. My beautiful, timeless, mashed-potato-if-you-want-to-be friend.”
I relax, and a grin settles onto my face. “Thanks, Emery. You complete me.” And it’s true, because I’ve tethered myself to Emery somehow. I feel protected by her, like I can pretend to be mashed potatoes or crème br?lée or whatever I want to be if I see myself through her eyes.
But the rest of the world doesn’t look through her eyes, or mine. They see me the way Adam does. The way Mom does.
I’m not like them.
She holds up her fingers in the shape of a heart. “Now I want to hear more about Jamie. Were his eyes as blue as you remembered?” Her voice oozes with theatrics.
“So blue,” I reply before breaking into a laugh.
I let Emery distract me with her questions and jokes and ideas for new tattoos. It helps get Adam out of my head, and for just a moment, I almost forget how desperately I need Prism and how badly I want to feel like I’m part of a world that wants me back.
? ? ?
I draw five humans and one skeleton, and it doesn’t matter that the skeleton has all the right bones and joints—he will never be the same as the others because he doesn’t have the right skin.
CHAPTER NINE
Taro stands in my doorway. He’s halfway through a strawberry pastry. The smell of toasted sugar makes my mouth water.
“Mom’s going to strangle you for eating upstairs,” I remark without looking at him. I’m pretending to read over the notes for my English exam, but really I’m trying not to think about my wasted first kiss with stupid Adam.
“Where were you on Friday?” Taro asks. He sounds like he already knows the answer.
It pulls my attention away from John Steinbeck. “Why do you care?”
Taro laughs and chews at the same time. “I know where you were. What were you doing at a party? You don’t even have any friends.”
“Yes, I do,” I snap.
He shakes his head slowly. “You don’t. You have creepy clay things.”
I roll my eyes and turn back to my book.
“Did you see Jamie?”
My cheeks burn. “Who told you that?”
“I have friends—friends who tell me when they see my sister leaving a party with some dude.” Taro shrugs like I should’ve expected this. “So are you still in love with him?” He’s laughing like he’s ten years old and trying to get my attention.
“Why are you bothering me? You literally never talk to me. What does it matter who I hang out with?”
Taro swallows his last bite of pastry. “I’m talking to you now.”
I try to figure out what his intentions are. I don’t think he cares about Jamie—they used to be friends when they were kids, until he realized me and Jamie had way more in common. And by the crumbs he’s licking off his fingers, I don’t think he’s here to share his food with me.
I think, in his unbelievably off-putting way, he’s trying to “hang out.”
My brother has never known how to get anyone’s attention without being abrasive and blunt and loud. When we were kids, it was the only way he could get Mom to notice him—by demanding her attention. It’s something I will never be good at.
But maybe his abrasiveness is also his armor. He’s loud and thick-skinned. He offends before he can be offended. He laughs before his feelings get hurt.
He stops Mom before she can get to him by getting to everybody else first.
Taro looks around my room, taking in the abundance of art prints I’ve collected over the years and the shelves of “creepy clay things” against the wall. “You’re weird. Everyone thinks so.”
I cringe. The part of me that doesn’t believe him thinks he’s trying to get under my skin. But the part that does believe him is too scared to hear exactly who “everyone” is.
“You’re socially awkward,” I bite back.
He laughs again, and I’m grateful it doesn’t sound like Mom’s. “We’re all socially awkward. Mom made sure of that.”
I twist my mouth. I don’t understand how he can say something so sad and still look so happy. I know some people laugh to hide how they’re really feeling, but I don’t think Taro is hiding anything. I think he found a way to never let the sadness in. He’s strong that way. And part of me wishes he told me his secret a long time ago, but the other part of me understands why he couldn’t.
Because my brothers and I can’t all be strong. Somebody has to be on Mom’s target board—I think Taro would rather it was me than him.
When he leaves my room, I’m no longer thinking about Adam or trying to remember what my teacher told us about Of Mice and Men—I’m thinking about how my brothers and I have been pitted against one another since birth. We’re products of two parents who aren’t around—one physically, one emotionally. There’s not enough attention for all three of us—there’s not enough love to go around. We nurtured ourselves, by ourselves, and protected our hearts even from one another.
We were never going to be close. We were never going to really love one another.
We never stood a chance.
? ? ?
I paint three faceless people—one becomes the sky, one becomes the ocean, and one becomes the sun. They live apart for eternity because they don’t belong together.
CHAPTER TEN
Leah is the bald one. Emily is the one with giant lips.
People always say babies are beautiful, but I think they look like alien-turnip hybrids. In fact, they kind of resemble my clay sculptures.
Dad smiles at me with lots of teeth, and it makes his eyes disappear into his face. “Aren’t they tiny? I remember when you were this small. Just like a baby rabbit.”
I like the way Dad speaks. He likes to compare people to animals, and he always observes the world like it’s so new and exciting.
“They are really small,” I agree. The twins yawn at the same time. “Oh my God, did you see that? They’re in sync already.” They might not be beautiful, but they’re fascinating.
My little sisters. It feels so weird.
“Want to hold one of them?” Dad asks, already scooping one of them out of the white crib.
Bald Leah, I tell myself.
I hold out my arms. Dad adjusts them with his free arm and places one of my new sisters in my hold. It feels strange, like I’m not doing it right. I’m worried I’m going to drop her or break her or make her uncomfortable.
“How were you holding her with only one arm?” I say in a rushed, quiet voice.
Emily makes a little noise from the crib. She sounds like a baby pterodactyl.
Dad scoops her up too, and the two of us are swaying with little tiny people in our arms. He’s holding Emily, but he’s still smiling at me. He hasn’t forgotten me already. Not like how Mom would if something cute was in the house.
I still feel guilty about playing a part in ruining our family, but maybe Dad actually is happier now. In some twisted way, if he hadn’t found out about Uncle Max, he wouldn’t have these two little babies.
Maybe they are the silver lining. Maybe this means I can let go of some of the guilt.
“How’s Serena?” I ask before Dad reads into my expression.