“Okay.” I bite my lip to keep from crying. “I love you.”
“I love you too. To the moon and the sun and Pluto and around the world and back again.”
After she hangs up, I take a deep breath and turn around, knowing the mansion is just beyond the trees in front of me. I’m not ready to go back there, not yet. I just want a few more minutes of reaching out to people in the real world. I mean, it was nice to hear a familiar voice when Anna arrived, but that’s not exactly the kind of girl talk that makes a person feel like she’s on the right side of normal.
So I dial Ashley’s number, even though she’s definitely sleeping. If I’m right about what time zone I’m in, it’s the same time in Austin as it is here. Ashley will pick up; she sleeps with her phone under her pillow even though her parents have begged her not to—she doesn’t want to miss out on anything.
“Sunshine!” she shouts groggily. “I haven’t talked to you in ages!”
“I know. I’m sorry. There isn’t good cell reception where I am.”
“Where are you?” she asks, and I remember Ashley thinks I’m still in Ridgemont. I look down at the moist dirt staining my sneakers. I can’t tell her the truth. Or, anyway, I can’t tell her the whole truth.
“I’m in Mexico,” I say finally. “I, um, I found my birth father, and he brought me down here—he lives here—so we could . . . get to know each other better.”
“What?” Ashley sounds wide awake now. I imagine her sitting up in bed, her straight blonde hair just as perfect at the crack of dawn as it was when she fell asleep last night, not a hint of frizz anywhere. “You found your birth father? I didn’t even know you were looking for your birth father.”
“I wasn’t. I guess he found me.”
“Are you okay?” Ashley sounds so kind and loving and concerned that I actually sink down to the ground in gratitude, even though it means literally sitting in a pile of mud. Finally I let my tears spill over.
“I’m kind of okay. I mean, he’s nothing like I ever thought he would be. He’s . . .” There’s no word for what he is, so I say, “He’s odd.”
“Has he told you why he gave you up?” she asks gently.
“Not exactly,” I answer honestly, sniffling. “I think he thought it would be better for me somehow.”
“That’s good, right?” Ashley offers gently, and I nod. I never thought of it that way, but maybe she’s right: it was good of Aidan to give me up.
I shake myself like our dog Oscar after a bath. “Can we please talk about something normal?” I beg. “Let’s talk about you. Tell me the latest between you and Cory Cooper.”
“Oh my gosh, Sunshine. We totally broke up.”
“What?” I yelp. “Last I heard you were so excited to kiss him on New Year’s Eve!”
“I was,” Ashley concedes. “But it turns out having a boyfriend isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.”
I shrug. “I wouldn’t know.”
“Maybe not yet.” I can practically hear her smiling. “But you’re going to.”
“What makes you so sure?”
“Haven’t I always told you I’m wise beyond my years?”
I shake my head. “I literally don’t think I’ve ever heard you say that.”
“Well, maybe I haven’t said it out loud, but I think it all the time.”
I laugh out loud, and on her end of the phone—all the way in Austin, Texas, in her pretty room where we used to have sleepovers and movie nights and study sessions—Ashley does too.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Helena
By the time Ashley and I get off the phone—we don’t so much say good-bye as my phone drops the signal and, no matter where I wander, I can’t seem to get it back—the sun is high and hot, beating down mercilessly through the trees. I head back toward the mansion. When I finally reach what was once the backyard garden—now overgrown with jungle vines—the sky is so blue and cloudless overhead that it looks fake, something out of a movie set instead of real life. Sweat drips down my forehead and gets into my eyes. Everything goes blurry.
I hear Lucio shouting my name, circling the mansion. (Which could take a while. I mean, it is a mansion.) I head in the direction of his voice.
“Where’ve you been?” he shouts when he sees me. “I was worried sick.”
Worried sick? Guess I’m not the only one who goes around using expressions usually reserved for people at least twice my age. But then I guess that’s a luiseach thing. We’re drawn to things not quite our age—my vintage clothes, Lucio’s old-fashioned language. Even Aidan’s formal way of dressing is a remnant from an era when people dressed differently.
Sometimes I forget the three of us actually have something in common.
“You’re not the boss of me,” I answer, only half-joking.
Lucio doesn’t laugh. “You can’t just wander off,” he says solemnly. He rubs the tattoo on his right hand.
“Why not?”