‘You want to come in?’ Derek asked.
I followed him through the dining room into the designer kitchen. The stainless steel shimmered in the afternoon light. An expensive watercolor of trees hung above the mahogany dinner table.
I shrugged out of my wet jacket, draping it over a chair. He pulled two bottles of water out of the refrigerator, tossing one to me.
‘So.’ I took a sip of my water. ‘You back for good?’
‘Yep.’
‘Did you like it?’
He shrugged.
‘Well, what was it like?’ I had so many questions, but this new Derek wasn’t like the one I’d known three years ago. Plus, all the things Madison had told me about him . . . maybe I was a little bit scared of him.
‘It was fine, it’s a big city, so it’s pretty busy, but yeah, I liked it.’ He sounded bored. Or maybe annoyed. ‘Madison isn’t here,’ he added.
‘Where is she?’
‘Auditioning for some play or something.’
I hit my forehead with my hand. ‘Oh yeah. Shoot. I forgot about that.’
He set his water on the counter. ‘So, what’s up?’
‘Nothing much. Just school and finals, getting ready for senior year and stuff.’
‘No.’ He looked exasperated, like I was the dumbest person ever. ‘I meant, why’d you come storming over here?’
I hesitated, not sure I wanted to tell Derek about my mom.
‘Did you get in a fight with your boyfriend?’ He smirked.
Anger boiled in me, and I clenched my fists. I wasn’t used to feeling angry. But I felt like it was leaking from me, set free by the acid of my mom’s lies. I couldn’t control it, and suddenly it took a new direction.
How dare he? The last time I was with him, I’d thought – well, it didn’t matter now, but I’d thought we shared something special. It was silly, just the slight brush of our arms against each other while watching a movie. A long gaze. It was stupid.
I didn’t even recognize this new Derek.
‘I’ll come back later. Sorry I bothered you.’ I put my water bottle on the counter and spun around, heading for the door.
Derek stopped me with a hand on my shoulder.
‘No, I’m sorry.’ The smirk fell off his face, and for the first time since I’d arrived he looked like the Derek I used to know. ‘Honestly, you’re not bothering me.’
He was so earnest, it reminded me of when we were little kids and I got stuck in the washing machine trying to hide from him during hide-and-seek.
‘So. Boyfriend problems?’
‘No,’ I snapped. ‘For your information, my mom lied to me and I’m really pissed off about it.’
Derek leaned away, as if blown back by the force of my anger. ‘Shit. Sorry. What about?’
When I didn’t reply, he headed toward the stairs. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Let’s go downstairs.’
I hesitated, confused by his quick change of personalities. Maybe he was more like Madison than I’d thought. I followed him to the far side of the kitchen, across the hall, and down the stairs to the basement.
‘My mom and dad gave me the downstairs. I think they’re just hoping I’ll disappear down here.’ He chuckled, but the laugh didn’t quite reach his eyes.
Downstairs was more welcoming than upstairs, all blond wood and worn brown leather. A grunge band blasted on a massive surround-sound stereo system. A huge entertainment center and two leather chairs took up one side of the basement, while the other side had an unmade king-size bed. At the back of the room, a hallway led to darkness.
He shoved clothes off a leather chair. ‘Here, sit down.’
He picked up a set of remote controls and turned off the stereo, then pressed a button. The ornately carved walnut doors of the entertainment center opened slowly, revealing a huge plasma-screen television. He flopped onto the other chair and flicked through the channels until he found a rerun of Family Guy.
He looked up at me. ‘You gonna sit?’
‘Um, sure.’ If Madison came home and found me hanging with her brother, she’d totally flip. I perched on the arm of the chair and tugged on the tail of the silver bracelet at my wrist.
‘So, what’d your mom lie about?’ he asked.
‘Well, last week some kids from my school and I were at U-Dub at this thing to get juniors ready for college. We saw this girl – Kendall – and she looked just like me. I’m not even kidding. Everybody said it. Like sisters.’
‘That’s weird.’
‘Yeah. So yesterday I asked my mom about my dad. Like what was he like and did he have any other family and she mentioned that he had brown eyes.’
‘So?’
‘First of all, I’m in advanced biology. My mom has blue eyes, so if my dad had brown eyes, it’s pretty unlikely I’d have green eyes. Not impossible, but genetically unlikely.’
‘And second?’
‘Second of all, I asked her when I was thirteen what color eyes he had, and she said green. And now she said brown.’
‘But why would she tell you two different colors?’
I threw my hands up and slid into the chair. ‘She’s getting confused with her lies.’
‘And this girl, Kendall. She has green eyes too?’
‘Yeah. And this same chin dimple.’ I pointed at the cleft in my chin. ‘I Googled it. It’s genetic. But my mom doesn’t have it.’
‘So Kendall looks a lot like you, she has a chin dimple, she has the same color eyes as you, and now your mom lied about what color your dad’s eyes were – and you think, what? That you’re related to this girl?’
‘Well, yeah.’ Saying it that way made it sound really stupid.
‘It seems a bit, you know, Hollywood.’
‘I know,’ I admitted. ‘But my mom lied to me. We never lie to each other. . .’
I chewed my lip.
‘At least, I thought we didn’t,’ I amended. ‘But now I’m wondering what else she’s lied about. And . . .’ I pulled the piece of white card out of my back pocket. ‘I found this in her room. It was in a shoebox in her closet.’
I held it out to Derek, and he read the text. ‘Sorry. Sorry for what?’
‘I don’t know. But it was with my birth certificate. It must have something to do with me.’
‘Have you looked her up on Facebook?’
‘My mom?’
‘No. Kendall.’
I shook my head. The thought hadn’t even crossed my mind.
‘Well, did you ask her who her father is? Find out his name?’
‘I didn’t think of any of that stuff when I met her.’
Derek grabbed a shiny silver MacBook from his bedside table. He brought it back to the chair, flipped the lid up, and opened Facebook.
‘Do