Total pages in book: 167
Estimated words: 164557 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 823(@200wpm)___ 658(@250wpm)___ 549(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 164557 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 823(@200wpm)___ 658(@250wpm)___ 549(@300wpm)
Then there’s me. When I was younger, I used to stare at my reflection in the mirror and wonder which one of my biological parents I looked like. I don’t think it matters, though. They didn’t want me. So why would I want to look like them?
I’m not bitter about it. Not really. I know some people harbor complicated feelings about their adoption, but I’m genuinely grateful for the life I’ve been given and the family into which I was welcomed. They treated me like one of them, a full-blown Kingston, from the moment they laid eyes on me.
Oliver and I carry the dirty dishes into the kitchen, where Mom is rolling up her sleeves in front of the sink.
“Go hang out with Dad,” I tell my brother. “I can help Mom in here.”
“Thanks, kiddo.”
Once he’s gone, my mother and I stand side by side at the sink, rinsing plates. She makes the mistake of asking about Delta Pi, causing me to groan and complain about Agatha for a good ten minutes.
“You think she’s bad?” Mom says when I come up for air, passing me a plate to load into the dishwasher. “Her mother is a hundred times worse.”
“That doesn’t surprise me in the slightest.”
Agatha’s mother, Lillian, is one of our alumni advisors. She’s there to “support” the executive board, but really, she uses the monthly check-ins as opportunities to stick her nose into every minute detail of the house and lecture us about what we’re doing wrong. The apple did not fall far from the tree in that family. They’re so alike they’re still sharing the same branch.
“God,” Mom says with a groan. “Lillian used to conduct this thing called a shine test.”
“What do you mean? Like for your shoes?”
“For your hair.”
“Seriously?”
“Yup. Before an important dinner party or an event, she’d have all the sisters line up outside our bedroom doors while she moved down the line and examined our hair. She’d make us tilt our head until it caught the light in just the right way and assess how shiny it looked. And if you didn’t pass the shine test…”
“What would she do? Beat you?” I gasp.
“Yes, Charlotte, she beat us.”
“What?”
“No! Of course she didn’t do that!” Mom starts to laugh. “If there was enough time for us to redo our hair, she would allow that. If there wasn’t, we wouldn’t be permitted to attend the event.”
“That’s all it takes to skip out on those boring things? Have your hair at eighty percent shine instead of a hundred? Why can’t Agatha be like that?”
After we finish loading the dishwasher, I wash my hands, then reach for a floral-patterned dish towel to dry them off.
“You know,” I tell her, “the only reason I’m even paying attention in these meetings is for you, Madam President.”
“And I very much appreciate it.”
She comes up behind me, wrapping her arms around my shoulders to give me a tight hug. Then she smacks a kiss on my cheek and goes to wipe down the counters.
Do it now, when she’s in a good mood, an inner voice implores. Tell her you want to find your biological relatives.
Another opportunity has presented itself. We’re both calm and content—the perfect time to drop a bomb like the one I’m sitting on.
Do it.
Tell her.
“Come on,” Mom says, heading for the doorway. “Let’s go see if your sister and Kat still want to go for that walk.”
The opportunity once again slips through my fingers.
I chickened out again.
Disgusted with myself, I check my phone while she ducks out of the kitchen to find Ava. There’s a notification from my hookup app informing me I have a new match.
Curious, I tap it to discover I’ve matched with the owners of the two ludicrously ripped chests. I open the chat thread, assuming I’ll see a picture of a veiny penis or some lascivious line like Hey baby, show us your tits.
Instead, they throw me for a loop.
LARS & B:
Do you believe time travel is possible? And if the answer is no, how does it feel to be so monumentally wrong?
I bite my lip to stop a wave of laughter. I…was not expecting that. I actually have to think about it for a minute before formulating a response.
ME:
I think it’s possible, but I don’t believe you can change the past. Otherwise there’s no way to reconcile all the time-travel paradoxes. There’s this physicist, Novikov, who has a whole theory about it.
To my surprise, someone starts typing back immediately.
LARS & B:
Holy shit. You know about the Novikov self-consistency principle?
ME:
Who doesn’t? I feel like it’s just common sense.
LARS & B:
Will you marry me?
ME:
It depends. Who am I speaking to right now? Lars or B?
LARS & B:
It’s B. Lars is around here somewhere.
ME:
Do you guys go to Briar?
His current location is now far enough away that it tells me he’s likely back in Hastings. When we matched, we were only a couple miles apart, so it stands to reason he and Lars live near Briar.