Part 2

Chapter 6

As I said I would be, I end up at Catherine's house exactly at five pm. I really didn't remember how to get to her house, so I did have to call for directions and got lost once, but I ended up making it on time. Jenny drops me off in front and tells me she'll see me at school on Monday.

I knock on the front door of the house and wait patiently on the other side. Sara's car isn't here, so I assume that the two are going to meet up at work. I guess they don't believe in saving the environment through carpooling.

Catherine opens the door and opens her arms to me like she's going to hug me. It's very unsettling. I don't really know this woman, and she's hugging me. I'm a firm believer in personal space, but I don't want to be rude so I attempt to hug her back. It's more than a little awkward.

When we pull apart Catherine tells me to come into the house and I do. She shuts the door behind me and starts asking me questions about my day and what it was I did. I know in the real world these really aren't odd questions, but it feels weird for her to be asking them. I don't really know this woman.

"I helped the team study. It was good." My IQ must drop at least twenty to a hundred points when I'm around this woman. It's odd. It's not like I feel nervous, I just turn stupid.

"What did you help them with?" She sounds genuinely interested.

"Stuff."

She smiles at me. "What kind of stuff?"

"Algebra, chemistry, physics, and biology?"

She looks surprised. "Really?"

I nod.

"Does Sara know this?"

What does that matter? "I didn't tell her. I don't think she'd really care whether I'm tutoring people or not."

"Not about the tutoring, not that she wouldn't care about that, but about your classes?"

"Why would she need to know?" The entire concept of this conversation escapes me. Sara and I don't talk. This is something that people are going to have to understand. I've had a life separate of her for just about sixteen years. I'm fine with that lasting until one of us dies.

"Because I think she would be really proud to hear it. Whether you think she does or not, Sara cares about your life."

I can't help but laugh. What does this woman know about Sara or me for that matter? "Sara can be proud of me all she wants," I say when I stop laughing. "But it all just comes a little too late."

Catherine sighs heavily. "You should really give Sara a chance."

"I plan on being around for another two years. That's it. There's no point in trying to mend fences that never existed in the first place."

"She's the only family you have."

I laugh again. "Well that's a lie. She's not my family. She's a woman who got stuck with caring for a girl her parents adopted. Ask her anything about me. She probably couldn't answer you. Families are supposed to know shit about each other."

"Please don't use that language with me," Catherine says sternly. "It's not very respectful."

"Who are you?" I ask incredulously. "I mean, who are you?"

"I'm someone who cares about you and Sara." Catherine's eyes bore into mine. "I'm someone that wants to help."

I shake my head. "Hey, whatever. I mean, I don't want to be disrespectful to you or anything, but you don't know me."

"But I do want to know you."

"Why?" This woman has an angle and I'm going to figure it out. People her age just don't go around trying to befriend people my age. It doesn't happen.

"Because I care." She smiles and it confuses me even more. This subject is best left to die.

"Look, I appreciate it but it doesn't really matter. To me," I put my hand on my chest. "You're just some woman who happens to be friends with my sister. If you really want to know, that doesn't give you points in my book."

"Melinda, I can't even imagine the kind of life you've had, and I really don't think you can imagine Sara's either. You really need to give her a chance."

I drop my gaze to the ground. I don't want to look at her anymore. "How many chances do you think a person should get before they run out?" I don't give her a chance to answer. "When I was five I wrote Sara asking her to take me away. I told her Mom and Dad were mean." Damn I will not cry. "I never heard anything from her. I even told her to mail her response to a friend's house so Mom or Dad couldn't throw it away. When I was seven, I wrote her and told her that I really wanted her to come home. I never heard anything. I don't know how many times I've tried to contact her and couldn't reach her. Do you know that the cards she sent me never had a return address on them? She's run out of chances with me, Friend of Sara."

My eyes are daring her to say something to me. I want to see her try and defend Sara's actions.

She turns away from me. "I should get going to work." Yeah it's best that she runs away. "Lindsey is upstairs avoiding me, and there's food in the fridge."

"Have a good night at work," I walk her to the door. "Be careful."

I think my words surprise her because she looks at me confused. She's probably not used to being around someone who can switch their emotions off and on so quickly. "It's amazing," she says.

"What?"

She shakes her head. "Nothing." She walks out the door and I lock it behind her. There's something I'm not quite grasping floating around here and it's starting to annoy me.

I make my way up the stairs and make a guess that Lindsey's room is the one that has pop music blaring from it. The door is closed so I knock loudly on it wanting to be heard over the music.

A muffled voice from inside yells at me to go away, but I completely ignore it. I open the door and see Lindsey sprawled out across her bed. "Did you say come in?" I ask with a smile.

"Melinda?" She lifts her head off the bed so that she can get a better look at me. "I thought you were Mom."

"Well I'm definitely not," I sit down on the bed next to Lindsey's head. "So what's up?"

"Mom said I was grounded for talking back to her." She's pouting.

"Well what were you talking back to her about?"

"She said Sara should be the one to tell you about them but I said I should do it because if we left it up to Sara she'd never say anything. It took her forever to even talk to me about it."

A million words run through my mind and I am able to grasp onto one. "What?"

Lindsey's eyes widen and she slams her hand over her mouth. "Uh oh."

I feel like I'm having one of those cartoon moments of a light bulb going off above my head. "No shit," I say to myself. "I am so blind."

"You can't tell them I told you," Lindsey says quickly, "because I really didn't tell you."

"It's okay," I chuckle a little. "You won't get in trouble, I promise. We can just let them assume I actually got a clue and figured it out myself."

"So you don't care?" Lindsey sits up in her bed. "Because I think it's kind of cool. Sara's always been one of the best adults I know."

Do I care? "I don't think it matters if I care or not. Sara's always been really good at having her own life separate from what I think."

"So you're not angry?"

"At you? No."

"How about Sara or Mom?"

"I'm not really angry at them either." Of course I'm angry at them. How many opportunities did Sara have to tell me that she was not straight? We've had breakfast a total of three times this past week alone, and most of that time spent was in silence. It's a lot like that commercial of that father and son eating cereal together and when the father's done he gets up and walks away and that ad comes up saying another missed opportunity to talk to your kids about drugs or something. I can't even believe I remember that commercial.

"Are you sure?"

I rub Lindsey's head. "Of course I'm sure. There's nothing for me to be angry about."

"Well Mom says that sometimes people can react badly to them being together. I've even seen it happen."

"They're happy right?" Sara gets the chance at happiness. That's what she left home for, right?

"I think so," Lindsey says hesitantly. "I mean they have been. They did fight a little before you came."

What the hell about? Who was going to actually get to keep me? How much neither of them wanted me around? "Why'd they fight?"

Lindsey shrugs. "I don't know. They never let me stay around for the fights."

Of course they didn't. That would be setting a bad example or some other nonsense like that. People always have to protect the young. It seems like Sara can actually grasp that concept when it doesn't pertain to me.

"Why don't we cook up some dinner?" I get off Lindsey's bed and walk over to the door. "I'm getting hungry." There's no point in me continuing this line of conversation with her. She probably doesn't know that much, and plus it really doesn't involve her. It kind of just includes my sister and me and her brilliant inability to communicate with me.

Within moments Lindsey is standing right next to me and looks ready to go downstairs and get food. I don't know what it is, but something about this kid actually makes me kind of like her. I still need to get paid for watching her, but maybe tonight won't be like a death sentence.


Chapter Seven

Lindsey really wanted me to sleep with her in her room, and I would have done it, if the kid didn't insist on asking ten thousand questions at the speed of light. I didn't even feed her any type of sugar at all. I think her normal mode of operation is just a smidge above hyperactive. I don't think I was ever that energetic as a kid. Of course, I had my reasons why I couldn't be.

The good thing is that once I got Lindsey to take a shower and into bed, she fell right asleep. Apparently making her stop for a few seconds is a good way of making her pass out. That's something I'm going to have to remember.

So now it's early in the morning, and I haven't slept at all. I'm laying on the couch in the living room flipping through early Sunday morning cartoons. I haven't watched cartoons in years, and I think they've actually gotten worse. Since when did everything turn into Extreme and Turbo?

It really is unfortunate, but I can't sleep. I've spent the entire night, sitting here and waiting to figure out exactly what it is I should say to Sara when I see her next. I've been bouncing between saying absolutely nothing and saying absolutely nothing. I'm not too sure how well that's worked out thus far, and Lindsey is bound to say something to one of them. Lindsey tends to talk a whole lot. Her mouth is far ahead of her brain a lot of times.

I hear the lock in the front door turning and quickly turn off the television and pretend to be asleep. There's no reason to let the adults know I've been up all night not being able to sleep. Catherine might be the type that would want to have a long conversation about what's been troubling my mind.

"Do you think they're asleep?" I hear Sara's voice ask softly.

"Probably," Catherine's responds. "They probably wore each other out."

"They do seem to get along."

"You seem surprised by that."

Sara must have made some sort of nonverbal response or spoke really softly because I hear Catherine's voice again. "You're jealous of Lindsey."

"When I see Melinda around other people she smiles. When she turns to me she's always angry."

Now that's not true. I'm not always angry when I turn to her, and I'm pretty sure that when I threw that pizza cheese on her face I was smiling.

"Sweetheart, she just doesn't know how to respond to you," Catherine offers.

Of course I know how to respond to her. Catherine doesn't know what she's talking about.

"Well I don't know how to respond to her either."

"It's amazing how alike you two are."

"Please don't say that," Sara pleads and I'm guessing because she can't imagine us being anything alike because she doesn't want to have anything to do with me. Not that I particularly think that we're anything alike either, but she doesn't have to feel the same way.

"Did you know she's in advanced math and science classes?" Catherine asks gently.

"Really?" Sara sounds surprised. She probably thought I was just a stupid jock.

"She was tutoring her basketball team yesterday."

Okay so that little voice in my head is starting to yell at me saying that this pretending thing of being asleep is wrong. It's probably even a little more wrong that they don't seem to even know I'm on the couch able to hear their entire conversation.

"I'm up," the words escape my mouth before I give my mouth full permission to say them. I sit up on the couch so that they can see me. "I would suggest you stop the private conversation thing."

"What are you doing up so early?" Catherine asks.

"I didn't ever go to sleep," I admit slowly.

"Why couldn't you sleep?" She then asks.

I run my hand through my disheveled hair. "I got a clue last night." I stand up from the couch and walk over to them both. I kind of get a kick out of the fact that I'm taller than both of them. "You are a couple, right?"

Sara turns away from me, but Catherine doesn't. "Yes we are. Do you have a problem with that?"

"Is that why Mom and Dad kicked you out of the house?" I ask Sara completely ignoring Catherine's question. I don't even know why she's still standing here looking ready for a fight. My fight has never been with her. I hardly even know her.

Sara lifts her head up to look at me, but quickly looks away again. "That was part of it."

"Yeah," I snort. "They hated queers."

"Melinda," Catherine tone is chastising. I'll just continue ignoring her.

"They told me I should hate your kind, gave me all kinds of reasons why."

"Melinda," Catherine tries again, but I'm already too far gone.

"They told me I better be happy that I wasn't of your flesh because then I had less of a chance of being a dyke just like you." Catherine tries to grab my arm but I step out of her reach. "I must be a stupid as they said I was, because I couldn't figure it out. I just thought that them saying you were queer was just another one of their lies they'd use to fuck with my head."

"Stop it." Sara finally raises her eyes and looks straight at me.

"I just want to know how much it is you did that made them want to completely mess me up. How much of what they did to me was actually payback to you?"

Sara keeps her eyes glued to mine. "I don't know."

"I didn't really think you would." I turn away from her and walk to the front door. I really need to get out of here. It just really hurts to be in Sara's presence.

"Melinda, stop walking away." Sara calls to my back.

My hand is on the doorknob. I turn to face her but keep my hand in place. "I'm just following the Sidle tradition." I swing open the door and quickly walk through it, closing it firmly behind me. I don't really know where I am and I don't have money on me, but I can't walk back inside either. It would mess up my big exit.

I choose a direction and decide to start running that way. I know that Sara or Catherine is bound to come after me, but I don't have to make finding me very easy. I've been an athlete for a long time; I can run for a while without stopping.

Back home when I couldn't stand being alone with the parents anymore, I'd go out jogging. I'd run around for hours. It didn't make me feel better at all. I always ended up at the same place I started. I returned, weaker, and more tired. I never came back stronger.

It's not my intent to really come back stronger this time either. I just want to get away. If I could, I'd run all the way out of this city, this state, this family, and I'd never look back. Unfortunately, the big government types say I can't safely do that until I'm eighteen.

Two years. That's a pretty good mantra. I have to hold out for two more years. After that, I don't have to deal with any of this ever again. I might even be able to come across as something other than a total bitch.

It's not like I don't see how I act or what I say to Sara. I see it. I see it and I don't know how to stop it. The worst part of that is that I sound like our parents.

This thought stops me right in my tracks. It's like a very cold shower. I promised myself that I'd never be anything like them. I promised myself that I wouldn't make people feel so bad. I never want to be like them.

They were angry bastards. I don't even understand why they were angry half the time. I could do everything perfectly and they'd still be angry. Nothing was good enough for them. Mom couldn't even leave me peace in her death. She had to add on the extra guilt of making me pull the plug.

I drop to my knees on the cement. I'm in the middle of some street. Maybe a car will come and run me over. That seems like kind of a good idea right now. I wouldn't have to worry about getting over my memories. I wouldn't have to worry about getting past everything that's happened to me. It would just stop.

Sara wouldn't even have to worry about telling me her secrets anymore. She could keep them to herself. Everything that happened between her and the parents could just stay with her. I wouldn't be around needing explanations. I don't think dead, I would really care about this whole abandonment issue I've got going on.

If reincarnation is real, I could come back to a better set of parents. I could have a life that didn't suck so much. Then again, I could always come back as the type of person who raised my parents. That's a really depressing thought.

Oh hey, there's a car coming. So if I don't survive getting hit, then I'm not going to have to deal with anything. If the car brakes then I'll get up and try and figure something out. There's nothing quite like leaving things up to fate.

My eyes are staring down the headlights and they're almost blinding me. Closing my eyes would make me a chicken. I'm staring this thing right down.

The car brakes well in front of me. They have enough room to speed up a little and brake before they even have a chance of hitting me. I probably should have chosen a busier street.

The driver's side door opens, but I don't look up to see who the driver is. It doesn't really matter. Fate's told me I've got to figure something out. I knew there was a reason I don't like the Fates or ancient Greek mythology for that matter.

"What the hell are you doing?"

Fate even saw fit that it would be Sara that saw me kneeling in the middle of the street. "I'm interested in street building," I laugh at the irony of my life and stand up. "What did it look like I was doing?"

"Do you think this is a joke?" Sara is standing right in front of me now. She looks upset. She even looks like she's crying or at least was crying.

My lack of sleep must be making me hallucinate. "Funny?" I shake my head. "Not really. I think it's an act of desperation."

Sara caresses my cheek with the palm of her hand. It seems like her body has deflated somehow. "I'm so sorry."

"You shouldn't be. You've been right about a lot of things. I was never your responsibility. They kicked you out of the house. I'm surprised they even allowed me to get your birthday and Christmas cards." I step away from her. "I should tell you I'm sorry. I haven't been fair to you."

Sara stares at me for a very long time. "I really think we need to talk."

Well those are doomsday words if I ever heard any. I nod and make my way to the vehicle that didn't run over me. I get in the passenger side and put on my seatbelt. Sara's in the car moments after me. She puts the car in drive and we're moving our way out of wherever it is I managed to run to.

We don't talk.


Chapter Eight

We end up sitting in silence in Sara's living room. She's sat me down on the couch and is sitting next to me. She's sitting a lot closer than she normally does. It kind of freaks me out.

This is so not going to be a good conversation.

"So Catherine tells me that you're into science?"

That's her lead question? This is going to be bad because Sara is pealing the tape off slowly instead of all at once. "I don't know if I'm really into science." I shrug. "I'm good at it."

"You seem to be good a lot of things."

The compliment rubs me the wrong way, and I'm not quite sure why. I guess it could be because I'm not sure if she means it or not. I'm used to backhanded compliments only. "Thanks."

"So have you thought of where you want to go to college?"

Oh Sara come on! "I'm willing to go to whoever wants to give me a full ride."

"You know if you need help with college, I'm more than willing to help out."

She should have definitely just run me over with her car. It would have been less painful. "I appreciate that." There's nothing quite like forced politeness.

"It's good that you're looking towards your future."

"Sara, I know you don't want to talk about my future right now. Please stop torturing me and start talking about whatever it is you said we needed to talk about," I say in a rush. I haven't gotten any sleep and I'm really tense. I don't have the energy to play games with big sister.

"Okay," Sara rubs her hands together. "Mom and Dad did kick me out because they found out I was gay."

"About that," I scratch my forehead. "I'm really sorry about what I said before. I think it's cool you've got happiness with someone. I don't care if you're gay or not."

Sara releases a quick smile, but her nervousness comes back really quickly. "Thank you, for saying that."

"A Sidle can only wish for a little bit of happiness, right?"

Sara gives a sardonic chuckle. "I guess."

"I don't really know why I talk to you like I do," I admit and it isn't an easy admission. "I get near you and I just get angry. I don't know how to talk to you."

"I don't know how to talk to you either."

"Hey," I give her a weak smile. "Then we have something else in common."

"Yeah," Sara says through a sigh. "You're a lot more like me than I thought you would be."

"What are the odds of that?" I give a crooked grin. "We don't even carry the same genes."

Sara takes a really deep breath and releases it really slowly. "We actually do."

I stop breathing. "I thought… I thought I was adopted."

Sara closes her eyes and drops her head. "Mom and Dad did adopt you when you were born."

My brain's trying to tell me something, but it definitely has to be wrong on this one. "So I'm a distant cousin?"

Sara opens her eyes, but still doesn't look at me. "You're my daughter."

I open my mouth to speak but my voice doesn't work. I clear my throat and swallow a few dozen times. "How?" My body's shaking but not nearly as much as my voice.

"I was raped when I was fifteen. I had you when I was sixteen."

Wow do I have a lot of questions about this. Now if I could only get my thoughts together enough to ask one of them.

"When you were born, I put you up for adoption. Mom and Dad decided it would be best they adopt you."

"You didn't agree?"

"No," Sara shakes her head. "I didn't agree. It was very difficult for me to be around you. It still is."

"Because I remind you of being raped?" I'm starting to feel sick.

"Yes," she whispers.

"Oh." I lick my lips. My mouth has gone really dry. "So uh… did they ever catch my um… the guy?"

Sara blinks rapidly a few times. "No."

"He must have been really tall." Please, don't let me have said that out loud. Now probably isn't the time to be asking details about my father, the father who happens to be a rapist.

"He was," Sara's voice cracks.

Okay so I did talk stupidly aloud again. "So let me see if I understand this." I clear my throat and run my hand through my hair. I also make an effort to move a bit away from Sara. "When you were fifteen," I say very slowly. "You were raped by a tall man. When you were sixteen, you had a kid resulting from that rape and it happens to have been me. Then your parents who happen to actually be my grandparents, adopted your unwanted child-again that child being me-and you didn't want them to because the child reminded you of being raped. So you eventually get kicked out of the house because you're gay, and leave me there with your parents. You run away and you make a life for yourself and only send your daughter-again your daughter being me-Christmas and birthday cards with money inside sans any real attachment."

"It's not…" Sara stumbles over her words. "It's not like that."

"It must have been really something for you when I called and told you that they were dead, because that meant you couldn't avoid me anymore. It kind of meant that you had to be a direct part of my life for the next two years."

"It's not like that." Sara says again, but stronger this time.

I drop my head in my hands. "I was really hoping that you being gay was the big secret; because I knew there was something terribly off within my universe. I was just too stupid to figure it out."

"Don't say that."

"Say what?"

"Don't say that you're stupid. You're not stupid."

I have officially reached my `I can't take it any longer' point. This is information that definitely needs to be thoroughly digested. I can't even make myself have a reaction to this news right now. It seems too unreal to actually be real.

"I have to go," I stand up from the couch unsure of where exactly I can go to.

Sara stands up with me. "Where are you going?"

I take a quick look around and even spin in a complete circle. "I'm going to go to my room." I point in its general direction. "I'm going to go in there and lock the door and probably go to sleep on the bed."

Sara looks almost as shocked as I am. "You're not going to hurt yourself are you?"

"I don't think so, no."

"Okay," Sara nods. "Take all the time you need."

"Thanks." I don't know why but I pat her on the shoulder before I walk away. It's not a buddy type pat, just more of a way for me to figure out that she's a real person. It's good to know that I'm not hallucinating, I think.

When I get to my temporary room, I do exactly as I said I would. I lock the door and go straight to the bed. I lay down and my brain starts running through the conversation I just had with my sister, who happens to not so much be my sister.

Sara is my birth parent and I'm her unwanted offspring. I don't think I really wanted to know this. This isn't something I think is going to help me out any. I mean, my father is a rapist. My mother really didn't want me, and my grandparents took me because I guess in some way they thought that was the right thing to do.

It's completely ironic that I never desired to know who my birth parents were. I always assumed they were young parents who couldn't handle having a child. I figured they went on with their lives and were happy.

Sure sometimes I wondered what they looked like. Sometimes I wondered if they were smart or average. I wondered if they had other kids.

I never wanted to find them, though. I never wanted to have to deal with them telling me that I was unwanted. I would have rather dreamed up perfect parents to counteract my unfit ones.

So my parents, they were actually flesh and blood. They were my grandparents and maybe they hated me because I reminded them so much of their daughter.

It's moments like this that I really believe in abortion. My life would have been so much simpler if I had just never been born.


Chapter Nine

I don't know how, but I actually managed to fall asleep. An insistent knocking on the door wakes me up. I try to believe that everything that I know happened really didn't happen, but I can't delude myself like that. I've never had that good of an imagination. I've always been too technical, have always had too much of a scientific brain. I probably understood the Scientific Method before I could even speak.

I swing my legs off the bed and make an effort to stand up. My body aches. I feel like I've just come out of an intense three hour workout. There's no reason why I should be this sore, but then again there's no reason why any of this should be happening.

Eventually I make my way over to the door and unlock it. I swing it open and am only mildly surprised to see Catherine standing across from me. I expected her to show up eventually. She's probably going to yell at me for something. She yells at me a lot and seems to really like telling me what to do.

I turn away from her and lay back down on the bed. If she's going to start nagging at me then I'm going to get comfortable first.

Catherine walks into the room and shuts the door softly behind her. She comes and sits next to me on the bed. "So how are you doing?"

"Did you know?" I ask. "Did you know that she was my mother?"

"Yes. I knew."

That's not really surprising. Catherine probably knows everything about Sara. She certainly knows more about my own mother than I do. I just found out a couple of hours ago that Sara was even my mother.

"Do you think she should have told me?"

"That's a really hard question to answer."

"It is. I can't even answer it."

"So how are you doing?" Catherine asks me again. "Sara said you've been locked up in this room for six hours."

"Six hours?" I lift my head and look around for the nearest clock. I'm really surprised I was able to sleep for that long.

"That's a long time to be alone." Catherine replies.

I shrug. "I was sleeping."

"You actually fell asleep?" She seems surprised. I guess people in her world don't sleep.

"That's what I said I was going to do."

"Okay. So how are you doing?"

She's really not going to let this question go is she? "I don't know." I say honestly.

"Well what do you think about what Sara told you?"

"Did Sara send you in here?" I slide away from her.

"She's worried about you."

That's certainly something new. "If Sara wants to know how I'm doing, she can talk to me herself." I turn my back on Catherine hoping she gets my message and goes away.

"If that's what you want." I feel the bed shift and hear the door opening. I think Catherine may actually be going to get Sara. I'm not ready to talk to Sara yet. I'm not really ready to talk to anyone yet. I'd rather just be left alone. I feel like I could fall asleep for another six hours.

I hear someone at the doorway and when I turn around Sara is standing in there looking no more ready to talk than I am. Catherine is standing behind her. This time I manage to not be surprised by Sara's lurking behavior. I sit up on the bed and Sara comes fully into the room. She takes a seat at the computer chair across from me. Catherine doesn't move.

"Are you going to play moderator?" I ask Catherine. I'm still not sure why she's even here, although I logically know why she's here. This doesn't really involve her. Well unless of course there's another big secret about how Catherine is my uncle or something.

"I want to make sure things don't get too out of hand." She replies.

"I'm not going to attack her or anything." I say defensively. "I haven't quite managed to get that trait from my parents yet."

I see Sara flinch in the corner of my eye. I wasn't talking about her. I was actually talking about the people who raised me… but I don't think that would make things better for her.

"Words can hurt just as badly as fists." Catherine spares a quick look towards Sara, but for the most part her attention is on me.

Who is this woman? She sounds like an after-school special. Worse yet, she sounds like a parent, a parent that actually gives a damn and wants to be involved and want to limit my freedom. "So when did you decide you wanted to be my new mom?"

I think the question throws her off. It's not something I even expected to say, but it's not really something I can avoid asking about forever. Catherine has been giving me the parental treatment basically ever since I've met her. She's actually acted more like a mom than the woman who raised me ever acted.

"I'm not trying to be your mom, Melinda." Catherine steps into the room and takes a seat on the bed. I guess she has decided to be a part of this conversation. "I'm trying to show you that I care."

Again with the caring business. That line is starting to get old. But hey, if she thinks it's working for her then who am I to tell her otherwise? She can play that same line all night long if she really wants to.

"So how are you doing?" Sara seems to still have the ability to speak.

"I feel like I'm a really big worthless unwanted stain in this world." I'm not going to lie about anything. There's no point in it really. Sara knows that I tried to get run over by a car, despite how pathetic the attempt truly was. I'm sure she's realized that I'm definitely not okay.

"Mel, you're not a stain," Sara says strongly. "You're a really good kid, and you're not worthless."

Kid? Lindsey's a kid. I'm not a kid. "Sara, you didn't want me. Mom and Dad didn't want me. I'm pretty sure that my biological father doesn't want me. I can't even figure out why you decided to have me."

"I had you because I couldn't kill the life inside me. I knew it would turn out to be a very special person." Sara reaches out for me and takes my hand. She's shaking. "I wanted you to have a good life that didn't involve a messed up parent."

"But I got stuck with your parents."

"I couldn't do anything about that, and I think a part of me really wanted you to be a part of my life."

"You just didn't want me to be your daughter." I try to not sound mean, but I can't really help it. It hurts when your mother tells you she didn't want you.

Sara squeezes my hand. "I couldn't be your mother."

"Melinda, she was sixteen," Catherine says gently from beside me.

"I know you probably can't understand that," Sara moves from the chair so that she is sitting next to me.

I probably understand more about making hard decisions at the age of sixteen than she realizes. I've been making hard decisions ever since I was left alone with my grandparents. I've been put in a position of hard decisions for a while now.

As long as we're being honest with each other, "Do you want to know what happened to your parents?" I ask. "Do you want to know the full story? I don't think you've heard it yet."

Sara gives me an odd look but nods like she doesn't know how to do anything else. I bet that if she opened her mouth she'd tell me to keep the story to myself.

"You know about the accident. I won't talk about that, but you don't know about the hospital." I pull my hand from hers. I don't feel like human contact right now. "When Dad got to the hospital he died almost immediately, but they were able to stabilize Mom. It took them about a day to figure out that she was brain dead. They told me I had to make a decision about whether I wanted to keep her on life support. They gave me all this stuff to read that was supposed to help me with my decision. They had all these statistics on the probability that Mom would wake up and be a person. I read the information and then I signed the papers for them to take her off life support."

I hear Catherine gasp, but keep my eyes focused on Sara. She looks like I've just punched her in the stomach. "I had to make the decision to kill who I thought was my Mom, because you couldn't handle being around me. I get shipped off to this new place and I see that you have a pretty good life. I don't think we had any kind of fair tradeoff."

Tears start to fall from Sara's eyes. I can't stand looking at them so I look to the floor. "I'm really sorry that things turned out like they did," she says. "I'm sorry."

There are a couple of things I thought that I'd never do in this life. One of them was accepting an apology from Sara, but life changes rapidly and what I expect seems to change with it. I've been angry at Sara for a really long time. I think I may actually have good reason to be angry too, but I think that anger just might be killing me a little bit.

"I accept your apology." I try something really new to me. I open up my arms and wrap them around Sara. It's not a very comfortable hug, but it's a start. It's the very best I think either of us can do at the moment.

I don't know how long Catherine and Sara stay in my room. It's longer than any of us thought it would actually be. Somehow, we've all started crying and it has started to feel way too much like a deep heart-to-heart for me. I'm not used to exposing myself this much in one sitting.

"So what are we going to do next?" I venture to ask.

"Well we're definitely going to start getting you help. We can't have you getting in the way of cars intentionally." Catherine says as she wipes the tears from her eyes.

"So you know about that?" I ask Catherine but am looking at Sara.

"Of course I know." Catherine brushes some of my hair out of my face. "I know everything."

Her comment really isn't that funny, but I laugh anyway. I kind of feel the need to laugh.

"We'll go somewhere together," Sara adds.

Family therapy? I guess that could work.

"And we'll take things one day at a time." Catherine places her hand on my thigh.

"Sounds like you both have a game plan," I look suspiciously at both of them. "I'm guessing you've talked about this before."

"We have." They both reply.

Team work, I do understand how important that is.

"So what should I call you now?" I ask Sara tentatively.

"What do you want to call me?"

"I'm not sure," I may need some time to think about this. "You're not really my sister and I don't think either one of us is ready for the big `M' word. Why don't I just call you Legal Guardian Sara?"

Sara smiles, "I think that will work."

I don't know if I'll ever be able to call her Mom. Right now it certainly doesn't feel right. We've got a lot still to talk about and even more to work out, but maybe this family thing won't turn out to be so bad. If it is, I can still hold onto the fact that I've only got two more years left before I can legally run away.


Chapter Ten

"Nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen," I say under my breath. "Fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen." The basketball I'm throwing in the air veers off its path causing me to reach out and catch it. I'm lying on this bench in the middle of this park throwing a basketball in the air seeing how many times I can keep it spinning in the air with just a small slap of my hand. It's not the most exciting thing I've ever done, but it's a mindless enough task.

If I tried doing something that required actual thought, I'd probably knock myself out. Tomorrow night two college recruits are supposed to come to my final home game. One's from the University of Tennessee and the other is from Stanford University. They said they were hearing a lot of good things about me and were willing to make a verbal commitment. Neither of them has said anything about scholarships yet, but they're going to have to.

Sara did offer to help me with college, but I don't know how I feel about taking that much money from her. I still don't know how much I can rely on her. Sure, we've kind of been getting along and all, but we're not exactly best friends or anything. The only time we talk is in therapy, and I'm not too sure how much that's really helping us. I don't expect any miracles, but I do expect something from it. I don't know what 'it' is exactly, but I'm expecting it.

I take a deep breath and throw the ball back up in the air. A pair of hands reaches out and catches the ball before gravity has a chance to work and it starts dropping back to me. "You look like you're thinking way too hard."

It's Catherine. I'm surprised she even knows I'm over here. Sara and she were supposed to be cooking up the two tofu burgers and two beef burgers for our lunch. The only reason I even agreed to come to this 'family picnic' was because I was promised food.

"So what are you thinking about?" Catherine leans over the bench and hands me back the basketball. I take it from her and sit up on the bench cuddling the ball to my chest. I have a couple of options here, I can blow Catherine off and not tell her anything or I can try this communication thing that the psychologist of mine says I need to work on.

"It's hard not to be thinking. I've got my biggest goal within reach and I don't want to screw it up."

"You're talking about the recruits coming," Catherine makes her way around the bench and sits down next to me.

"Yeah," I sigh. "This is my chance."

"Mel, you've got nothing to worry about. Those recruits are practically drooling all over themselves when they look at you. Sara's having to beat them off with a bat, and you're only a sophomore. You've got another two years left after this one."

Well, I guess that's one way to look at if it were true. "I just have two years left. I'll graduate next year."

I'm not sure how Catherine didn't figure it out before. I've actually got enough credits to graduate this year, but I don't want to enter college at the age of sixteen. That sounds like a bad idea to me and I don't even know if I'd be allowed to play on the college team then.

"You're graduating early?" Catherine seems sort of surprised by this news. "Does Sara know?"

I stand up from the bench and look away from Catherine. "I don't think so."

"Melinda you have to start talking to her," Catherine chastises me, something she tends to do more than I like. I wonder if she does it to Sara too. "She wants to share in your successes."

"Yeah," I bounce the ball a few times. "Sara still looks at me weird sometimes. We're still not comfortable with each other." I wipe my forehead with the back of my arm. "She still sees him in me."

"Did she tell you this?" Catherine asks gently. If she's good with one thing she's good at asking questions.

"Yeah, she told me so in therapy," I drop the ball to the ground and make no attempt to pick it up. "It's hard for her. I get that." I actually do get that. I've tried to imagine a thousand and plus times what I would have done if I had been in Sara's position, and I think I've come up with a thousand plus different answers.

I heard this guy talking once, he was a baby that was put up for adoption, kind of like me I guess, and he said that he imagined what it must have been like for mothers back in the day when abortion wasn't legal and he's glad it's an option now. He says abortion is a good thing as long as the fetus wasn't him. That's something I really understand now.

"Food's up!" Sara calls from the picnic table they had managed to get for the day.

I pick up the ball and run to the table. My conversation with Catherine is pretty much over in my mind.

When I reach the table, Lindsey and Sara are waiting. I take a seat next to Lindsey and immediately reach out for the food but my hand is captured before I make contact. "Wash your hands," Sara tells me.

I pull my hand back and take a good look at it. It's covered in dirt from bouncing the ball around on the pavement. "My hands are fine."

Sara shakes her head and mentions a type of bacteria that can most likely be found on my hand at the moment. I think the mere suggestion of it is absurd. She should know that the temperature isn't right for those particular bacteria to thrive at the moment, and I make sure to tell her this. Sara mentions another bacteria which I also immediately find fault with.

I'm mostly concentrating on the debate I'm having with Sara, but I hear Lindsey ask Catherine what Sara and I are talking about. Catherine just tells the kid to eat her lunch, which is something I'd really like to be doing at the moment instead of debating the finer points of bacteria strands.

Since I am so hungry, I get up and wash my hands with this anti-bacteria stuff Catherine brought with us. I concede the argument only because I feel like my body is going to start eating itself any moment now. If food wasn't involved in this, I would have kept the conversation up with Sara until she said she was wrong.

When we finish eating, I take Lindsey out to the park's basketball court insisting that it's time the girl learns how to play. She can't possibly expect to hang around me and not know how to play the sport. Lindsey talks Sara into joining us so now the three of us are standing on the court and I'm doing my best to coach them. Unfortunately, these two don't have much potential.

"Throwing the ball from between your legs isn't the best way to shoot," I calmly explain to Lindsey who is looking up at me with a fixed expression of boredom on her face. "It lowers your accuracy and it makes it a lot easier on your defender."

Lindsey is shifting from one foot to the other, being kind enough to at least half listen to me. "But the ball goes in more when I do that."

I drop my chin to my chest and release a long sigh. This is beginning to seem a little pointless. "Are there any sports you like playing?"

"I like soccer," Lindsey says happily. I think she sees an opportunity for getting out of playing basketball.

"Soccer huh?" I lift my head. It's not one of my favorites but, "I can do soccer." I drop the basketball to the ground and start kicking it around like it's a soccer ball. I'd say my handling technique is excellent.

I kick the ball so that I'm no longer on the pavement. Soccer is meant to be played on grass. Lindsey follows and starts kicking at the ball trying to steal it from me. She misses a few times and kicks me real hard in the shin reminding me why I decided to not play on a soccer team in the first place.

I let it take a few tries, but eventually let Lindsey steal the ball from me. She's running around happy she's got one up on me and I'm letting her have her moment. My attention turns to Catherine and Sara who are talking quite intimately.

Sometimes I wish I could be a little bug flying in the air hovering around them when they have these conversations, because they always seem to be talking about me. I'm probably the only thing they talk about these days. I don't know what either of them says and maybe I don't want to know. It can't be all good if their conversations always happen without me next to them.

Oh well. I guess I could always ask them what they were talking about later, or I could decide that they deserve their privacy and keep my mind focused on something else. I can stop letting it matter to me what Sara is thinking about me or saying about me. I can decide that it doesn't really matter and that I don't really care.

Continued…