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Emma turned. Mr. Mercer sat in the office off the foyer, tapping away on a netbook. There was a Bluetooth earpiece in his ear. “Uh, out for a walk,” Emma said.
Mr. Mercer peered at Emma over his glasses. “It’s after nine. I don’t like you wandering around outside alone in the dark.”
The corners of Emma’s mouth jerked into a smile. Foster parents never cared when she came and went. They never worried about her safety. Even Becky let Emma walk around at night—if they were staying in a motel, she sent little Emma out to the vending machines to get her Mountain Dew and goldfish crackers.
Then again, he wasn’t worried about Emma’s safety. He was worried about his daughter, Sutton. Emma couldn’t bear to meet his eyes, knowing that his daughter was far from safe, and it might all be due to his other daughter. Emma had to get the hell out of there. She spied Sutton’s tennis racket leaning against the hall closet and grabbed it. “I need to practice my serve.”
“Fine.” Mr. Mercer turned back to the computer screen. “But I want you back home in an hour. We still need to discuss the ground rules for your party.”
“Okay,” Emma called out. She slammed the door and jogged down the center of the street. Everyone had dragged their large green trash cans to the curb, and the air smelled like rotting vegetables and dirty diapers. The farther she got from Sutton’s house, the better—safer— she felt. She stopped at the park, noticing the faintest outline of a familiar figure lying in an X on the tennis courts. Her heart lifted.
“Ethan?” Emma called out. Ethan shot up at the sound of his name. “It’s Sutton!”
“Fancy meeting you here.” It was too dark to see Ethan’s face, but Emma detected happiness in his voice. She suddenly felt happier, too.
“Can I join you?” she asked.
“Sure.”
She opened the chain-link gate without jamming quarters into the meter to turn on the lights. The door slammed shut with a bang. She felt Ethan’s gaze on her as she walked to the net and lay down next to him. The court was still warm from the heat of the day and smelled faintly of baked asphalt and spilled Gatorade. The stars above glinted like bits of quartz in a sidewalk. The Mom, Dad, and Emma stars pulsed just below the moon. It was frustrating that even after so much had changed, the stars were in exactly the same place they’d always been, laughing at Emma’s futile struggles on earth.
Tears welled in Emma’s eyes. Futile struggles was right. All the fantasies she’d concocted in her mind on the bus ride here. All the fun she thought she and Sutton would have as sisters.
“You okay, Sylvia Plath?” Ethan teased.
The air had grown colder, and Emma pulled her arms closely into her sides for warmth. “Not really.”
“What’s up?”
Emma ran her tongue over her teeth. “God, whenever I see you I’m a complete mental case.”
“It’s cool. I don’t mind mental cases.”
But Emma shook her head. She couldn’t tell him what was really going on, no matter how much she wanted to. “It’s my birthday tomorrow,” she said instead. “I’m having a party.”
“Really?” Ethan propped himself up on one hand. “Well, happy birthday.”
“Thanks.” Emma smiled in the darkness.
She tracked a slow-moving jet as it sliced across the night sky. In some ways, this would probably be the best birthday she’d ever had. Most of Emma’s birthdays had been nonevents—she’d spent her sixteenth in the social worker’s office waiting to get reassigned to a new foster home, and she’d spent her eleventh as a runaway with the kids at the campsite. The only real birthday celebration she’d had was when Becky had taken her to a Renaissance fair near where they lived. Emma had ridden Ye Olde Donkey in a slow circle, eaten a giant turkey leg, and made a construction-paper coat of arms in neon green and turquoise, her favorite colors at the time. On their way to the parking lot at the end of the day, Emma had asked if they could do this for her birthday again the next year. But by her next birthday, Becky was gone.
Emma stared at the sky. A cloud passed over the moon, obscuring it for a moment. “Will you come?”
“To what?”
“To my party. I mean, if you’re not busy. And if you want to.” Emma bit her thumbnail. Her heart kicked in her chest. Asking him suddenly felt like a big deal.
The moon illuminated Ethan’s angular profile. Emma waited patiently for him to decide. If he says no, don’t get upset, she told herself. Don’t take it personally.
“Okay,” Ethan said.
Emma’s stomach swooped. “Really?”
“Yeah. Sure. I’ll come.”
“Great!” Emma grinned. “You’ll be the only normal person there.”
“I don’t know about that.” By the way he said it, Emma could tell Ethan was smiling. “I don’t think any of us are normal, do you? I think we all have crazy secrets.”
“Oh yeah? What’s yours?”
Ethan paused a moment. “I have a huge crush on Frau Fenstermacher.”
Emma snickered. “That’s totally understandable. She’s so sexy.”
“Yeah. I’m super-hot for her.”
“Well, good luck with that,” Emma said. “I hope you two lovebirds find true happiness.”
“Thanks.” Ethan shifted positions to lie back down, and his hand bumped hers. Emma stared at their two hands together, the fingers just touching. After a moment, Ethan curled his pointer finger around hers and squeezed once before pulling away.
