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“No, Nataniele, you don’t understand!” Nora shoves against my chest, causing me to take a step back. “You have no idea what she’s going through, and I’m not going to put any more stress on her right now! You and I can talk later. Maybe she’ll talk to you at some point, but not now.”
“She has to talk to me!” I shove past Nora and head toward the car. Cherry is inside, covering her face with her hands. “Cherry! We have to talk! We were wrong, Cherry! Everyone was lying to us both!”
Cherry stares out the car window, mouth agape, red-eyed, and wiping her nose with a tissue.
“Nate, what the hell has gotten into you?” Nora stomps up and tries to put herself between me and the car door.
“We didn’t know everything!” I shove Nora away and grab for the car door but only manage to open it a little before Nora is pushing me away again.
“Don’t make me punch you, brother! You know I will!”
“You’re wrong!” I yell at her
as I try to find the right words. I lean around Nora, addressing Cherry. “Kate’s explained it all! We are not siblings, Cherry! We’re not!”
“What?” Nora grabs my arm, digging her nails into my flesh. “What are you talking about? She’s not an Orso?”
The car door opens the rest of the way, and Cherry steps out onto the concrete.
“I can’t handle any more, Nate,” she says softly. “I just can’t. Please, just let us go. I…I have to be somewhere.”
“It’s not what we thought,” I tell her. I have to get my thoughts together and explain myself before they both just take off on me. I don’t know where they might be going, and I don’t care. She has to listen to me. “Please, Cherry—just listen for a minute. We’ve been lied to—you and me both—and we had it all wrong. Kate admitted everything to me. You are an Orso, yes. That part was true. The thing is…well, I’m not.”
“You’re not what?” Nora narrows her eyes.
“I’m not an Orso,” I say, still addressing Cherry and ignoring Nora. “You aren’t the Ramsay. I’m the Ramsay. We are not siblings, Cherry. I swear it.”
“Kate?” Nora whispers.
“Yeah, she told me everything about the treaty, including Cherry and I being switched right after we were born. We were a part of their fucking treaty terms! She is Carlo and Rosa Orso’s daughter, and I’m the son of Roland and Leanne. I’m a Ramsay.”
Cherry suddenly drops to the ground.
Nora cries out, and I barely make it to Cherry in time to stop her head from hitting the pavement.
“She fainted, didn’t she?” Nora says.
“I think so.”
“Get her feet up. It helps get blood circulating.”
“Okay.”
Cherry is only out for a minute, but by that time, her neighbor is already outside with a bottle of Gatorade in her hands.
“Sit her up and give her this,” the woman says in one of those teacher-like voices you simply don’t argue with.
I tip a bit of the drink into Cherry’s mouth, but she doesn’t make eye contact with me. Instead, she looks at Nora.
“You have to call Twos.”
“I will,” Nora says quietly. “Don’t even think about it.”
“Where is Twos?” I ask but get no reply.
We get Cherry into the apartment and onto the couch, and her neighbor—Jessie, I finally remember—forces half the bottle of lime-green liquid down her throat.
“You gotta be careful in your condition, hunny,” she says as she clicks her tongue.
