The slideshow continues. One image after another, year by year, flashing in front of everyone. My childhood, splayed out for all to see. The gym is dead silent. Everyone’s attention is riveted to the screen. Even Sofia and the teachers have lost some of their urgency as they reprimand a smug-faced Zed.
“She was born Gabrielle Thorn,” he narrates in a grave voice, and the next photo dissolves into one of a birth certificate.
Mine.
The long view of it flips into a close-up. The nameGabrielleThorn.
“And then,” Zed says, “when she was seven years old…” Another dramatic pause. “She ceased to exist.”
The next photo is me at the age of seven. The screen freezes again, and I stare at my second-grade self. I’m missing my two front teeth.
My eyes flit desperately to the side, looking for an escape, but every exit feels miles away. The gym doors, the windows,the people—none of it matters. I can’t focus on anything except Zed’s voice.
“But people don’t just disappear, do they? No, they reinvent themselves.”
Seven-year-old Gabrielle fades into another photograph. A candid shot of an auburn-haired girl in jeans and combat boots.
Me.
I swallow, trying to force down the panic, but it keeps thickening and growing and twisting like vines around my throat, threatening to choke me. I snap my gaze toward the doors. I need to leave. I need to disappear.
But the moment I start to move, Jasmine grabs my hand, yanking me back.
“Ryan?” she says, staring at me, then the screen. “What’s going on?”
The slideshow has one more image. One last nail in the proverbial coffin. The photo once again dissolves into a document. The name-change paperwork my grandmother filed for me.
It zooms in on my old name.Gabrielle Thorn.
Then it zooms in on the new one.
Ryan Mayfair.
The world begins to spin, everything blurry except for my name on the screen. And then the lights abruptly turn on, the projector going blank. Gasps and whispers explode throughout the gym. Faces turn toward me as people start piecing it together.
My secret isn’t a secret anymore.
I can’t breathe. I feel sweat prickling at the back of my neck. My heart pounds so loudly it’s now drowning out everything else.
Before I can flee, the man of the hour steps onto the stage, holding a microphone and sporting a broad smile.
“Hey, Ryan,” Zed calls, grinning when he picks me out of the crowd. “Or do you prefer Gabrielle?”
I stumble back, words failing me. All I can see is the stunned faces of my cousins, my classmates. Everett. The people I tried so hard to keep in the dark. In the instant before the full weight hits them and the shock registers on their faces, I feel everything inside me breaking apart.
There is no coming back from this.
Their expressions change. Morphing into horror, disgust, anger. I glance from Connor to Jasmine, wishing I could be anywhere else. A torture chamber would be preferable to this. I’m not sure I’ll leave this gym alive.
Jasmine’s features twist in betrayal. “You lied to us! All this time, you were…you’re…Uncle Psycho is yourfather?”
Connor isn’t as quick to accuse, but his suspicious eyes aren’t comforting. “Is that true, Ryan?”
“Of course it’s true,” Zed barks into the microphone. “I know y’all look down on me, think I’m some kind of hack, butFree the Sparrowsdoesn’t do half-ass investigations. Ryan Mayfair is Ryan Shipley. There is no father in Europe. She was living with Annette Mayfair in Allentown, Pennsylvania, until Annette passed away. Annette,” he says arrogantly, “who also happens to be the mother of Maggie Shipley and Sarah Thorn.”
I tune out Zed’s grating voice and implore my cousins with my eyes. “I’m so sorry.” My voice is small, breaking under the weight of their disbelief. “Your parents made me promise not to tell you. They thought that if you knew—”
Before I can finish, someone slaps me. Hard.
