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“What?” I asked, foggy from having been asleep for only a couple of hours. I’d read long past bedtime.
“I’m going to get you a suitcase. You need to put your special clothes and toys into it and get ready to go. We’re leaving.”
“Where are we going?” I asked, yawning.
“To California,” Mom said.
“Why?” I asked. I remember not really feeling alarmed, just curious.
“There are people looking for us,” Mom said. “We have to leave this house and this town so they don’t find us. And we need to start playing a game—we’re going to start pretending that you and your sisters are just one person. Doesn’t that sound fun?”
“Okay,” I said, not really thinking it sounded fun. But I was a good girl, one who basically accepted things and went with what Mom said. I packed, as did the others, and we left in the middle of the night without ninety percent of our belongings. I’m still not sure what happened to most of it.
Until then, I’d thought I was a triplet.
Little by little, it all came out after that.
And now, little by little, I’m starting to wish I could send it back to wherever it came from.
five
The next day, when I pull into the student lot halfway through lunchtime, I have to circle around three times to find a spot. Ella’s crush David—Dave, as she calls him—is parking three spaces down. He gets out of a silver Lexus, which I hope is one of his parents’, and jogs over, carrying a bulging fast food bag that looks like it might explode.
“Hungry?” I say, nodding to the sack. He laughs loudly.
“Ha ha,” he says, in case I didn’t hear him actually laughing. “It’s not all for me. It was my turn to pick up lunch for the debate team.”
Of course he’s on the debate team.
“Cool,” I say, pretending for Ella’s sake that I care.
I look at David in the reflection on the outside of the building as we approach, wondering what on earth Ella sees in him. I mean, okay, he’s nice-looking enough in a straitlaced sort of way. His hair is blondish brown and combed. His eyes are a standard-issue blue that some people might find welcoming. His shoulders are broad. He’s athletic. But somehow, I just don’t see him the way Ella does. David is that guy who’ll play professional football and then own his own car dealership, or become mayor or something. He’s not me. My preference is more…
“Sean!” I shout when he bursts through the doors, three guys trailing behind him. He smiles, and I try not to blush my face off for shouting his name like a groupie.
“What’s up, Elizabeth?” His tone is casual, but I can tell that he’s happy to see me, too. He stops walking and one of his friends almost runs into him.
“Dude,” the friend says.
“You’re the one tailgating,” Sean says to him, laughing, but his eyes stay on me. But then Sean notices David. And his supersized lunch sack. And my very Lizzie-style ensemble that Ella and Betsey let me choose last night. And finally, my lack of a lunch sack.
Sean’s expression clouds over and I can practically read his mind: He thinks that after I said no to him, I went all blowout fabulous to go to lunch with…
David.
Flipping.
Chancellor.
In protest, I step my turquoise boots a foot away from David. It’s almost a jump, really. Both boys look at me, confused. Then Sean’s eyes narrow a little.
“Guess I’ll see you later,” he says to me. And then he and his friends are gone.
“What’s with him?” David steps in front of me and opens the door just like Sean did the first day I met him, but the gesture seems too obvious this time.
“I don’t know,” I say, passing through. “Thanks.”
Once we’re inside, David looks like he’s going to say something else, but I cut him off. “Well, have a good lunch.”
