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Blue eyes.
We covered the basics of genetics in biology back when I was a sophomore, but now I’m taking Anatomy, Physiology and Biomechanics, a college-level course for students considering a career in medicine. It’s my first class of the day and it’s intense, but this morning’s topic of discussion sent me into a tailspin that I haven’t come out of just yet.
It’s virtually impossible.
Mr. Rogers teaches the class, but he’s nothing like the tennis sneaker, cardigan-wearing softy that Tom Hanks played in that movie. No, my Mr. Rogers is a grouchy, pissed-off loser who didn’t make it through med school at Johns Hopkins. Hence, he’s had to settle for teaching snotty, precocious high school students who park their sweet rides alongside his spruce green mid-level sedan every morning. He’s got the look of a man who believes the world owed him something but didn’t deliver.
We were doing a lesson on inherited traits, and he let out with a loud, bored sigh when I asked for clarification. I know about recessive and dominant traits, but he was getting into more advanced stuff: monohybrid versus dihybrid crosses, gametes and alleles. On a normal day I’d do my best to follow along and then read up on anything that wasn’t crystal clear after class, but today I was stuck, and Rogers was none too happy when I raised my hand for the third time.
“Whatexactlyis it that you don’t understand, Miss Hamilton?”
“It’s just that blue eyes can come from two brown-eyed parents, so why can’t two blue-eyed parents produce a child with brown eyes?”
“I said it’s possible butincrediblyrare.As we discussedalready, it would require a damaged HERC2 gene.”He turned back to his laptop, dismissing me. “It’s virtually impossible.”
Watching my mother twist her hair into a sleek knot, I swallow back the emotion. I don’t look anything like my blonde, blue-eyed swan of a mother. She is lean and graceful, nearly matching my father’s six-foot frame when she’s wearing heels. My father’s hair is dark like mine—I check that off in my favor—but there is nothing else. I measure in at five-foot-three on a good day and I’m curvy. Eyes, lips, skin tone, even mannerisms—I don’t laugh, talk or move like either one of them.
I have a foggy memory of the wordschosenandspecialbeing used to describe me when I was very little, but when I’ve asked about it in more recent years, I’ve been diverted with a hug, a kiss and a topic change.
It’s a feeling you have, one that’s hard to explain. I’m always studying the people around me, half-listening, never one hundred percent engaged. I am an outsider, even when I’m surrounded by family and friends. If I saw a therapist like a solid fifty percent of my classmates do, he or she would tell me that this limbo I find myself in is perfectly normal for my age. The struggle for a sense of identity is real. I know this. But this disconnect I feel, day in and day out, is different. I try and talk myself out of it, tell myself I’m no different from every psychosocially messed up adolescent I know.You’re not special, I tell myself, even though I know that I am.
Iamdifferent, but not in some extraordinary, plucky, offbeat kind of way. No, I feel peculiar and abnormal, like an alien trying to fit in amid earthlings.
Chapter Two
I want out.
My friends are all wasted, Tatiana’s house is packed wall to wall, and the smell of acrid smoke is turning my stomach.
Cigars are heavy and sweet to my senses. Weed is earthy and rich. But cigarettes just stink—there’s nothing redeeming about that stale, toxic stench.
Parker has taken to smoking since spending his spring break in France, poser that he is. And yep, I see that he’s got a loose hold on one as he sips from a tumbler of whiskey. I laugh to myself when I see the filter—at least he’s not smokingGauloises.
I came here against my better judgement, knowing I was in no state to fake it tonight. But my mother already knew about the party, thanks to Parker, and I just didn’t want to get into it with her. They looked happy, and me feigning a headache as an excuse to stay home would maybe not have wrecked my parents’ night, but definitely put a damper on it. I suck down the last of my drink, knowing that Audrey—my mother has taken to correcting my friends when they call her Mrs. Hamilton—would have been disappointed for sure.
My mother doesn’t get me, doesn’t understand why I’m not spinning in circles and basically thrilled twenty-four-seven. After all, I date the one of the most popular guys in my school, I have a tight group of friends who hail from the best families in our town, and I have every luxury money can buy. That’s how she views my life, as some idyllic mix ofHigh School Musicalinnocence andGossip Girl-level excitement. She doesn’t know what it takes for me to simply exist in this place. I am a misfit who somehow gives off the impression of fitting in. I spend most of my time second guessing myself and looking over my shoulder. I am uncomfortable at parties, in the hallways of school, and lately there are times when I feel out of place at my own dinner table.
Parker has taken control of the music, and I can’t help but smirk whenUsed to Love Hercranks out from the speakers so loud that I can barely make out what Penny is whispering into my ear. I know it’s something about a guy she met down at the shore last summer, but I’m never really one hundred percent tuned in, so I’m not following. I’m focused on the lyrics at the moment because I love this song, and I’m also thinking:Right back ‘atcha, Parker.
Minus that one part. I can’t say that I used to love Parker. I don’t now and I never have. I’m guilty of parroting the words back to him, but my heart has never been in it. It’s just too awkward to stay silent when a guy pledges his love to you.Gee, thank you,orThat’s nice,just doesn’t cut it. You kind of have to say it back.
And let me just clarify that he’s not the absolute jerk I’m making him out to be. He has some good qualities. He’s an accomplished athlete, a devoted son, and he’s the life of every party. He’s figured out a way to move through this world already, collecting friends like bottlecaps and keeping them close.
Swear to God, I don’t know what he sees in me. I’m not the prettiest girl in our group, and Parker Hastings can certainly have his pick of the litter. Maybe it’s nothing more than wanting what he can’t have. I haven’t given it up, physically or emotionally, so maybe he just likes the chase.
And right on cue, he sidles up to me, wrapping one strong arm around my shoulders in a way that’s meant to provoke. My intuition tells me there’s a part of him that gets off on making me uncomfortable, but I fight the urge to wrestle out of his octopus-like grip. Forget it, I take back what I said before. Parker is a jerk, a misogynistic jerk. He likes to be in control, and I take the bait this time because I have no energy to fight him off. I melt into his frame and look up at him batting my eyelashes when I say, “You’d like to see me six feet under, huh?”
“What?” Parker is all wide-eyed innocence as Penny and I crack up. “Oh, the song?” He laughs along with us. Shaking his head, he adds, “Just an oldie but a goodie.”
Penny takes my empty cup. “What are you drinking?”
It was plain club soda but I answer back, “Tito’s and soda.” No one likes a sober girl at a party so I play the role people want me to play. Penny always has a heavy hand, but she’s so buzzed right now that I’m sure the drink she hands back will be vodka rocks with a teeny-weeny splash of soda.
Parker leans down to whisper, “You’re not really going home tonight, are you?”
“I have to.”
It’s a lie and he knows it. He drops his hand from my shoulder and turns to watch Tatiana. My friend is wearing a tube dress that’s practically exposing her ass cheeks as she makes out with her boyfriend of the month. “I can’t wait forever, Sarah.”
