Hard Glass

by Lina Langley

  My heart sunk down to my stomach when I saw the look on their faces. There was a folder on the dining room table in front of them, closed and face down. Neither one of them was saying anything.

  I reached the living room and lingered, my hands fists at my side.

  “Mason,” Denise said. “Honey, come sit down.”

  I looked at both of them, my mouth dry. I walked over to where they were and pulled the chair out, scraping the leg against the wooden floor. It was an accident, but it jerked me out of the moment and I welcomed it more than I wanted to. I sat down and stared at them. I opened my mouth to say something, but I couldn’t bring myself to speak.

  My tongue was sticking to the top of my mouth as I stared at them. Denise brow furrowed and then she reached out to grab my hand. “Honey, I don’t want you to be worried,” he said. “You’re not in trouble.”

  I exhaled, but still said nothing. I hadn’t realized how much I wanted to stay with them.

  “And we’re not sending you away, either,” Clive said, looking into my eyes. “We just know some things and we thought it was important than you know it, too.”

  I swallowed. “About what?”

  They looked at each other. “About you, baby,” Denise said. “You remember when we asked you what you wanted to do to celebrate your birthday?”

  I shook my head. “Not really,” I said. “I thought I told you guys I didn’t want anything.”

  “You did,” she replied. “But you also told us that story about how you were found in a basket at the fire station. Remember that?”

  I smiled. “Yes,” I said. “Mostly because of the expression on your face. It’s not that bad! At least they left me somewhere I’d be safe!”

  They looked at each other again for one second, then Clive turned to look back at me. “Do you remember a few days after that, when I asked you if you wanted to know about your birth family?”

  “Yes,” I said again. They continued to look at me, so I felt like I had to keep going. I shrugged. “I mean, it’s not the end of the world if I never get to know them.”

  “You know that I have a reputation agency, right?” Clive asked.

  I nodded. “Yeah,” I said. “You said that was your job.”

  “Do you know what that is?” Clive said, looking right at me. He looked more serious than I had ever seen him.

  “Sort of?” I replied. “It’s like, you change what people see about a person when someone googles them.”

  “Yes,” Clive said. “It’s something like that. But one of the main things about my job is finding people and what people know about them before we can change their reputation.”

  “Okay…”

  “This is going somewhere,” he said. “I promise.”

  I blinked.

  “I did a little digging, and I found what could be a potential birth mother,” he said.

  I stared at him.

  “Of course,” he said. “There’s no guarantee that she is your actual birth mother. I can’t promise you anything.”

  I kept staring.

  “But I thought you deserved to know the truth,” he said. “We talked about it and we are happy to give you this information. Whatever you decide to do with it, Mason, we’re going back you a hundred percent. If you want us to throw in the trash—”

  “No,” I said quickly and reached out to grab the folder. I yanked it toward me and thumbed it, the skin of my palm was tightening. I put it on my lap. I wasn’t sure why, but it felt wrong to have them see it, even though they were technically the ones who had found the information. “Can I go to my room now?”

  They looked at each other. “Yes,” Clive said.

  I waited for a second before I stood up and walked away from them. My hands were trembling a little as I walked back toward my room. There was no way I was going to look at it before I was somewhere private, but I felt like if I stopped myself and looked at it in the hallway, I was going to fall apart in the hallway.

  I didn’t want Denise or Clive to ask me anything. I didn’t think I was able to say a thing back to them. I could hear them talking in whispers in the dining room and it wasn’t until I closed and locked the door behind me that I even thought about what could be in the folder.

  I turned on the light on the lamp on my nightstand and threw myself on the bed. The folder wasn’t particularly thick or heavy, and when I pulled out the few paper sheets inside them, I couldn’t bring myself to read them right away.

  I’d never tried to find my birth parents. I’d had enough parents in my life to know that the majority of them sucked, and I didn’t particularly expect my biological parents to be any better than that. If they didn’t want me, then I didn’t want them, and that was the end of that. At least it had been until Denise and Clive had taken me in. If they were like they seemed—kind, careful, fun—then maybe my biological parents could be too. There would be no way for me to know until I found who they were. The thoughts had been fleeting, but they had been present, when I hadn’t thought about my parents much before I had arrived at their ranch home.

  I took a deep breath. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to know more, because in my mind, it was easier if I just thought about them the same way I thought about Dill and Brittany Bentley. They were trash people and I was better off being away from them.

  But maybe they weren’t, I thought. Maybe they had been the victims of circumstance and I had to be given up because of something outside their control. I grabbed the first sheet and looked at the information on it.

  The entire page was filled with things I didn’t think I was supposed to know. The first thing I noticed was her name, Catherine Tamara Dubois. Then there was her picture, which looked like it was lifted from her driver license. I thought we might look similar, but it was hard to tell when the image was so tiny.

  There was more information there, what she did for a living. She was an interior designer with a big company and she was married with one kid. My heart jumped up in my chest. Birth parents were one thing, but a sibling had simply never occurred to me. I pored over the rest of the information, her salary, the size of her company, the business address, even where she liked to hang out. She seemed to be partial to wine galleries and expensive charity dinners.

  I threw her info on the side of the bed. I didn’t care much about what she liked to do during her spare time, but I needed to know more about this potential sibling. I grabbed my phone from the nightstand and went on my social media, desperately looking for this woman’s name.

  Looking for this woman.

  I found her almost immediately, her profile picture one of those professional headshots with a black background. Her dark blonde hair was straightened and fell down to her collarbone, barely touching her red sheath dress. She was flashing a smile at the camera, her green eyes shining, her lashes curled but not large enough to be fake.

  We definitely looked like each other. Maybe it was just my imagination—maybe it was just hard not to see it in the coloring, with the green eyes and the dirty blond hair—but I didn’t think it was.

  I clicked on her profile picture, and when my gaze landed on the cover picture, my breath caught in my throat.

  ***

  When I woke up, the first thing that came into my head was the pictures I’d seen the night before. It wasn’t a surprise, of course, because I had spent a huge chunk of the night looking through the family pictures that Catherine had put on her social media.

  If there had ever been any doubt that she was my mother, when I clicked on her profile and saw that she had posted pictures with someone who looked exactly like me, it had all dissipated. The shock had lasted for several hours as I browsed through hundreds of photographs, through what looked like it could have been my life.

  There were pictures from when he was a toddler, on the beach and in airports, wearing little outfits that looked like they cost hundreds of dollars. Then he was in elementary school, in blue uniforms and red ties, his teeth coming in wonky and large
. I could see the pictures of him getting taller, the braces on his teeth—he always smiled, in every single picture—and the dimple on his right cheek.

  He looked like me, if I had been able to go to private schools and anyone had given a shit about my teeth. I was skinnier than him, smaller, too, with messed up skin and fucked up teeth, but we looked the same.

  His eyes were the same as mine. His eyebrows, the slightly pointy ears, even our hairline was almost identical. I stared at him until I could see him even when I closed my eyes, and by the time I woke up, I was almost sure I had dreamt about him.

  But I couldn’t be. Maybe I had just blown it all out of proportion. Maybe, in the shock of the night before, I had made things into a way bigger deal than they were. There was a chance that we didn’t look so similar, after all. I had only discovered who my birth mother was the night before and I might have overreacted to someone who might have had a slight resemblance to me.

  When I picked up my phone and went on social media again, however, the boy still looked exactly like me. I felt like I was going to faint. There was no way I had been mistaken. The boy did look exactly like me.

  He’d had my life, and it looked charmed. He was surrounded by smiling people, what appeared to be a loving father and mother, and he was always posting about his accomplishments at school and playing intramural sports.

  A knot grew in my throat. I didn’t think I had any feelings except a dim hope about having a sibling. But when I had seen him steal what could have been my life, something hot started to rise up inside me.

  By the time I was ready to talk to Denise and Clive, I knew exactly what I had to do. I knew what needed to happen if I ever wanted the fury to subside.

  I stormed toward the living room, where Denise and Clive were watching TV, and stood in front of them. Clive muted the television and stared at me. “Mason,” he said. “Is everything okay?”

  “Yes,” I said, then closed my eyes and exhaled. “No. I’m not sure.”

  They looked at each other.

  “I have a favor to ask,” I said. “And honestly, it’s kind of a big one.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  JULES

  I didn’t want to be relieved when I got back to school, but I couldn’t be around my parents anymore. I was excited about having a new sibling, but I didn’t particularly like being around them. My mom was cheerful, except when she caught my eyes. She would look away from me then and there would be a shift in her energy, as if she felt guilty simply because she had gotten pregnant with my step-dad’s kid. I didn’t mind, but she would never ask me, and I preferred it that way.

  My dad, on the other hand, was giddy with excitement. I couldn’t turn outings down after the news, so we spent most of our time together, sometimes at his work and sometimes at the mall or at art galleries when he was thinking about making a purchase.

  I found being around him fascinating. I only understood about a third of what he was talking about, but when I managed to engage him, I would always feel like I’d just been to one of my most interesting classes.

  I liked spending time with him. He looked at me with pride, and a few times, I even came close to telling him what had been on my mind. But there was no way I could overshadow the moment and there was still plenty of time to come out to my family. The secret weighed heavy on me, though, and every time I opened my mouth, I considered saying it. Usually only for a fleeting second, then everything I had to lose came into sharp focus in front of me, and I couldn’t bring myself to do shit.

  Putting it off seemed like the best option. It would give me more time to think about how to approach the entire thing, how to speak to my parents about it. It would give me more time to wrap my head around it. Maybe I wasn’t gay. Maybe I was just surrounded by other boys all the time and they were nice enough and I was lonely enough that I didn’t care if they were boys or girls.

  At least that was what I told myself, when I was trying my best to ignore dreams where I was sandwiched between Brandon and Hashim, my neck hurting because I was craning it as I turned around them to kiss them both on the lips.

  I was nervous on my first day of the year, but not too nervous. I was excited, looking forward to the future. This year was going to be scary, but I expected that it would be good. Everyone appeared to be whispering when I got there, but that was just what the first day of school was always like.

  I grabbed my bags and headed up to my dorm. I knew I was likely to be placed with Hashim again, since dorm assignments were alphabetical, but I was worried. We had new students coming in every year, and getting along with a new roommate was never easy. When I did make my way to my room, however, Hashim was there. Brandon was helping him unpack.

  I smiled when I saw them both hard at work. I didn’t realize just how much I’d missed them. “Hey,” I said.

  They both turned to look around at me. I expected smiles, but instead, there was nothing but confusion on both of their faces.

  Hashim was the first one to talk. “When did you change?”

  I furrowed my brow. “What?”

  “And what the hell was that,” Brandon said as he unloaded Hashim’s skateboard. “I’m sure you saw us when we were in the hallway.”

  I cocked my head. “I just got here,” I said. “Literally, my dad just drove off two minutes ago. He insisted on renting a car so I could keep mine here.”

  “Nice,” Hashim said.

  “Road trip!” Brandon chimed in.

  I laughed. “Anyway, I was worried I wasn’t going to make it before they shut the gates.”

  They looked at each other, then Hashim rolled his eyes. “We saw you,” he said.

  I sighed. “Yeah, okay,” I said. “Look, I just got here, I’m sweating from having to run all the way here with this stupid bag.”

  Hashim smiled, then shook his head. “I guess you do look like shit,” he replied.

  I flipped him off. “You’re an asshole,” I said with a smile on my face and put my bag down on my bed. “I’m glad we’re rooming together again.”

  He craned his neck to look at me. “I’m not,” he said. “Are you going to keep leaving wet towels on the floor?”

  I snickered. “That happened one time,” I said. “And, in fairness, you weren’t supposed to be back from your debate stuff for another couple of hours. I didn’t have time to even clean up after myself.”

  He shook his head, but I could see he was smiling. His clothes were all perfectly folded, so taking them out of his bag and putting them in the wardrobe didn’t take him much time. I had never understood why he brought so many clothes to school. We wore uniforms the majority of the time we were there, except for weekends and some nights. Hassan was ridiculously fashion conscious, though, so even in those moments, he paid close attention to how he was going to dress.

  All that I had in my luggage were jeans and black and blue button-up shirts, along with three different pairs of shoes. I was trying to take Hashim’s fashion advice onboard, but unlike him, I couldn’t see myself pulling off polo shirts and tight as fuck jeans. He had insisted on lending me his clothes before, but I never felt like I looked quite as good as he did.

  Brandon was staring at me. “I thought you cut your hair,” he said.

  “Nah,” I replied. “I’m trying to grow it out. Maybe I can finally do something with it.”

  Hashim giggled. “You say that at the beginning of every year,” he said.

  “And I mean that every single year,” I said. “Seriously. I think somewhere like shoulder length might be nice.”

  Hashim sat up and looked at me, cocking his head when he did. “What, exactly, are you going to do with it?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Something exciting.”

  Brandon laughed. “Because that’s what’s missing from your life,” he said. “Hey, are you two losers going to help me unpack now or what?”

  “Sure,” Hashim said. “We can help Jules later.”

  “I don’t need help,” I said.
“But sure, I don’t mind.”

  We kept talking about random stuff as we headed out of our dorm room and toward Brandon’s. “I don’t think Eddy is my roommate this year,” he said as we approached his room.

  “Why? Transfer?” Hashim asked.

  “Yeah,” Brandon said. “I think so. I mean, honestly, I’m kind of glad. Eddy is kind of an asshole.”

  I tutted, shaking my head. “You’re always so nice,” I said. “He’s not kind of an asshole. Eddy is the worst.”

  “He’s not that bad,” Brandon said. “He let me copy off him for Mrs. Moyer’s class.”

  My eyes widened. “She didn’t notice?”

  Brandon shrugged. “She probably did,” he said. “But it’s Mrs. Moyer. You know she doesn’t give a shit.”

  I nodded. I was looking at him when we went into his room, and it took me a second to realize that he had quieted down, that his eyes had widened and his face had paled. He didn’t look at me, he continued to stare ahead. My first instinct was to look at Hashim, since Brandon was quite fond of practical jokes, but Hashim was staring right along with him.

  I turned around to look with them, and I felt my breath being sucked out of my body as I stumbled back.

  CHAPTER TEN

  MASON

  I hadn’t planned on running into him so soon. I’d had a speech prepared, an entire thing where I was going to reveal exactly who I was and what I was doing there. I had wavered on it several times, but after the Hanleys had decided to pony up the tuition for the absolutely preposterous boarding school, it wasn’t like I could tell them I wanted to drop out. There had to be easier methods to get to my birth family.

  I had fed them a bunch of bullshit about how I didn’t want to be emancipated anymore, about how I needed to have the best education in order to even try to go to college. After all, I said, less than ten percent of foster kids went to college.

  Denise and Clive took me seriously, which made me feel bad sometimes. They spent ages talking to Kelly about what would be best for my future, then Denise helped me craft an essay about my experience in care, while Clive called in a bunch of favors that allowed for late admission. I didn’t realize just how much pull and power the Hanleys had until they were driving me up Wildwood.