by Ivy Adams
Inexplicably drawn, she followed the sound to an open doorway. The nursery.
A faint smell of bleach hung in the air, along with something sweet and milky. Baby formula, maybe. The scent was so familiar it grabbed her and pulled her into the enormous room.
There were metal cribs in groups of four. Each set was pressed together so the babies inside could see each other. There were thirty-six cribs in all, though right now, only about half of them were occupied.
A nanny had come by to scoop up the baby who had been crying. The tiny woman held the infant close, gently cooing to quiet her. The two cribs nearest the door were occupied. Mei couldn’t guess at the babies’ ages, but they were old enough to both be sitting up. They stuck their hands between the bars, giggling as they reached for each other and then snatched their hands back.
Mei watched for a moment, then she walked into the room as if in a trance, crossing to the farthest set of cribs. The wide window beyond them overlooked a tree, its branches hanging low and casting the light in a green glow. Mei stopped beside one of the cribs. It was empty, but there was a baby sleeping in the one beside it. She looked out the window, then crouched beside the empty crib and looked through.
She wrapped her fingers around one of the metal bars. It felt small and cold in her hand. Familiar, yet wrong, as if it should have been bigger. Or her hand smaller.
In an instant, she couldn’t breathe. She felt her history pressing down on her. A memory she hadn’t even known she had until she stepped into the room. It hung just out of reach, vague and ephemeral. Held together by the scent of bleach and the sensation of the metal bar beneath her hand.
This had been her crib. For nearly two years, she’d lain here, another baby in the crib beside her. Like the girls she’d seen when she first walked in, she had held on to the bars, stuck her hands through. Tormented the other baby with playful fingers. She’d lived her entire life beside that other little girl. And then one day, her parents had come and taken her home. She’d gained parents, but she’d lost the girl forever. Maybe she had also been adopted, maybe not. Mei would never know. One more question she wouldn’t find the answer to.
Suddenly, all of it—her memories, her doubts, her fears, her anxieties—came crashing down, dragging her under. She’d dived off the cliff and now she was going to drown under the weight of the unspeakable anguish that came from losing herself to this country she would never truly understand.
Fighting panic, she jumped to her feet and ran. Back down one hall and then the next, until she was panting, out of breath, and facing the storage room. Guiran looked up as she came skidding to a halt beside the open door.
“I can’t do this,” she gasped out. “I’m not ready. I can’t stay. I can’t. I’m sorry.”
She didn’t give him a chance to reply but dashed for the main stairs and the street beyond, plunging into the bustling midday foot traffic. For a second, her panic nearly brought her to her knees. There were too many people here. Too much noise. The chaos of it all swirled around her, making her head spin. And not in the good way that Guiran’s kiss had, either. In an about-to-puke-on-the-roller-coaster kind of way.
She started pushing her way through the crowd, walking aimlessly. Almost at the end of the block, Guiran caught up with her and grabbed her arm. She swung around to face him, opened her mouth to explain, but there simply weren’t any words.
He must have read the distress on her face—or, hello? Simply noticed that she’d run like a crazy person out onto the road—because he didn’t even ask what was wrong, just cupped her elbow and steered her around the corner to a quiet spot under a willow tree.
Ignoring the stares of passersby, he gripped her by the upper arms. She thought he might shake her. She kinda needed it. But instead he just looked at her with a steady gaze and asked, “You okay?”
She bit down on her lip, then nodded. And then shook her head. “I didn’t expect …” She blew out a long breath. She was so not used to being the emotional one. Calm. Levelheaded. Logical. That was her. Bolting when things got too deep? That was Cassidy’s job. Mei’s cheeks were warm with embarrassment, her throat still tight from choking back tears.
“You didn’t expect … what? That it would be hard?” Guiran asked. “Why wouldn’t it be? It’s hard for me.”
She raised an eyebrow in question. ’Cause it didn’t seem hard for him. He appeared to be blowing through boxes.
“Each of those files is a girl,” he said. “Like my sister. Some of them were adopted. Some were placed with foster families. But I’ll never know what happened to my sister. My parents will never know.”
“But you could—”
He shook his head before she finished the thought. “No. Looking into it would be too hard on my mom. I’d never go against her wishes.”
Mei felt a sharp pang of regret. Her own parents didn’t know what she was up to and they’d be horrified if they did. A part of her wished she could mimic Guiran’s blind acceptance, wished she didn’t want to know. Before she could spend any more time feeling like the worst daughter ever, he said, “This is a huge step. Why wouldn’t it be hard?”
“I just thought—” She twisted away from him, suddenly unable to bear his scrutiny. “I thought I’d find answers in China. All my life, there’ve been these two sides of me, the Chinese side and the American side. The part of me that’s thankful I have a family, and the part of me that’s smothered by their coddling. The rule follower and the rebel.” And now, there was the guilt too, because what kind of monster felt smothered by the love all these other girls didn’t have? “And I thought that if I came here, and I found out something about my birth parents and who they’d been, then maybe I’d figure out something about myself and who I’m supposed to be. But that’s not how it is at all.”
She risked a glance back at Guiran. He was studying her, his lips once again twisted into that lopsided smile of his.
Crossing her arms over her chest, she bumped up her chin. “What?”
“You thought you were going to get all that from some dusty old file?”
“I—” But she broke off, because when he said it that way, it did seem kind of silly.
“You’re seventeen, Mei. Maybe you’re not supposed to know who you are yet.”
She opened her mouth to respond, but could think of nothing else to say. The words were so similar to something her father had said. Yet, coming from Guiran, they felt completely different. She, who was never speechless and who never felt an emotion she couldn’t describe with a polysyllabic SAT word, could think of nothing to say. So she just nodded.
“Come on,” Guiran said. “Let’s head back to the SWI.”
After a few seconds of walking, she said, “I think for today I’m ready to give up. Just put all the files back in their boxes and walk away.” Her voice sounded small. “Just for today.”
As she’d sat in that little room, looking at the files of all those parents who’d given up their children, she’d realized that her birth parents could have been any of them. Knowing their names wouldn’t answer the questions that had been plaguing her.
Or maybe she just wasn’t ready to know yet.
Guiran nodded, brushing his lips over her forehead so softly that for a second she couldn’t be sure that she hadn’t imagined it. But the warmth from his touch, the small sense of peace that spread through her, proved that she hadn’t. As they walked through the gates of the SWI, he took her hand.
Staring up at the wide red doors leading into the building, she thought of all the girls and boys who’d come and gone from this place and of all the families they’d found. She thought of the girl in the crib, the friend she’d lost forever. And she was glad she had Guiran here beside her, because she knew she couldn’t have done this alone.
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Messages
Between Cassidy and Linc:
Cassidy
You are so dead.
Linc
As long as you do me yourself.
Cassidy
Oh, I will. It’ll be long and slow, but you won’t enjoy it.
Linc
Bring it, dyke.
Cassidy
You’re an asshole.
Messages
Between Piper and Izzy:
Piper
Hey, Iz. Are you okay? Your brother is such a jerk. I’d send more chocolate, but I don’t think there’s enough in all of France to make this better.
Izzy
I don’t want to talk about it. What happened with Mr. Fabulous?
Piper
I didn’t tell him.
Izzy
I think that’s smart.
Piper
Then why do I feel so icky?
Chapter 21
Piper
“That looks lovely, Mademoiselle Douglas. The colors you managed to achieve are quite impressive.”
Piper beamed under the praise of Monsieur Blanchard, the instructor for the glassblowing class that had been kicking her butt since she’d signed up for it her second week in Paris. It was a far cry from the watercolor paintings she’d been doing the past few years, but she’d wanted to try something new while in France. How could she have guessed that she would fall in love with making glass the very first time she’d tried it?
It was hard work—exhausting even, because she couldn’t just walk away in the middle of one of its stages like she could with painting—but that didn’t matter. She adored the arduous process, the brilliant colors, the amazing pieces it was possible to create.
“Merci,” she answered softly, using every ounce of restraint she had not to jump up and down at the first compliment he had ever given her. After trying and failing to win his approval three times a week for the past six weeks, she had just about given up hope at ever creating something he might deem worthy. But this time he actually liked what she’d done.
Nothing could have thrilled her more, not even if she could have introduced Sebastian to Germaine the Insane and watched her archnemesis’s expression upon realizing that Piper had landed a guy Germaine could only dream about.
The only thing marring her happiness was the fact that she’d kissed that other guy in the club. She couldn’t remember his name or even much of what he looked like, and she sure as hell couldn’t remember why she’d been stupid enough to let him kiss her. But she had, and she was afraid she’d ruined everything.
Oh, Izzy had said it was okay not to tell Sebastian, as long as it was just a one-time thing. And it was—God, was it! She never wanted to feel like this again—guilty and sick to her stomach and terrified that Sebastian would somehow find out what she’d done.
She hadn’t set out to kiss that other guy, hadn’t even thought about it. But when he’d grabbed onto her in the club and pulled her close, it had seemed like a natural thing to let him put his lips over hers. It hadn’t lasted very long—in the back of her head, her conscience had been screaming at her to stop, to go back, to run away. So she had, after a few seconds, but by then the damage had been done. She was the worst girlfriend ever.
And the weird thing was, even as she’d been kissing that guy, experiencing everything Paris had to offer, she had hated it. It hadn’t been like those fun, flirty kisses when she first got to Paris—maybe because she knew now what she hadn’t known then. That being kissed by a guy who really mattered was worth more than a million kisses from guys who didn’t.
Kissing that strange guy in the club had felt wrong. Not just because it was wrong, obviously, but because he wasn’t Sebastian. He hadn’t smelled like Sebastian. Hadn’t felt like him or tasted like him or made her feel anything like she did with Sebastian. Piper’s stomach churned as she tried to figure out what to do. Somehow in the seven weeks they’d been dating, she’d suddenly gone from wanting to gain as much experience as she could to wanting to experience things only with Sebastian. Which would have been frightening if she hadn’t felt as though he was the other half of her soul. If she hadn’t believed that her heart was completely safe in his hands.
And she hadn’t known just how special that feeling was until the other guy had pressed his mouth to hers and all she’d wanted to do was throw up when she’d realized what was happening. Even though it had been a few-seconds thing and she hadn’t let it happen again. Hadn’t even been tempted to let it happen again, not when she felt so icky about its having happened at all.
With a sigh, Piper tried to shove all her concerns back down where she’d hidden them for the past two weeks. She was worrying for nothing, she told herself as she crossed the room to where her instructor kept tissue paper for them to wrap up their glass projects. She had only a little while left in France—surely she could keep Sebastian from finding out about the other guy that long. And once she went home … Once she went home, it would probably be months before she could see him again.
The idea was a lot more depressing than she’d thought it would be when she’d been talking to her friends at the mall all those weeks ago. Had she really thought that she could come to Paris, do wonderful, exciting things with amazing, fascinating people and then just go home? No harm, no foul? It was ridiculous. Paris was wonderful, so wonderful that the idea of going back to Texas was almost unthinkable. Now that she knew what it was like to live the kind of life she’d always wanted—now that she’d made friends here, found a guy she really cared about, found the kind of art she really wanted to do—was she just supposed to give all that up when she got on the airplane back to Texas?
Laying the suncatcher she had just finished on the thin white paper, she stared at its vivid blend of colors—every shade of blue and silver in the spectrum, with subtle hints of purple and green thrown in for effect. She’d made it for Sebastian, for the huge picture window in his room that got such brilliant afternoon sunlight. When he was home from college sometimes, she hoped that he would look at it and think of her and everything they shared. A long-distance relationship—especially one over the Atlantic Ocean—would be hard. But it wouldn’t be impossible. Not if they didn’t let it be.
Her instructor dismissed the class. Piper finished wrapping the small disk made of intricately twisted glass and then slid it into her purse. She was meeting Sebastian for dinner at a small café a few blocks away. She couldn’t wait to see his face when she gave him the present. He liked her watercolors, but the first time he’d seen the one she’d done of the Eiffel Tower, he’d told her that the medium wasn’t her passion. She’d tried to argue with him, but by then she’d been a few weeks into her glassblowing class and she’d known that he was right.
She made the trip to the café in only a few minutes, reveling in the sights and sounds of Paris in the evening. Night had descended about an hour before and the streetlights gleamed yellow against the black sky. Stores were lit up in reds and oranges and greens, and small bulbs twinkled in many of the trees she passed.
The roads and sidewalks were still slick from the late afternoon rain she’d heard hitting the windows of the glass studio, and ornate lightscapes stretched from one side of the street to the other, rows and rows of them in dazzling golds and whites.
Piper stood on the threshold of the café for a minute, looking back toward the street. Soaking it in. Creating a mental photograph. Trying hard to ground herself in the moment, in the here and now, so that she would never forget what it felt like to stand on a busy street corner in Paris, France. So that she would never forget this perfect sense of rightness, of belonging. So that she would never forget the person she’d been here.
She’d never felt this at home in Paris, Texas, and hated that once she left here she might have to spend the rest of her life without it.
When she was ready, when she knew that she’d be able to call up this exact moment wherever she was, Piper turned and headed into the café. She spotted Sebastian right away. He wa
s seated all the way at the back of the tiny restaurant, a glass of red wine on the small square table in front of him. She bubbled inside with happiness, knowing she was about to be sitting at an intimate little table, holding hands and flirting with her handsome boyfriend. For the first time in her life, she’d felt like it had finally happened. Like she was all grown up.
Swooping down, she gave him a huge hug before brushing her lips across his. She lingered for a second, and he deepened the kiss, just as she’d hoped he would. God, how was she going to go the next few months without this—without him? She’d grown used to seeing him every day, talking to him, kissing him, just being with him.
Ignoring the little sliver of pain that came with the thought of not being with Sebastian all the time, she asked, “How was your art history test?” She settled herself in the chair across from him. “Did you ace it?”
“I’m pretty sure.” He reached for his glass of wine with a grin, took a sip.
“That’s terrific!” She clapped her hands. “Not that it’s a huge surprise. I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who knows as much about art as you do.”
“I don’t know. You’ve got a pretty decent knowledge yourself.”
“What is this?” Piper put her hand to her chest in mock surprise. “A compliment from the guy who once offered to buy me the French masters refrigerator magnets? I’m honored.”
“Actually, I did get you something.” He picked up a bag from the floor next to his chair and handed it to her.
