“I know. I’m probably confusing you, huh? I’ll try not to.”
“Not confusing—it’s just that my brain sort of gets stuck on thinking about the first question, so I lose track and get overwhelmed if you keep asking more.”
“Right. So let’s start again. Where did you move from?”
Oh, so that’s what he’d asked. “Chandler, Arizona.”
“Okay. And where’s that?”
“By Phoenix.”
“Cool.” He stopped to wait for a car to go by before we crossed the road. “What brings you here?”
Because my world ended when I lost my dad, my best friend. Because Mom couldn’t afford to live in our big house anymore. Because she needed a job now that Dad was gone. And when she got a job in Farmington, she couldn’t afford the houses there, so we moved here, the next cheapest city. Because life seriously stinks and awful things happen and … “My dad died.” I walked across the street. I felt a hollow feeling in my heart, and tried to stop it from forming into the hole I knew it’d become.
He quickly followed. “Whoa, Ellyn, I’m so sorry. Are you okay?”
Was he really asking me something that personal? “No. I’m not.”
Putting his hands into his pockets, he waited a moment and then said softly, “When did it happen?”
My arm itched again. This time it was my elbow. It was really beginning to bug me. All at once, I wanted to be as far away from him as I could get, but it wasn’t him. It was just the subject of the conversation. “If you’re going to keep walking with me, could we talk about something else, please?”
He paused. “Uh, are you asking me to leave?”
“What?” I glanced over. Why would he think that? “No. I’m asking you to talk about something else.”
He looked at me funny, and I wondered what I’d said wrong. I was always saying something wrong.
“So, you’re not mad?”’
“No.” I bit my lip. “Why would I be mad?”
“Because you said…” He opened his mouth as if to say something, then closed it again. “Never mind.”
I cringed and scratched my elbow. “I’m not like normal people. What I say is pretty much what I mean. I should probably come with a warning sign.”
“And what would it say?”’
“Warning: Freak Ahead.” I tried to laugh, but it came out more like a choke.
“Nope. Try again.”
“Hey! Why didn’t you like my sign? It’s the truth.” I flipped my dark hair over my shoulder and clutched my books and stuff to my chest.
“No.”
“What?”
“If you wore a sign, it should say something like, Warning: Cute and Smart.”
Did he really just say what I think he said? My breathing became erratic, and suddenly, I needed to look at the ground. Study it, even.
“Well, don’t you like that one better?” He nudged my shoulder with his elbow. “It’s much more you.”
I glanced back up. “Why would you say that?”
He shrugged. “Because it’s the truth.”
I shook my head. Was he out of his mind?
He chuckled and started walking down the road again.
“What’s so funny?”
“You.”
“Me? Why?”
“I don’t know. I can’t figure you out, I guess.”
Huh? “Why would you want to do that?”
He grinned as he looked over.
I loved the way his hipster hair was combed just right and shone in the sun.
“Why not?”
Why not? I blinked. “What were we talking about?” My face burst into flames. Good grief, had I already lost the conversation again?
He tilted his chin and really looked at me. “Ellyn, you have got to be one of the most unique girls I’ve ever met.”
I was in way over my head. “I am?”
“Yep.”
“Uh—is that a good thing?”
“Of course!” He grinned that amazing grin again. “Nobody wants the same thing. It’s much better if you’re unique and stand out. Trust me on this.”
Oh, okay. I understood that. “Yeah, I don’t really fit in anywhere.”
I guess I sounded off or something because he asked, “Why would you use that tone of voice?”
We were almost to my door. Maralyn had already gone in. “What do you mean?”
Zane stared at me for a bit before saying, “You really have no idea how beautiful you are, do you?”
If I was drinking water, I’d have spit it all over him. “What? Are you crazy? Maralyn’s the beautiful one. I’m just me.”
“Uh …” He laughed. “I hate to point out the obvious, but you’re identical twins.”
I was lost. Walking up to my front porch, I set my stuff down. “So?”
“Wow.” He took off his backpack and set it on the ground near his feet.
Something in the look on his face made my breath catch in my throat.
“How can you look the way you do, yet be still so . . . so ...”
“Weird?”
“Humble.”
I stepped back. “Humble?”
“Okay—sweet, then. Why are you not more snobbish, like other pretty girls?”
I laughed and shook my head. This really was getting too much for me. It was time to change the subject. “Well, I made it home. Thanks for walking with me.”
“Sure.” He got the hint and picked up his backpack again. “Do you mind if I walk home with you again sometime?”
“If you want to. I don’t mind.”
“Yeah.” He took a couple of steps toward the sidewalk. “I think I’d like that.”
Was I really going to have a friend this year? “Me too, neighbor.” I waved until I noticed that he was heading back the way we came. “Where do you live? I thought it was that way.” I pointed past my house.
“Yeah, I do.” He looked a bit sheepish before answering, “I—I just have to go back and get my car. It’s still at the school.”
“What?” I laughed. The dork. “Did you forget that you drove it?”
“No.” Zane looked down at his shoes and then back at me. “I just wanted to walk with you.”
“Oh.” My heart somersaulted. I finally knew what that feeling was like. And man, it was kind of amazing.
“I’ll catch you next time.”
I smiled as I watched him walk away—the unexpected giddiness nearly overwhelmed me.
“Well, look at you!” Maralyn pushed open the front door. “You’ve finally got yourself a boyfriend! Wait till I tell Mom.”
“Mara, stop. We’re just friends.”
She raised her eyebrows. “Are you out of your mind? I totally heard him. He left his car at school to walk you home. That’s not just friends.”
“How do you know?”
She gave me the look. “Don’t even start. I know when a guy is falling for someone. And that Zane guy is falling all over you.”
CHAPTER THREE: Confusing Messes
I walked into the house and set my books on the living room couch before heading into the kitchen. Mom wouldn’t be home for another hour or two, and the sink was still a mess from last night. I knew she’d freak out if she came back and our chores still weren’t done, so after I got a drink, I went to work.
Maralyn didn’t even complain when she came over to the dishwasher and began to unload it. Usually, she hated chores, but today, she must’ve been more curious than she let on. “So, tell me about Zane. How’d you meet him?” she asked after a few minutes.
“He was my tour guide today. The office sent him. Who did you get?”
She shrugged. “This quiet girl. I don’t know . . . Janice or something. I don’t remember.”
“Did she help?”
“Yes.” Maralyn placed some cups in the cupboard and then put her hand on her hip. “Okay, out with it. Tell me about him. He’s really good-looking. Like, hot.”
“Yeah.” I really didn’t
know how to start. Zane was definitely really cute, and not my type. Not that I had a type—I didn’t. Just . . . he was a boy. And boys don’t usually, ever—
“Um, where’d you go? What’d you talk about? Come on! Tell me about him.”
What did she want to know? He was tall, he liked science, he was sweet—but I wasn’t even sure what she was asking. This kind of junk drove me nuts. Why do girls—especially my sister—have to know every single detail? Even details I don’t know anything about. Sometimes I wonder if she wants me to make stuff up just so she gets an answer she wants to hear. Truth is, I really didn’t find out that much about him. I was grateful to hang out, but he had asked all the questions. Not me. “I don’t know. He’s nice.” There. I smiled.
She groaned as she put the plates in the cupboard. “You’re the worst. You know that? I can never get anything out of you! Anything.”
“I said he was nice.” Sheesh. I wasn’t sure why I tried to talk to her. My elbow began to itch again. I hated itchy elbows. Hated them. And this one was constantly bugging me. I took a deep breath. I slowly wrung out a washcloth and began wiping down the stove.
“Nice isn’t always good enough,” Maralyn said. “Sometimes you have to actually fill in conversations with words. You know, those things made of letters that turn into stuff that you say. Words. Eventually, you put them together, and they become sentences.”
My head was beginning to pound. I had no idea why she was so upset with me, but this was ridiculous. All I wanted to do was wipe off the counters and fill the dishwasher like Mom had said. That was it. Why couldn’t she see that?
“Really? You’re not even going to say anything right now? You’re just going to be silent? I know we’ve never been super close, but could we maybe try for once? You need to talk. If you would just listen to me—”
“Aaaah!” I tossed the rag into the sink. “Stop it. Just stop.” I couldn’t take another second of this. I hated doing things wrong, and now Maralyn was mad at me and I didn’t know why.
“Ellyn …”
I was already walking down the hall. As quickly as I could, I closed our bedroom door and locked it. Then I crawled into the bottom bunk and stared up at the wood above me. Breathe. Open your mouth and breathe.
I tried. I tried to calm down. But everything was too crazy and crowded and confusing all at once. I didn’t know why Zane followed me home from school, or why he wanted to talk to me, or why he was nice to me. It didn’t matter, anyway—in a few days, he was going to see what a weirdo I was, and he wouldn’t care about me anymore. Chances are, I’d show my true colors soon enough and do something stupid like lose it and shout and run out of the room and stress out and just … ugh. Why did everybody have to ask so many questions all the time? Why weren’t my answers ever good enough?
I never understood it, either. Other people could speak and then those around them would nod and answer back, and everyone would laugh. But with me, it was like my translator got rewired and words would get stuck on their way out of my mouth, and I couldn’t really communicate with anyone. At least, not reasonably. They weren’t happy with my answers, and it honestly made me want to curl up and not speak sometimes.
I hated it.
At the same time, I wanted so much to have a sister relationship with Maralyn. I loved her more than she knew, and I needed these days when she’d take the time to be nosey and showed she cared about me—it just didn’t always go right.
Only Dad had known what to say and how to say it. Even when I flipped out, he’d know and come and talk me out of it and make me giggle again.
I wiped at a couple of rogue tears and then slammed my fist into the mattress beneath me. Why did he have to go? Why? It wasn’t fair!
I heard Maralyn’s knock, but I ignored it. A few seconds later, she asked, “Hey, can I come in?”
That was the other thing which was so hard for us. Even though we were twins, Mom had insisted that we grow up with our own personalities from the beginning, so up until now, we’d both had our own bedrooms. But since Dad died, we couldn’t afford more than a two-bedroom home. Mom was already sharing with our eight-year-old sister, Katelyn. That meant Maralyn and I had to learn to share too.
I unlocked the door and walked back to my bed.
Maralyn had insisted on the top bunk, so I got the lower. My only fear was that her bed would fall on me. So far, it hadn’t, but some nights I was definitely worried.
She opened the door. “Sorry I got so intense back there.”
“I know. I just need a minute.”
“Yeah, I figured.” She crashed on the floor next to me. “But really, I didn’t mean to push you. I just kind of wanted to share some girly stuff with you, I guess.”
“I’m not sure I do girly stuff. I think you might need one of your other friends.”
She moaned and laid her head on the bed. “I don’t have friends right now, remember? We just moved here.”
I hadn’t thought about that. While I could stay in this room for days, never speaking to anyone and being perfectly fine, Maralyn couldn’t. She needed friends, loved them, and was sort of lost without that constant chattering. “Oh, well, you’ll have them really soon.”
“Probably. But it doesn’t stop the boredom now.” She looked up. “So, when you’re ready, I’d like to hear about Zane. Or at least, if you like him.”
“Sure. He’s really nice.”
“You already said that.”
“But he is!” I chuckled.
“Okay, but what else is he?”
“Um, he’s cute.”
“Does he play sports? Draw? Love school? Dance? I mean—come on! You were with the guy all day. What’s he like? What does he do?”
Deep breath. Deep breath. Breathe. Breathe. Breathe. “Mara, I really don’t know what you want me to say. I thought I was telling you.”
“Saying he’s nice and cute isn’t telling me anything. I already knew he was nice and cute the second I met him.” She looked at me. “If he asks you out, will you say yes?”
I gulped. “On a date?”
She laughed. “Yes, on a date.”
“I—I don’t know.” Mom let us start dating as soon as we turned sixteen. Of course, Maralyn dated a ton, but now we were both seventeen, and I still hadn’t been asked out once.
She got a bit giggly and perked right up. “You have to promise me that you’ll say yes if he does. Can you promise that?”
The chances of him ever asking me out were pretty slim—well, to be honest, I had a better chance with him than anyone else. “Okay. Sure. I promise to say yes if he asks me out.” We both knew he never would. I grinned. This was going to be a piece of cake.
“Good.” She clapped her hands and smiled this huge smile.
“Whatever.” I rolled my eyes and leaned back on my pillow. “You look like a dork.”
She teasingly shook the bed. “Eeeh! Ellyn’s got a boyfriend. It’s so exciting!”
“What? No. Don’t start that.” I was beginning to lose my cool again. There really was no place to hide in this tiny house. “I told you already, we’re just friends. I mean it.”
“Yes, but that’s a small technicality. And something that’s very easily changed.” She got on her knees and pulled her phone out of her pocket. “Watch. What’s his number? I’ll give him a little call, and by tomorrow morning, you’ll totally have him as your B-F.”
“Are you kidding me?” I would absolutely die of mortification. “You wouldn’t dare!”
She seemed surprised at my vehemence. “What?”
“Mara, put your phone away. I don’t have his number. He never gave it to me. And even if he did, I’d never give it to you anyway.”
“But why? Don’t you want a boyfriend?” She looked hurt.
Not if it meant this level of insanity. “No, definitely not. I’m happy the way I am.”
Maralyn plopped back down on the floor. “But I don’t get it.”
“What?”
 
; “You really don’t care, do you?”
“About what?”
She threw her hands in the air. “About a guy liking you.”
Sure, I cared. I mean, I’d like it if Zane liked me, but I didn’t need it. Chances are, he’d turn around and leave eventually anyway. So, really, it just wasn’t worth investing in someone who wouldn’t be there later. I knew this. I’d spent way too many days of my life worrying if I’d ever have a friend. If the other kids would learn to like me instead of making fun of me. My whole school career was about keeping my head down, attempting to make sense of a world of chaos and drawing as little attention to myself as possible.
I knew they thought I was weird. I was autistic—I wasn’t deaf. I heard what they’d said about me. I knew they made fun of me and mocked me, especially when I was younger and used to go off in my own little world and imagine crazy adventure scenes and talk out loud and make exploding noises. I’d forget where I was sometimes and just live in this other place—this magical place where fun things happened. And that’s when I got picked on the most.
Thank goodness I didn’t stutter as much as before. Speech therapy helped me over that hurdle back when I was really young. Every now and then, I’d get a little excited, sure, and something just wouldn’t come out right. But for the most part, I’m pretty much normal. Just a quirky, nerdy, goofy normal.
“Ellyn?”
I blinked. “Yeah?”
“Well, whatever you think, I feel like this is a big day for you—some sort of milestone—and even if you’re not going to get all excited about a guy going out of his way to walk you home, I will. This is amazing! And something I’ve been sort of praying would happen for years now.”
“Years?” She was way too dramatic.
“You have no idea.” She leaned in and grabbed one of my hands.
I pulled it away.
“This is cool. I’m proud of you. And I totally like that guy now. I do. He’s pretty much awesome in my book. I can’t wait to see where this goes.”
I sighed and closed my eyes. “Mara, it’s okay. Even if this goes nowhere, it’s okay. We’ll all be fine.”