This would be the perfect opportunity for me to tell him who I was, yet I wasn’t sure I could. Could I trust him? For all I knew, he was in cahoots with Barry and Thompson and whoever else knew about this charade.
“What were you playing?” I nodded at the piano.
“Which time?”
“Both times.”
“Rage Over a Lost Penny and 500-Year-Old Melody.”
“I loved them both. I could watch you play all day.” I looked away quickly as soon as the words were out of my mouth.
“You’re welcome to.” He looked like he was on the cusp of smiling again. I wished he would, but then he stood up, and as he walked toward the door, said, “If you stay.”
And I decided I would.
All it would take was being buried alive and after everything I’d been through in my life, in The Institute, how bad could that be?
“What’s next?”
“Meet me outside in thirty minutes and you’ll find out.”
“Okay.”
“Do you have black jeans?”
“Yeah.”
“Black T-shirt?”
“I think so.”
“I’ll leave one outside your door. Wear all black tonight.”
I felt like he was dismissing me, so I left, rushed upstairs to what I considered my room, unlocked it, and shut the door behind me. I changed quickly into the ripped black jeans I had and looked outside to find a black T-shirt hanging from the door. I pulled it over my head. It was huge and smelled like Adam, which I liked. I tied it at the side to give myself some semblance of shape and picked up my phone to dial Karen again. This time, I left a message.
“Hey, it’s me. I went by the house and called around town to try to find you but no one knows where you are. Give me a call . . . or shoot me a text. I just want to know you’re okay.” I hung up. I couldn’t remember the last time I left her a message. She’d never been one of those mothers who worried much when her kid went out, though whenever I went over curfew, I always got an earful, and because it was the only time she seemed like she truly cared, I missed curfew a lot. I tucked my phone into the back pocket of my jeans and my keys in the other. As I walked by my backpack by the door, I remembered the bottle of whiskey I’d brought. I took it out, uncapped it, brought it to my lips, and took three shots.
Then, I headed downstairs. Adam was standing right there, at the foot of the steps, wearing black jeans and a black T-shirt. We looked like we belonged in the Addams Family.
“What’s so funny?”
“I was thinking that we look like we belong in The Addams Family, and your name is Adam, so it was funny.”
“It would be hilarious if Blake Roberts hadn’t made it a never-ending joke in elementary school.”
“Oh, man. What’d you do?”
“Nothing. Not for a while anyway.” Adam shrugged a shoulder. “I was a puny kid and was in like the twentieth percentile for height.”
“So you got beat up a lot?”
“Not really, just made fun of.” He started walking toward the door. I followed.
“You said not for a while,” I said as we got in his black sports car. “I’m assuming you got revenge at some point.”
“I wouldn’t call it revenge. It’s not like I was lying awake at night thinking of ways to get back at him.” He switched on the ignition. “But I did date the girl he was pining over throughout all of elementary and middle school.”
“That seems fair.” I laughed. “I bet she was more than happy to play the girlfriend role.”
He was quiet for a moment. It occurred to me that I hadn’t even asked where we were going. I opened my mouth to ask, and he spoke before I got my question out. “So, was my brother telling the truth? You like women?”
“No.” I bit my lip hard and looked out the window.
“Is there anything you’re not telling me that I should know?”
I bit my lip harder. This was my chance. My knee started bouncing. What if I told him and he flipped it on me? What if he was reporting to Dr. Maslow or Detective Barry or Dr. Thompson? The list was endless. And worse, I didn’t know why any of this was happening. I took a deep breath and let it out.
“No.”
“Hm.” He continued to drive. “We’re going to make a stop before we start tonight’s task.”
“What’s the task?”
“You’ll see when we get there.”
Chapter Fourteen
Adam
“So, tell me about yourself. Your upbringing,” I said, trying to fill in the gaps of silence as I drove to my parents’ condo.
I couldn’t stop thinking about what happened at The Institute. I couldn’t get Eva Guerra out of my head and I was torn between thinking that there were two different women—one named Stella and one named Eva—or that she was both, and if she was I didn’t know what to do or think.