Eli is one of the reps from Columbia University. He’s been around since October, talking to students, guest-lecturing in classes, and recruiting young people. He was once a student here at Hawthorne, and I think he’s keen to get as many Hawthorne students into Columbia as he can.
“Mr. Hamilton!” I say, trying not to sound too irked to see him. He’s started developing a habit of turning up at the most inopportune moments. The very last thing I want to talk about right now is my college application.
“Eli,” he reminds me. He’s asked me to call him that before.
“Eli,” I repeat dryly. “Thanks for coming.” I’m not sure what else to say to him, but he was there the night these three kids died, and he was one of the first people to start hauling injured bodies out of the cellar, so I owe him something.
It was Eli who carried my best friend Dana out and got her to an ambulance so she could be taken to the hospital. He was level headed and helpful, even when the man he brought along as his guest lay dead beside us, and I have to remember that.
“I was hoping to talk with you.” He looks at me so seriously that I can feel Wills and Blair both turn their attention to him as well. They were both engaged in conversations with different people, but now they’re completely focused on whatever Eli’s here to say.
He glances at the boys and I can see him realize that they aren’t going anywhere. “Okay. You remember the man who was with me at the party. The one I was trying to introduce you to?”
I nod. “Yes. I’m sorry about that.”
Eli grimaces. “Yes. His name was, or is, Paul White. He’s the younger brother of Dane White … Sadie’s dad.”
Sadie’s uncle.
Sounds like luck doesn’t exactly run in the family. Sadie White is the girl who I pretended to be the whole first semester here at Hawthorne because we could have passed for twins. I swallow hard and nod.
I’m not sure what he wants me to say to that. If this is some attempt to shame me, he’s come at the wrong time. Still, I’m careful with my response.
“I had no idea,” I say. “It’s been a rough year for that family.”
Eli presses his lips together in a tight line for a long moment, and then inhales slowly and deeply. “Do you remember that I took some of your hair? A loose hair that had fallen on your shoulder?”
It seems an odd thing to bring up here, but it also sounds vaguely familiar to me. I remember little snippets of this same conversation.
“Were you trying to tell me something about this at the party?”
Eli speaks quietly. “Yes. I ran your DNA because it was just too ironic that you could look so much like Sadie White and not be related to her.”
I blink in surprise. “What are you trying to say?”
“Exactly what you’re thinking,” Eli replies gently. “There was a good reason you two looked so alike. Sadie was your cousin. Ellen and Dane White are her parents, and Dane’s younger brother Paul, her uncle, is your father.”
Everything in me freezes. I can’t think. I can’t even breathe. Somehow there’s a whisper that finds its way out of me. “What?”
Eli takes both of my hands in his as the boys and I stare at him. “Paul White is your father. When I did the DNA test on your hair strand and confirmed it, I told him first. He never knew you existed.”
He’s looking at me like he expects me to say something, but my mind is completely blank. I’m struggling to compute what he’s trying to say.
So he just goes on. “He was coming here the night of the party to meet you. He was so excited, so thrilled to get to get to know you; to have you become a part of his life. And then …” Eli trails off and suddenly my mind flashes back to the scene after the explosion.
Paul White laying on the floor at my feet in a pool of blood.
I ignored him, reaching instead for Victoria to find out what happened. I can see her in my mind, her arms colored with the chemicals she used to set off the explosions. She wrenched herself free of me and took off, but still … I ignored the man lying at my feet and looked for Dana instead.
I left him there, and whether or not he was already dead is irrelevant.
The stranger who lay dying, ignored and forgotten, was my father.
And he was coming to claim me.
Chapter 3
“Oh my god.”