TWENTY-ONE
Mila
After breakfast,we bid goodbye to Leela and Crosby and everyone from Beta Beta Psi who came to work. Of course, send them off with bellies full of Emmeline’s delicious food.
The group declines to join us on the family hike. I’ll admit here that I’m slightly envious as I watch them pile into Leela’s driver’s SUV and disappear down the hill. I would much rather be in an air-conditioned luxury car stocked with snacks than headed into the woods with these lovable lunatics.
For one thing, I’m not dressed for a hike. This fact is apparent when we hit the trail, and I visually compare my gear to everyone else’s. I’m wearing my cute new Adidas sneakers, and Ozzie and all his siblings are wearing performance hiking shoes. I’m in black spandex with lipstick kiss print all over it and a matching black tank top for comfort, plus my ever-present denim jacket. Everyone else wears pants with many pockets and puffy vests. I carry a can of Diet Dr. Pepper, and a couple of the siblings are wearing camelbacks that feed water straight into their mouths via a long straw. Sunscreen and bug spray gets passed around to everyone. I’m going to hate this.
The trail is gradual uphill but winds through dense woods, growing narrower at every passing blaze. I’m grateful for this, as walking single file prevents anyone from asking me too many questions.
The downside of a narrow trail is it leaves me to my thoughts. Tromping through the woods reminds me of that day, just over a year ago, when I escaped the compound after shooting Bulletproof. The sloping hills, the ridges overlooking the valleys, and the outcroppings give everyone reasons to take breaks for family photos. I never bothered to stop and look around when I was on the run at 17; that was the most time I’d ever spent in nature up to that point.
I am reminded how Khaz will never get to see this place. I can hike for days, but Khaz can’t. I’m gonna graduate from college someday, but Khaz will never see it. I might even give in to Ozzie’s irresistible pull on me. Imagine me, married, with little Gwynn babies. Still, Khaz won’t be there to bounce anyone on his knee.
Another group of hikers approaches us from the opposite direction, so Ozzie and I squeeze in between two trees along the side of the trail to let them pass.
It is instinct by now for Ozzie to take this opportunity to cover my hand in his. My cheeks heat, and I look up at him, a smile pulling at the corner of his lips.
Ozzie and I are entirely giving each other moony eyes. I stare at him, and he stares back at me. I smile, and he smiles. I bite my lip. It’s a total flirt fest.
If we hadn’t been staring at each other like dopey teenagers, I might have had a moment to prepare myself for what happens next.
“Kendall?”
The whiplash of that moment could be compared to a car wreck.
I turn to face the woman who blurted my old name loud enough to echo through the valley. A woman I vaguely recognize as a girlfriend of Crypto’s. How…how did they find me, is my first thought.
Her pale face and wide green eyes stare back at me in total shock.
The gears in my brain whirr as my instincts struggle to choose a response. Fight? Or flight? Apparently, Erika’s awaiting my response for too long because she wags her head back and forth slightly, indicating her impatience with me. “Hello? Kendall!”
Guess I chose neither fight nor flight but freeze.
I can’t acknowledge my name. My former name. It’s suicide, both physical and social. So, like I do with everything else in my life right now, I lie. I lie so hard.
“I’m sorry,” I say, pasting on the most confused expression I can muster. “You must have me confused with someone.”
Erika’s slightly darker blonde eyebrows come together as one, and she speaks slowly as if I’ve been knocked in the head and I’m the confused one. “No…you’re…Kendall…Kendall Whitman…from New Jersey. I’m dating your stepbrother. Cris. Oh my god, do you go here?”
I blink. “Go…here?” I’m too busy remembering that Crypto’s real name is Cris. Stepbrother, my ass. I should not get mad at how thoroughly Emil tried to erase my family history when I’ve turned it all to ash myself.
“UNC-Asheville? Oh my god, Cris is going to lose it. He’s already so pissed that I decided to go to school out of state, but you…nobody knows where you ran off—”
Panic rises in my throat like someone poured nail polish remover on a campfire. I look past her but don’t recognize anyone she’s with.
“I…” I reply, too breathily because my words are getting stuck.
I forgot that Ozzie is still holding my hand, and he lets go. For that split second, I feel my world collapsing. Of course, he’s pulling away. Everything is going to fall apart here in the woods on a stupid hike while I’m wearing pants with stupid red lips all over them. But then Ozzie does something that brings me back to reality—or at least back to this temporary reality.
“Babe?” Ozzie asks, a gentle laugh in his voice. “Do you know these people?”
With his hand resting on my opposite hip, drawing me close to his side, I gain my words again. I’m not going to confess everything. Not yet. Not here in the woods. I’m forging ahead.
The Academy of Motion Pictures owes me an Oscar for what I do next. Never in my life have I been able to do a fake laugh and have it sound natural. Not that I had many occasions for it. But somehow, I channel Meryl Streep. I toss my head back and bark out a laugh.
“You’re the third person this week who’s mistaken me for someone else,” I say, flattening my Jersey accent. I touch my hand to my sternum as my shoulders shake from the pretend mirth. “I must have one of those faces similar to someone else’s. I’m starting to think there’s a whole bunch of doppelgängers running around.”