forty-seven

I don’t know how long it took me to walk to Trip’s house.

An hour. A day. A month.

I didn’t feel the cold. I didn’t feel the night. I didn’t feel anything. I stayed off the roads, and if a car went by, I slipped behind a tree. I didn’t want to be seen. I didn’t want to be found. Besides, if anyone found me, how would they know who they’d found? When I didn’t even know who I was?

It was still dark and the whole house was quiet. I threw a pebble at Trip’s window. And another. After a few tries, I saw his face appear for a second and I knew he was coming to get me. I ran to the back door.

He opened it, looking around, and beckoned me in. “G!” he whispered. “Hurry, get in! What are you doing here? Have you seen DiDi? She called yesterday and she’s freaking out! My parents are having a heart attack. I told them I didn’t know where you were. But then when everyone said they didn’t know, DiDi thought you must have been kidnapped.” He pulled me in. “Are you okay?”

He took one look at my face and knew the answer.

He kept one arm around me as we made our way up the stairs to his room and shut the door. I fell onto his bed, shaking and sobbing.

“G-Girl. Leia. Please. What happened?”

I shook my head into the pillow. “Don’t say those names. I’m not Leia. I’m not G—I’m not even Galileo Galilei. I’m no one.”

“What do you mean? What can I do?” He kept saying it over and over. And then I was up and sobbing into his shoulder, and he was holding on to me, and before I could stop myself, I was Saying It Like It Is. Spilling out every terrible, ugly detail. From the train station. To that yellow-eyed dog. Fainting. Mama in the car. Dead Drunk Dawna. The birth certificate.

And finally, the truth about DiDi. And me.

When I was done, I felt empty. But almost—almost a good empty. Like a thousand germs had left my body. I wiped the tears off my face with my hands and then wiped my runny nose on my sleeve from my elbow to my wrist and back again, which was just so nasty, I had to laugh in this horrible, exhausted kind of way. Which made Trip laugh, too. Though his eyes looked more like he was crying. He went into his bathroom and came back with a box of tissues.

“You know the funniest thing out of all this?” I said, blowing my nose.

“Something’s funny?”

“It means I’m a Triple, too. I’m a Third. Just like you.”

But Trip was the third in a rich family on the shore of a beautiful harbor, and I was named after an old country song about a crazy woman let down by a man. And what my life was meant to be felt like a wide and permanent road laid out before me, and DiDi playing the name game wasn’t going to change any of it.

“It doesn’t matter, G. I don’t care—I just—” He grabbed my hands and squeezed them hard.

I looked into those eyes and my heart felt ready to burst. Here, Trip had heard every possible horrible, ugly thing he could’ve heard about anyone, and he was still holding on to me and letting me know it didn’t matter. Not to him.

I wanted to have something pure and perfect in the middle of this nightmare.

So I closed my eyes to this terrible, terrible day and night and week.

And I kissed him.

The Perfect Kiss

If this is your first time doing this, I have to tell you everyone wants the perfect kiss.

Sweet, light, and melting on your lips. But truth is, you’re just going to have to wait till you open that oven door to find how everything turns out.

• 4 large egg whites, at room temperature

• ½ teaspoon cream of tartar

• 1 cup superfine sugar

Preheat your oven to 225°F. Now, beat those egg whites with an electric beater till they’re all nice and foamy.

Add the cream of tartar and beat some more.

When your egg whites are starting to stand a little on their own, little by little add the sugar, beating till that meringue is as stiff as a board and shiny as Christmas Day.

Put parchment paper on two cookie sheets. Drop teaspoons of the meringue an inch apart. Then use a knife to give the top a little swirl.

Place both sheets in the oven for 45 minutes.

Then shut that oven off and leave them there for an hour. Do not open the oven or even give them one little peek. That’s the hardest part. But I’ve got my fingers crossed that everything will turn out just the way you want.

Makes 40 cookies.