“He came to the hospital.”
Miles is suddenly very interested. “What did he say?”
“Tried to convince Valencia to get a DNA test to be sure I’m who I say I am.”
He tilts his head. “Andshe didn’t want to?”
“My blood type matched, and she said that was enough.”
“But she didn’t want a DNA test to be sure? What about Marcus?”
“Both him and Easton said they should.”
He starts to chew his lower lip as if he’s figuring something out. “Then why would she be so adamant about not getting one?”
I shrug and look back at the car, wondering if whoever is in there can see us up here.
“Are you sure I can’t recordanyof this?” Miles asks, his voice taking on a slightly whiny tone.
“No.”
He snatches the binoculars out of my hands. “Hold on, can you go back to the beginning? How did this all happen? If I can’t record it for my podcast, at least satisfy my own curiosity.”
I look one more time at the cop in the unmarked car and sigh, then sit back down on Miles’s bed and start from the beginning.
Miles lets me talk the entire time without interrupting. He sits across from me in his desk chair. I watch him carefully to make sure he isn’t recording the conversation, but it isn’t until halfway through the story that I realize he could have a camera hidden somewhere. Or maybe he’s wearing a wire and this is all a trap.
But when I finish the story, no SWAT team runs in. There’s no gotcha moment. Just Miles staring at me.
“Shit,” he says.
“Yeah.”
“Conversion therapy sucks. I mean, I’ve never been because I have parents who are, forgive me, not assholes.”
“Noted.”
“But I’m sorry that happened. And I’m sorry you had to run.” He pauses as if he’s mulling something over. “But why pretend to be Nate? Why not make up a name and a whole new story and be that person?”
Because the police would want more information, or they might put out a news report with my picture asking people if they knew whoI was. Then people from my hometown might see it and contact my parents. I’d be right back to where I was.
I decide not to get into it with Miles because I’m sure he has plenty of ideas on how to avoid that. Some other case where a kid showed up and became someone new.
So I go with the real answer. “I was desperate. And I hadn’t eaten in almost three days, so I wasn’t particularly in my right mind.”
“Clearly.”
“I thought it would be easy. I thought they’d take me to a hospital and do a DNA test and at some point I’d have a chance to run away before they even called the Beaumonts.”
“But you forgot about your Fourth Amendment right.”
“What right is that?”
“Protection from illegal search and seizure. They can’t take things from your body without your permission or a warrant. The blood test was something the hospital did as part of your care, so I guess that was enough. If you’d turned out to have a different blood type, they probably wouldn’t have contacted the Beaumonts.”
“I didn’t think things would get so out of hand.”
Still, the muscles in my shoulders loosen. Telling someone, talking about it aloud, actually feels better. I feel less alone. I’ve been so lonely for so long. Then the Beaumonts made me feel wanted, though I knew it was fake. Temporary. But confessing everything to Miles feels... not. It feels genuine.
