Just breathe.
Closing my eyes, I concentrated on each inhale and exhale. When I opened them again, I was staring at my lap…
At a baby blue shirt I didn’t remember owning, and pants that were way too tight on my legs.
I jumped up from the bed, still staring down at myself. “What the actual fuck??” Tearing off the sweatshirt, I rounded the bed to get another one from my dresser—one I would fucking remember wearing—and came up short at the sight of a table beneath the window.
Slowly, I approached it, almost afraid of what I would find.
It was covered with drawings. Pictures of rooms and furniture and fireplaces, all different versions of the same room. Looking closer, I realized these were all drawings of my living room, with the furniture rearranged and with different decor. Yeah. There was the big window, and the shape of the room was exactly the same.
Dropping the drawing in my hand, I backed away from the table. I didn’t even know how the fuck the thing had gotten in here.
Okay. Okay. Stay cool. It’s okay. But it wasn’t okay. It wasn’t fucking okay at all.
I picked up the sweatshirt from where I’d dropped it on the floor and pulled off the pants, dropping them both into the corner near the laundry basket. I wasn’t wearing any underwear. Naked, I strode across my room and straight into the shower. By the time I came out, I was a little bit calmer.
I needed to go see a doctor. There was no denying it anymore. The appointment I’d told Ailee about had gotten cancelled and I never rescheduled it. I think I was too afraid. But I couldn’t keep running from this. Something was seriously wrong with me. And it wasn’t a drinking problem. I had no alcohol in my apartment. I’d had a few glasses of wine with Ailee, but that was nowhere near enough to cause blackouts that lasted for days. And I don’t think I’d hit the bars after leaving her place, if any had even been open that late. Mostly because I’d made it home and hadn’t woken up behind a Dumpster or worse.
Still naked, I found my phone on the bed and plugged it in, then I threw on some jeans and a black T-shirt and grabbed my laptop from the floor where it was charging. I didn’t know why it was there. I usually kept it in the living room. But at this point, I wasn’t questioning it. I’d drive myself fucking insane.
With a small shake of my head, I sat on the bed and flipped it open. There was no password needed to log on, and I was grateful, because I don’t think I could’ve remembered it for the life of me. I found the website I had bookmarked months ago when I’d first realized this shit was happening to me. Someone different from my regular doctor. Unlike then, I actually made an emergency appointment for later that same day.
Four hours later, I walked into the new doctor’s office. Studying my previous records, he quickly ruled out any kind of physical problem, and I was shuffled straight to the office of a counselor who specialized in trauma. Two hours after that, I was heading home. But I had another appointment the next day with a therapist the counselor knew and recommended.
I called Ailee while I waited for the bus. She didn’t answer, and I was glad. I wasn’t sure I could sound normal if I spoke to her directly. I left her a message, telling her I had to go out of town for a while to help my folks, and I’d call her as soon as I could. I had no idea when that would be, but it was the best I could come up with. I didn’t know yet what was going on with me, but I did know there wassomething.
For the first time in a long time, I felt a glimmer of hope alongside the fear.
In the few hours I’d talked to the counselor, I’d figured out that it probably wasn’t a great idea to drag Ailee into all of this. This was my problem, not hers. However, I wasn’t willing to give her up. Not now. Not when fate had given me this chance with her.
But right now, I had to take care of me. And all I could do was hope she would still be around when I came out of this.
Five WeeksLater
I had a diagnosis.Or at least, what my therapist and I thought was a diagnosis. Mostly thanks to my sister, who’d finally opened up to me about a lot of stuff.
After three weeks of getting a whole lot of nowhere, I’d called Willow and invited her over. Mostly because she wouldn’t stop blowing up my phone.
She didn’t react at all when I told her I was going to therapy, which was kind of odd. But when I shared all the things that had been happening to me and how freaked out I was by it, she started to cry.
“I’m so sorry, Tyler.” She folded into one of the kitchen chairs, her thin hands covering her face.
I sat down, turning my chair toward her. “It’s not your fault I’m fucked up, Will. We don’t know where I came from, or what genetics I’m carrying.” I gave a derisive laugh. “But now we know maybe why my biological parents didn’t want me.”
She was shaking her head even as she wiped her eyes. “That’s not true.” With a sniff, she grabbed my hand in both of hers and held it on her lap. “Mom and Dad know where you came from. I overheard them talking one night when we were teenagers.”
The world stilled around me as I tried to comprehend what she was telling me. “What? How…how could they know?” And then a thought occurred to me. “This is why I was never adopted. Wasn’t it?”
Horror crossed her face. “No! No, Tyler. This has nothing to do with that.”
I didn’t believe her, and she knew it.
“Tyler, I wasn’t adopted, either. Mom and Dad have their reasons, the major one probably being money. I don’t really know all of it. But I do know they love you, and not adopting you had nothing at all to do with where you came from.”
“And where is that, exactly?”
Still holding my hand, Willow leaned forward, wisps of her blond hair falling over her thin shoulders, her eyes huge in her pale face. “I don’t know what country or city exactly. I didn’t hear that part. But it’s somewhere in the Middle East. You were removed from a country at war.” She gave me a sad smile. “I think your biological parents died.”
