Chapter Thirty Nine

This was it. The day had finally come. The results for my ancestry test and an online code were set to arrive in the mail within the next few hours. It'd been sent to Faith's address, so I spent the past night with her and we were skipping school.

Her parents were still on a business trip, not the same one though. Faith explained that this one was for a round of fundraising toward their upcoming IPO. I had apologized because when I thought of fundraising I thought of homeless people or charities that had run out of resources. What I hadn't thought of, was tech company executives slaying the online shopping game so hard that they needed more money to expand operations to slay it even harder. I guess it took money to make money.

Still, it didn't make sense to sell portions of your company forever in exchange for a one-time payment, not if you believed in it. I understood and acknowledged there was a system in place, but that was as far as it went. To me, it was legalized racketeering.

Faith's bedroom was massive as far as bedrooms went, which wasn't a surprise. It was also immaculate, but not from her doing. There were maids that came by every so often to dust and keep things tidy. We slept in her super, Alaskan King bed that she had custom sheets and blankets fitted for. The 3D design looked like flowing magma as my eyes swept across them. As for size, it was so unnecessary and so wide that I couldn't reach my arms, nor my entire body, across in any direction.

Despite the space, we slept right next to each other, her furnace of a body pressed up against my back, keeping me warm in those tiny arms of hers. It felt good and it was the best I could hope for.

The rest of the room was filler as far as Faith and I were concerned, but the amenities essentially made it qualify as its own studio apartment. Everything was ultra modern and sleek, and most surfaces were covered in a glossy black material with splashes of gold in it.

Whenever possible, furniture and gadgets folded into and out of the wall or otherwise made themselves take up less space. It was a bit much. Apparently, it wasn't enough for lights to turn off, they had to make themselves physically unavailable at the press of a button.

Faith had a mini-bar with a fridge and stove behind its abbreviated, granite-topped counter. It fit two stools with black overhanging lamps above them. There were two different sitting areas in her room. One was in front of a wall-sized window that overlooked a man-made pond. It was extremely well-lit and had inlaid bookshelves on the walls bordering the window. The other one was a mini-theater. It had two rows of reclined seating with dining counters in between them, all in front of an obscenely large screen.

There were other attractions in Faith's house-sized room, but I made a point not to use her things. We used her bed and our phones. That was it. There were too many users in the world. I didn't want Faith to ever think I needed anything from her. I suppose that was what Juice had been trying to tell me that day at the apple orchard.

"You awake yet, Rudes?" Faith asked.

I'd been awake for awhile, but I didn't want to get up until the package came. Otherwise, I'd spend the whole day waiting for it to come. I was still doing the same thing, but lying in Faith's arms made me feel like I hadn't made a choice yet. It meant not officially being 'in wait for postal servitude'. I hadn't yet shamelessly declared myself a slave to the whims of modern day couriering.

Instead, I was lying in fetal position with my best friend's arms wrapped around me. "Yeah, but don't move. Let's die like this, okay?"

Faith laughed as she pulled an arm out from under me. "I have to pee, but hold that thought."

I watched her roll about five times to get off of the bed. She walked over to the connected bathroom in her 'butter soft' fuchsia linens combo. She'd raved over them having no foam, cups, pads, wires or seams, but I wasn't involved enough in the bra and panty game to appreciate that revolutionary change. I did like that the bra was a v-neck though.

I slept in silky, yellow and black boxers that Faith had bought me for a past birthday. I didn't find out how much they cost until after I'd worn them a few times. Since then, they'd been reserved solely for sleepovers with her. I was also wearing my Williams shirt because I was shameless.

It'd been a couple days since I'd walked out of Juice's house. He hadn't called or texted since, but Homecoming was this week, so he was probably busy with football and Homecoming court. Unsurprisingly, he'd been nominated for King. I hoped he lost, so I wouldn't have to watch him get carried around on some float as he posed with some ditsy girl for the parade and at the beginning of the game.

It really shouldn't have bothered me, even if Juice was out and we were dating, his schedule would've been the same. It did though. I needed more from Juice, more than being his secret. I had tried to use a different term, one that adequately described what I actually was to him, but they turned me on way too much to be appropriate. I was supposed to be nearly fed up with our arrangement.

Having sex with Jerome was only a problem because I could only have a first time once. Dream Jerome had taken me so many times that Dream Liam Neesom had long stopped threatening him with his particular set of skills.

Faith returned from the bathroom dressed in boys' shorts that matched my boxers and a flat black top incorporating parts of an amphibian.

"You have to stop avoiding Saylor. He knows you're mad," she said.

Her voice was stern and her tone, decisive. I would've agreed right away, had I not seen the uncertainty in her face.

"Come on, I want to go to homecoming with both of my best friends and have a great time." She crawled onto the bed and laid beside me.

I hadn't moved from the spot I'd been in. Her hair was in a fiery red ponytail, which brought back memories, but I knew she wouldn't leave the house like that.

"Won't he be there with Ryan?" I groaned and rolled away from her. I swam to the head of the bed to grab my phone off her golden, spiral-footed nightstand. It was reminiscent of Greek architecture I'd seen in history books. "Check to see if it's here!"

It was past ten, but the delivery window was open until two in the afternoon.

"They aren't a thing, never were," Faith said, ignoring my request. I glared at her knowingly. "Really! Ryan is poly-amorous. That's too ambiguous for Saylor to wrap his mind around." We both laughed. Saylor was terrible at making decisions that didn't have clear cut answers. "You know, it hurt him to see how much that kiss hurt you." She took my wrist and tugged on it until I was staring into her hazel eyes. I nodded that I believed her, but she put up her hand. "But, it would've killed him if you weren't hurt at all."

She stood to leave. Presumably, to check the mail. I thought about calling after her, but there was nothing to say. Ryan or not, after I told Saylor what I needed from him, he'd decided I wasn't worth the trouble. What else was there to interpret?

He came over a few times since the kiss, but I pretended to be too tired to talk. I knew he was smart enough to convince me that I was being unreasonable. I didn't need words from him, I needed actions or nothing at all. Without action, that scene with Ryan was going to play out with some other guy soon enough. My heart couldn't take seeing him fall for someone else and slowly phase me out.

Juice sent me a Snap of his unmentionable, which in his defense, was what I'd decided was the Batman signal for my services. There were messages as well.

Juice: I won't never take it. You gotta give it to me, ight?

Juice: but don't have me waiting too long.

I appreciated the messages, despite the second one nearly canceling out the first. I responded that I'd never want to unless he took me out a few times, even as friends. I added that we could end our arrangement if that was a deal breaker for him. It was a gamble, but I didn't think Jerome's ego would allow us to end things without it being his idea.

I also refused to meet up, which was something I'd have never done, if it weren't for these ancestry results. He sent a snap back right away, but I didn't open it. I'd told him I was busy, so as long as I didn't open it, look at his story or add to mine, then he'd never know I was ignoring him. Put simply, I had to stay off of Snapchat for awhile.

Faith returned with a wide smile and a padded white envelope in her hands. It had the colorful chromosomes along the bottom, so I knew what it was, not that she was trying to hide it. She sat back down on the bed I hadn't left and we opened it together. Admittedly, the moment I saw the envelope, I felt like a bum for being so unapologetically late to start the day.

The written report was massive. Flipping through it was daunting enough, there was no way I'd ever read through it. The first pages were laden with disclaimers and legal jargon. The pages after had information regarding specific DNA sequences and genetic markers found in my sample that would've interested Saylor, but I'd seen enough.

This dense material wasn't worth looking through, not when the pass code granted instant access to what I was after. Faith rattled off the code while I typed it into the app. I already had it downloaded—that was how excited I was for it to come. I also went through tutorials ahead of time to know exactly what I'd be looking for. I had no trouble planning ahead when highly motivated.

I switched to the tab that showed living relatives and sorted results by closest match. I found three entries where I'd only been expecting two. Mom's, my father's and another woman's.

I turned to Faith wide-eyed and slack jawed. "I think I have a sister." Mom could've also had a twin, but that seemed infinitely less likely.

Faith took the phone away from me and started browsing this mysterious woman's profile. She didn't talk for awhile which was fine with me. I was still reeling from this discovery. I was upset, shocked, amazed and saddened at the same time. I couldn't understand how my family could've hidden an entire sibling from me. It didn't seem right that they'd kept me from knowing her.

"Su nombre es Esmeralda," Faith said.

She sounded weary. This was a lot for her to take in as well. She'd known the story of my father running off to Mexico with some floozy named Esmeralda. I had to assume this was the one Mom had actually been talking about. It meant he'd run off with my sister, not some homewrecker hellbent on destroying our family.

I wondered if the arrangement was to keep one child all along, so they wouldn't have to see each other again, like The Parent Trap prior to the twins' meeting. I figured Mom painted him out to be a terrible person to keep me from ever wanting to meet him. Still, that didn't explain his complete erasure from the family.

"Most things are hidden on her profile, but her last name is Ramirez," she said, "Is that from your mom's side?" I shook my head. It wasn't. Mom's maiden name was Chavez. "She's in the US, even better, she's in Missouri. The locator app won't tell me more without her approval."

I turned toward Faith and slapped the phone out of her hands. "Don't! I don't want her to know we're coming. She's known about Mom because of the site, but hasn't come looking, she might not want to meet."

"We're going?" Faith asked. I nodded. Her mood instantly shifted to uncontrollable excitement. She couldn't resist an epic mission and this was turning out to be just that. "When?" I nibbled at my bottom lip to take a moment to think about it, but it wasn't necessary. "I mean, I'll find her, no problem, but when after that?"

"I want to go as soon as possible, today if we can. I've been waiting over a month to figure this out and we're practically there," I said.

I couldn't wait to meet my dad and my long lost sister, even if neither wanted to see me. I started imagining scenarios in my head of her sharing my Mad-Eye and becoming my mentor to help maximize my ability. Or equally possible: she didn't know about her abilities at all. Perhaps, her ability was to generate spires, but she needed me in order to see them. We'd be unstoppable together. The possibilities were endless and grew increasingly ridiculous the longer I stewed on them.

All the while, Faith was running background searches on Esmeralda Ramirez from Missouri. After running filters to eliminate matches under seventeen and over thirty—the age of my eldest brother—the program was left with three matches. There was a seventeen year old, a twenty seven year old and one with an unknown age.

"They're all in St. Louis. We can visit all three of them, but maybe we can eliminate one or more through social media," Faith said.

I nodded. I could tell her wheels were turning. The only thing I could do to help was to stay out of the way. Since we had our destination. I retreated to the bathroom to  get ready. When we were set to hit the road, Faith had one name left. The twenty-seven year old wasn't quite eight months younger than my second oldest brother, which ruled her out and the seventeen year old looked nothing like me or Mom and she had tons of family photos with people I didn't recognize. All we were left with was the enigma who lived on:

4216 Castleman Ave, St. Louis, MO. – Two blocks from the Missouri Botanical Gardens.

Faith figured if things didn't work out, we'd go there, so our trip wouldn't be a waste.