Once We Were

adults. There hadn’t been much room to make friends at Nornand, and we’d never hung out at school. Was he curious about Sabine and her friends the way I was?

“You wouldn’t have that much trouble sneaking out,” I said. Ryan and Devon slept in the living room, where Henri had a foldout couch. Hally and Lissa had appropriated the spare bedroom. “I don’t think—”

“I’m going, Eva.”

I looked up at him. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” he said. “You’re going, so I’m going. I never said I wasn’t.”

“Okay.” I smiled. I slipped my hand over his, and he leaned toward me like it was the most natural thing in the world.

He was going to kiss me. I could sense it. I could almost feel it already—his mouth against mine. But I couldn’t let it happen. Not with Addie squirming beside me.

I caught the moment Ryan hesitated. Saw him hold himself back, rein himself in.

“Eva,” he said.

“Hm?” My voice was barely more than a breath.

He grinned and looked away. “Your pancake’s burning.” The heat suddenly shooting through our body had nothing to do with the stove. I rushed to scrape the pancake from the pan. “You know, I thought you were lying when you said Kitty was a better cook than you are, but—”

I shoved at him, laughing. “Shut up! You were distracting me. We were having a very distracting conversation.”

The pancake was blackened, but salvageable. I kept a hawk’s eye on it, but couldn’t help the ridiculous smile that spread over our face. It would be all right. Being with Ryan like this—being with him but unable to really be with him—was crazily awkward, borderline insane. But it was what it was. It was my life, and I understood it. He understood it. We could laugh about it. We could still be happy, and that was what mattered, wasn’t it?

“What are you two doing in there?” Hally called from the living room.

“Slaving away to feed you,” Ryan shot back. He gave her a dark look that quickly melted when he couldn’t bite back a laugh.

“Well, somebody’s got to do it, brother dearest.” Hally and Kitty were bent over the camcorder, fiddling with its controls. “Emalia’s not actually going to develop this film, is she?”

Kitty pulled the video recorder from her hands and pressed the record button before turning the lens in our direction. “She promised she would.”

“Dear God,” Hally said. She winked at me. “Well, there go my plans for political office.”

I burst out laughing again. Addie unwound a bit, then even more as my happiness infected her. Guilt suddenly pressed cold hands against our heart. Sabine hadn’t asked for Hally or Lissa to show up tonight.

<She’ll come with us next time> I said. <We’ll mention her, and they’ll invite her along.>

<How do you know there’s going to be a next time?>

I didn’t, of course. But as I turned back to the stove, I realized I already hoped there would be.

Anchoit’s streets were not completely empty, even at nearly two a.m. Still, they were quiet as Ryan and Addie slipped from our apartment building into the warm summer night.

There would be more people downtown, where places stayed open late. I imagined music flowing out from low-lit bars, people laughing and stumbling from party to party. Emalia’s neighborhood was more known for pickpockets and the occasional gang fight than dance clubs.

“Is that it?” Ryan said as we approached a fast-food joint. It gleamed yellow and red in the darkness.

Addie hesitated. “I think so.”

We peeked through the windows. The tiny restaurant looked deserted but for the cashier lounging behind the counter and a band of four people squished around a cheap plastic table. The blond girl had her back to us, as did the red-haired boy sitting next to her, but Sabine and Jackson faced us. The latter noticed us first, lighting up with a smile.

“There you are,” Sabine called out as Addie came inside. Jackson pulled out an empty chair. It scraped against the linoleum floor.

Ryan took the seat on our left, beside Sabine. Or maybe it was Josie, the other soul sharing her body. We didn’t know either of them well enough to tell.

“Sabine,” the girl said, as if reading my mind. She smiled, then gestured to the redheaded boy. “You’ve already spoken with Christoph. And that one there—” That one rolled her eyes. Her bleached-blond hair curved to frame her face. Her eyebrows, which had been left dark, stood out in sharp contrast. “That’s Cordelia.”

“And Jackson,” Jackson said before Sabine could continue. He smiled his match-strike smile. “Hopefully you haven’t forgotten that.”

Sabine grinned. “You are so forgettable.”

“We make him reintroduce himself every Thursday,” Cordelia said, but softened her words with an arm hooked around Jackson’s neck. She pulled him toward her, laughing.

Addie smiled and snuck a look toward Ryan. But the boy on our left wasn’t Ryan anymore. Devon looked around the table with the air of someone studying a complicated puzzle.

<Think these are their real names?> Addie said.

I hadn’t even considered the possibility that they weren’t.

<Jackson, Sabine, and Christoph are using their real names, anyway> I said. <That’s what they use in private, too.>

<Unless they’re so used to pretending to be someone else, they just use a fake name all the time.>

I didn’t like to think about that. Sabine had been rescued just under five years ago. In five years, Addie and I would be twenty. Would we still be in hiding? Would we have slipped into the skin of someone else’s life so fully their name slipped off our tongue like our own?

“I’m—” Addie started to say, then hesitated. We couldn’t drop either of our names in public, even if there was no one around to hear but the guy reading behind the counter. We had the identity Emalia had forged for us. But it stuck in our throat. We didn’t want to introduce ourself with somebody else’s name.

“It’s all right.” Sabine smiled. “We know who you are.”

They might know our names, but how could they know if Addie was in control right now or me? How could they know if the boy next to us was Devon or Ryan?

“Jackson said you guys have gone down to the beach already?” Cordelia asked as she let go of Jackson. He rolled his eyes at her and ran his hand through his shaggy hair, trying to get it to lie down flat again.

Addie shrugged. “Only once.”

“But not at night?”

“No.”

Cordelia threw out her arms, as if trying to capture and express the sight of the ocean after dark. “It’s beautiful. We should go right now.”

“It’s a little far to walk,” Sabine said. She caught Cordelia’s drink as it almost tipped off the table. “And a little late to take a bus.”

Cordelia laughed. “Okay, okay. The voice of reason reigns. We’ll go straight to the shop, then.”

“The shop?” Addie asked.

“Sabine and I recently opened a photography shop a few streets down,” Cordelia said. “We hang out there sometimes.”

<They own a photography shop?> Addie said.

I wouldn’t have guessed either Cordelia or Sabine was over twenty, if that. But such was the magic of a forged identity. Perhaps they’d convinced Emalia to fudge a date or two, give them years they’d never actually lived.

“Did you guys want to order something before we left?” Sabine asked as the others picked up their things, clearing the table. “They’ve got—” I caught the moment she realized neither Devon nor I had any money. How could we? “Here.” She took Addie gently by the arm and led us toward the counter. “You’ve got to try their