Just like that, it was the four of us in my kitchen. I looked around, quietly marveling. As different as the lawn had looked, the kitchen was the same as always. Same induction cooktop, same granite countertops.
Already, the memories of Philadelphia and Damford and Neven felt curiously distant. They just didn’t fit. Not with the house. Not with me. Not with all this familiarity.
“The house is so different,” Red said.
“It’s fancy.” Four touched her hand to the tap over the cooktop. “What’s this? It looks like a faucet.”
“It is,” I said. “It’s to fill the pots.”
“Really fancy,” Four added.
“Is it?” I said, uncertain. “Let me, um . . . pour us some iced tea.”
Playing hostess was new for me. I whirled to grab the glasses, feeling the others’ eyes on my back.
“The house is so much bigger.” Four glanced out through the window blinds. “And all those barns . . . Wow. We had most torn down years ago. I doubt we had this many in the first place.”
“The MGA built new ones matching the style of the existing barns.” I poured the iced tea. “They renovated the house years ago—a bigger garage for my parents, a bigger room for me.” This wasn’t the right moment, but I blurted out: “Want to see it?”
“Definitely,” Red said.
Up in my room, my desk lamp had gotten knocked to the floor, probably from the commotion on my birthday. The rest was as I’d left it. My sheets messy, pajamas slung over my desk chair, the remotes and game controllers in a pile in the center of the beanbag.
Hesitantly, I looked at the others. I’d never had anyone to show my room to. I wanted them to love it as much as I did—and surely they had to, surely we had similar tastes—but I couldn’t tell what stood out at them. The size? The mess? The helium balloons Dad had brought in on the morning of my birthday? The hanging wicker chair and reading nook and that swirly wallpaper I’d spent so long choosing? How expensive it all was?
Were they wondering how different Alpha’s housing across the lawn must’ve been?
Maybe seeing my room would show the others my life wasn’t as bad as they’d thought. Although that only worked if they liked it—
It took a second for that to race through my mind and start all over again. Finally, Four said, “This is your room?” She gawked. “Oh my God, it’s like something out of those home renovation shows.”
“How big is that TV?” Rainbow asked. “And holy shit, are those all games?”
“You have your own bathroom! And a walk-in closet!”
“I love this wallpaper, it’s amazing—”
I masked my sigh of relief. “Right? I love it, too. It’s cerise.”
Four studied photos on a shelf. Her puzzled look spoke volumes. Her family photos would probably look strange to me, too. They might’ve been taken on vacation, in Philadelphia, on the West Asherton main square with me and Carolyn digging our spoons into matching frozen yogurt cups, during a summer barbecue on a barn-free lawn . . .
I had wondered What if about my future often enough, but rarely about what I could’ve been under other circumstances.
Now I had so many versions of Could’ve been—
And it still told me nothing if none of them were me.
CHAPTER FIFTY
My room was big enough for all of us.
My bathroom wasn’t, though.
With Red using it and Four waiting at the door, I stepped into the hallway to try the shared bathroom. Locked. I slumped against the wall to wait. Exhaustion drifted across my mind like a fog.
You made a mistake, a voice whispered. You made a mistake and now there’s agents all around you and it’s too late to turn back.
Rainbow stepped from the bathroom. Both of us startled. “I didn’t know you were waiting,” she said.
I hadn’t been alone with Rainbow since the car. My eyes dropped to her bare neck. “Do you take your necklace off every night, or—? I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to freak out at it in the hospital.” I kept my voice low, although Mom was downstairs on the phone with Dad.
“I always take it off. And yes: I’ll keep it off tomorrow.”
“Thank you.” I cringed at the relief in my voice. “I’m really sorry. It’s just that I haven’t told my parents anything, and I’m not sure . . .” I’m not sure I want them to find out like this; I’m not sure I want them to find out at all; I’m not sure I’ve even found out myself, no matter what I told you.
“I get it,” she said.
Did she? I smiled wryly. “This must be a letdown for you, huh? You get to see what you could’ve been in another world, and it’s just watered-down versions of you. You must’ve expected cooler hair.”
She frowned, apparently taking my words more seriously than I’d intended. Or maybe exactly as seriously as I’d intended.
“Nine months,” Rainbow said. “Only nine months ago, we would’ve been indistinguishable.” She ran her fingers down a wet, red lock of hair by her cheek. “It’s as simple as talking to the hairdresser.”
“It’s not the hair,” I said. “I know that I could cut and dye mine and we’d look the same. The difference between us is: I could, but I didn’t. You did.”
Rainbow watched me, a towel over her arm and a toothbrush in her hand. “Nine months ago, I would’ve said the same thing. Dyeing my hair had always been a maybe-one-day sort of thing.”
Maybe one day. Do something bold, something different, something that would make me smile at the mirror instead of flinch.
Maybe one day, when the thought wasn’t so terrifying.
Maybe one day, if I had somewhere to escape to if it all went wrong.
“What changed?” I asked.
“I went ahead and did it.” Maybe Rainbow saw the disappointment on my face, because she went on. “I’m sorry. It really was that simple. Which doesn’t mean it was easy. The first time I talked to Mom and Dad
