I put a trembling hand to my forehead and pinch the bridge of my nose. Out of all the hard things I’ve done, this is the hardest. The back of my throat burns acidic and I swallow it down.
You got this. You’re so much stronger than you think you are.
Sasha’s unwavering belief in me was one thing when I was preparing to give a speech in class. It’s completely different now. I want so badly to be pissed at her for doing this to me, but I know that’s just how she is. Believing that I can do the impossible.
“I’m sorry, but … Sasha died on Monday.” Warm tears roll down my cheeks. “She’s, uh, she’s behind you. This is her grave.”
Elijah turns around, his head dipping to look at the grave and all of the wildflowers surrounding it. I watch his back, see the lines of his shoulder blades hunch as he lowers his head into his hands.
I step forward and put a hand on his shoulder. “She had cancer. Did she tell you that?”
Hands still covering his face, he shakes his head. Then he looks up toward the sky, a tear rolling down his cheek.
He draws in a deep breath, and it seems like he grows a foot taller when he stands to his full height. When he looks at me, I see so many pieces of Sasha in his features. The cheekbones, the concerned curve of his brow. “Sorry to freak out on you,” he says, turning his gaze toward the grave. “I had no idea what to expect when I got this card telling me to go to a cemetery. Definitely not this.” His bottom lip quivers. “I only just found her. And now she’s gone.”
My hand on his arm is now sticky with sweat. “It’s okay to cry,” I say, peering up at him. I can tell he’s holding back his emotions, trying to keep it all together. It’s the same look I’ve had all week. “You see that lake over there?” I nod toward the back of the cemetery. “I’ve probably cried twice that much water in the last week. Sasha was my best friend.”
Elijah’s lip is trembling. “Tell me about her?”
We head to the nearby bench and I drop my backpack to the ground beside me. “You go first. I had no idea Sasha had a brother. You look just like her.”
He wipes at his eyes and slings his arm across the back of the bench. “I didn’t know either until I turned eighteen and they released me from the group home. I asked for my paperwork —”
“Group home?”
His tongue flicks across his bottom lip quickly and he nods. “Yeah, uh, it’s what they call the place where a ton of underage guys live until they age out.”
My throat feels dry. “You weren’t adopted?”
He shakes his head like it’s not a big deal. “So anyway, I had my paperwork and tried finding my birth parents for a little while.” He snorts and gazes out at the lake. “They’re both dead. Addicts. But I also learned I had a sister who was three years younger and given up when she was really young. I spent months trying to find her. It was hard because her last name was different.”
“Sasha Delgado,” I say, trying on the name she had before she was a Cade.
He leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “I ended up finding her on a Texas adoption forum. She was looking for our parents, and when she said she was multiracial, I thought it might be her.”
“Do you know which races?” I ask, curious. Sasha’s obsession with her ancestry had always been a thing. We’d assumed she was probably part African-American, but we could never know for sure. Her parents weren’t thrilled at the idea of Sasha searching for her birth parents, so she never did.
At least not that she ever told me.
“Yeah, like three of them,” Elijah says. “Our dad was half black, and our mother was from Brazil. She came over here as a little girl.”
“Brazil,” I say with a smile. It’s like a missing puzzle piece of Sasha’s heritage has finally slipped into place. “I wonder if that’s where she got those beautiful eyes. Your eyes,” I say, before I can stop myself.
“Ah, the eyes,” he says, leaning back on the bench and looking up at the sky. “I’ve been hearing about my eyes my whole life. Interesting eyes never got me adopted, though.”
“I’m sorry.” My nails dig into my palms. Why do I keep saying stupid things? What exactly is the protocol for meeting your dead best friend’s brother when you never knew he existed in the first place?
“I wonder why —” I shut up and shake my head.
“The Cades didn’t adopt me, too?” he asks, reading my mind. He shrugs. “I was given up after Sasha when I was a toddler. My mom tried giving us both up, but then my dad kept me for a while before he lost his rights and I was put into the system. Maybe the Cades didn’t know. Don’t make that face,” he says, nudging me with his elbow. “I’m okay with it. I’m glad it was her instead of me. She seemed really happy with her family.”
“She was. She loved her parents, they’re really nice people.” And wealthy people, I think. People who gave her a life someone in a group home could never even fathom.
> My heart aches for this boy I’ve only just met. I want to climb into his past and make it all better again, make the Cades adopt him, too, and give him the same wonderful life that Sasha got to have. I know Sasha must have felt the same way. Maybe this is morbid, but if the Cades had adopted both of the Delgado children, they would still have one kid left to love.
My body moves on its own, and soon I’m hugging him, wrapping my arms around his neck as I pull him close, trying helplessly to heal all of his pain.
It takes him a second, but he hugs me back, his strong arms nearly shoving all the air out of my lungs. I inhale the smell of laundry detergent mixed with the faint scent of motor oil. He kind of smells like our garage when the clothes dryer is on.