The Fake Sister’s Lies Couldn’t Silence Me Chapter 02
The first hour wasn’t so bad.
At least the PA system still talked to me.
“All juniors attending the Pine Hollow trip, please report to the athletic field at 3:00 p.m.”
I looked up at the speaker on the wall.
“Copy that. Whoever you are, you’ve got a great voice. Very authoritative.”
A few kids around me were shaking, trying not to laugh.
But nobody made a sound.
Hour two, I started talking to a vending machine.
“I fed you a five-dollar bill. Where’s my change?”
The vending machine ignored me.
I patted it.
“You’re pretty introverted.”
By hour three, Brennan confiscated my phone.
Apparently, I’d spammed [Are you there?] to nine hundred people in my contacts.
“This is you cooperating?”
He shoved my phone into his pocket.
I gave him my best puppy-dog eyes.
“Then can you at least text me back [I’m not here]?”
“I’m not picky.”
He walked away.
I took two steps after him, then stopped.
Mom promised that if I just got through the three days, she wouldn’t send me away again.
So I had to behave.
That afternoon, everyone lined up for the field trip. Our homeroom teacher, Ms. Hart, handed out trail tags.
Three colors: red, yellow, and blue.
I drew red. That put me in Sloane’s group, which was headed for Pine Hollow Campground halfway up the mountain.
Sloane glanced at my red tag and smiled.
It was the first time she’d looked at me all day.
I was by her side in a second.
“Oh, so now I exist?”
“I knew you couldn’t stay mad at me forever. A few hours, tops.”
She didn’t say anything. Just took my trail tag and pinned it to my backpack.
I bounced after her.
“Want some chips?”
“Want a protein bar?”
“Do you think Brennan’s constipated? He’s looked miserable for two days.”
Sloane stopped walking.
I almost ran into her.
She kept her voice low.
“Tessa, why can’t you just leave people alone?”
“Can’t you be by yourself for five minutes?”
I thought about it.
“I can.”
“But when people stop talking to me, it feels like they’re figuring out how to get rid of me.”
Sloane went still.
I jumped on it and pointed at a bench nearby.
“We should sit down. It’s a long story. I can start with foster family number one.”
Whatever sympathy she’d had drained right out of her face.
“Forget it.”
She walked ahead without looking back.
Before the group headed out, Brennan showed up to bring Sloane a jacket.
I pulled out my notebook—my master friendship and safety notebook—to show him the field trip guide I’d put together.
He snatched it out of my hands.
Every page was packed with notes on students all across the school.
“Mr. Boone has a bad back. Grab him a chair on rainy days.”
“Ms. Rowan from the cafeteria has a twenty-two-year-old son. Single. Into girls with short hair.”
“Evan in junior homeroom is allergic to peanuts. His EpiPen is in the front pocket of his backpack.”
Brennan kept reading. His face got worse with every page.
“You’re tracking people’s allergies?”
“What is wrong with you?”
“I’m just making friends.”
I said it like it was the most obvious thing in the world.
“If something ever happens to them, I want to know how to help.”
Sloane’s eyes welled up again.
“Brennan, she has notes on my friends’ families.”
“That’s not making friends. That’s stalking.”
Brennan ripped the notebook in half.
Pages scattered across the ground.
I crouched down and picked them up, one by one.
“Brennan, you can rip up whatever you want.”
“Just not Evan’s page. He really can’t have peanuts.”
Brennan scoffed.
“They were all fine before you showed up.”
“Stop acting like anyone needs you, Tessa.”
I shoved the torn pages into my backpack and didn’t say anything.
He was right.
All eleven of those families were probably doing just fine without me.
I was the only one who fell apart every time. Like I was losing family, even though none of them were ever really mine.
On the bus, I finally got my phone back.
Every app was dead silent.
I sent Mom a photo of me on the bus.
The blue text bubble turned green. The ‘Delivered’ receipt never showed up.
She’d blocked me too.
I stared at that green text bubble for a long time.
My fifth foster mother did the same thing before she gave me up.
She claimed her phone was acting up. Said she wasn’t getting any texts.
Her phone wasn’t broken.
Mine were just the only messages she wouldn’t take.
The bus stopped at the base of the mountain. Ms. Hart split everyone into groups.
“Red tags, go left. Blue tags, go right. Yellow tags, you’re with me.”
I looked down at my backpack.
The red tag from that morning was gone. In its place was a blue one.
I looked up to find Sloane.
She was already walking right beside Ms. Hart, leading the red group down a different trail.
I called her name.
She didn’t turn around.
Nobody around me did, either.
