So it goes [Breakable Heaven #1]

32. What did you do, then, get artificially inseminated?

"You've been awfully quiet today."

Rory and I are on the train to Madrid, on our way to go to Sydney Grant's concert. In the end, she was the one who offered to come with me, as soon as she had known that Jean had given up her ticket. I don't know if she is doing it for me, because she remembers from some conversation of what it feels like a million years ago that Sydney's music in my mind is closely linked to Lilian, or because she has started to enjoy listening to her in these months we have been hanging out, but I am glad she offered.

We took the train in the morning so we can get to Madrid, make a quick stop at the hotel to put our things down, and go to the concert venue. Despite being really excited I finally get to see Sydney again - especially since I missed her last tour because she didn't come to Spain - I have spent the first hour of the journey in absolute silence, just staring out of the window. I can't stop thinking about the conversation I had with Rachel that set the wheels in motion to finally reach out to my birth father. There's not much I can do right now, I have to wait a full month until Rachel comes to visit me, but that doesn't stop me from obsessing over it.

When I hear Rory's voice, I finally leave the view outside of the window and turn to her.

"I know," I sigh. "I'm sorry, I must be the worst company. You offered to accompany me to the concert and I repay you with complete silence."

"It's ok, I don't mind having some time to myself to read, since we rarely have a quiet moment to do that. I just want to make sure you're ok."

I smile. I quite enjoy Rory's caring side, a side she doesn't show often and not a lot of people have been lucky enough to witness it.

"I'm good, I just... I did something yesterday, something that could potentially change my life."

"You're leaving?" she asks, alarmed. "You've sent your cv to someplace in the US or another city or country? Is that it?"

"What? No!" I laugh. "Why would you think that? I love Seville, I love my life here, why would I want to leave that behind?"

'Especially after everything I've lost in order to be here,' I think, but I keep that to myself.

She shrugs. "I don't know, something that could potentially change your life... that's the only thing I could think of. What did you do, then, get artificially inseminated?"

I giggle at the absurdity of that statement. Me, artificially inseminated? As if! I don't even like children, I have never liked them and I am never going to have one, ever.

"I've decided I'm going to look for my birthfather," I spill the beans. "I asked my friend Rachel to bring me my mom's high school yearbooks, so I can find his name and, hopefully, a way to get in touch with him."

"Wow!" Rory looks quite shocked at my confession. "Sash, that's... that's huge."

"Yeah..."

We remain silent for a while, I stare at my hands in my lap, waiting for some more questions to come. Rory and I have become quite close these months, and not just physically; we've shared a lot about our lives, but for some reasons, my family is a topic we've never really touched, just some snippets of conversation here and there. That doesn't mean I wouldn't answer any question she might have. And I know she has some: we're getting to know each other, and my origins are a big part of who I am, so why wouldn't she be curious to know more about it? She has probably never asked because she's trying to be respectful.

"You can ask me questions, you know?" I encourage her. "I don't mind talking about it."

"You don't?" She sounds surprised. "I've always assumed it was an off-limit topic, as we've never really... but I guess that's because we were never exactly close, you know? I mean, this is the kind of stuff you talk to your friends about, not with the Trybrid Bitch."

"Well, we're friends now, so..." I shrug to let her know I don't mind diving into that topic, and to remind her once again that, to me, she isn't the Trybrid Bitch anymore.

"Uhm... I was just... I was just wondering how you're going to find him. How are your mom's yearbooks going to help you?"

"He and my mom were high school sweethearts. From what I remember my mom telling me, they dated for part of their junior year and their whole senior year, so I assume there's going to be at least one picture of them together in there. I'll start from there." I close my eyes to recollect everything my mom told me about my father. "I think he used to play football. He had a full scholarship to some fancy college, but he decided to enlist in the Marines, and that's when he and my mom broke up. I have no idea if he knew about me or my mom never told him. That's part of the reason why I want to find him and contact him. For all I know, he's oblivious to the fact he has a daughter, and finding out might make him happy."

"So if you could easily find his name on the yearbook, then why haven't you done it yet? I mean, why now?"

I sigh. "I don't know, I guess I've never really wanted to, you know? I've always thought about him, but there has never been a triggering moment, something that really pushed me to take this huge step. But spending time with Jean and her family got me thinking, and yesterday at school, when I saw all those fathers and daughters... something snapped in my mind, and I felt like I had to do it."

"I think you did the right thing. It's always better to know, isn't it? Ignorance is bliss is a load of crap."

I chuckle, remembering that I've pretty much stated the exact same to Rachel. Great minds think alike, or so they say.

"What about your mom?" she asks then. "How did she die? You don't have to tell me, of course... only if you're comfortable with it."

"It's alright," I smile. "She was in a car crash when I was five. I don't exactly know the dynamics - nobody cared to tell a five-year-old. I think something about someone running a red light."

"I'm so sorry," she says, and the look on her face tells me that she really means it. "What was she like? Do you remember her at all?"

"I do, a little. She was really young, she had me when she had just turned eighteen. She didn't have it easy, her parents pretty much disowned her when she got pregnant and she had to raise me on her own, so she worked a lot, but she always found time to spend with me. She was a good baker and always let me help her, and then every Wednesday she used to pick me up from daycare and we would get ice cream and go take a walk in the park. She said Wednesdays were special because it was on that day that she found out she was pregnant with me, and I was the greatest gift she had ever received and her masterpiece. She was fun and loving, all my memories of her are really happy memories," I recount with tears in my eyes. They're not necessarily sad tears, as my memories with my mom really are the happiest of my life. Sometimes I wonder what it would have happened if she hadn't died in that car crash: would we still be close or I would have grown to hate her like it sometimes happens with mothers and daughters? I remember I used to watch Gilmore Girls as a teenager and I couldn't help but think that my mom and I could have been just like the main characters of the show.

Maybe that's why I need to find my birth father: I lost my mom and I can't get her back, but maybe I can still have a parent in my life. Sometimes I regret not looking for him sooner.

"Do you look like her?"

I shake my head and laugh. "No, not at all. Look."

I take my wallet out of my bag and show Rory a picture of a three-year-old me being hugged by a young woman with curly dark hair and sun-kissed skin.

"She looks more like me than you," Rory laughs, and it's true: with her dark hair and dark complexion, my mother didn't really look like my mother. "Maybe you've taken after your dad."

"Maybe," I shrug. "I guess I'm gonna find out."

"What was her name?"

"June. June Brennan."

After that we remain silent for a good ten minutes, both looking at the landscape that passes us by out of the window.

"It's nice," Rory says then.

"What is?" I ask, pretty sure she means the scenery outside.

"Getting to know you."