When You Were My Sister

Chapter Eleven (Who am I?)

Nola 

I could not forget the disgusted look on Neima's face when she walked away from me. I did not want to think about how I disgusted her so I came into my room and put some music on. The moment I did, Avery came knocking at my door, he poked his head around it.

"Can I come in?" He asked walking in. He sat on my bed.

"Yeah sure." I said sarcastically. I locked the door.

"Your taste in music sucks." Avery said, swiping through his phone.

"What's wrong with Taylor Swift?"

"Everything. I am connecting to your blue tooth speakers." He said.

I disconnected my phone and he peered his phone to the speakers.

"If you want an angry playlist, Taylor Swift is not the way to go. Shaking it off is not what you need." He started his playlist with Drake, nodding his head.

He made me laugh. He got to his feet dancing and I laughed some more.

"Come on." He bounced me with his butt.

We danced like lunatics until we were tired, I dropped on the floor and he laid beside me.

"Grownups are idiots." Avery said.

"I know right." My chest rose and fell rapidly from the after math of our exertion.

"So what if you had the wrong father growing up. The one that staid loved you."

I glanced at him, he was staring at the sealing.

"Yeah." I laughed.

"But still they should have told you."

I turned on my side resting my head on my elbow. "Why do you think they are hiding the truth from me."

He shrugged. "Maybe you were adopted." He gave me a side way glance.

That thought had never occurred to me, it sounded so ridiculous I laughed.

"Think about it." He turned on his side towards me. "You are hot, your mom is an older woman, very old." He added.

I gave him an annoyed look.

"She had to have been in her forties when she had you."

"And your point?"

"The risk of having a child his high, so they adopted you when Neima left because of classic empty nest syndrome." He smirked, his eyes explored my face. "Or it could be that Neima was the one that had you and they took you from her. You do look like her."

His words hit home like a wrecking ball, my mind felt like it was overloading with the obvious. It all added up. The weird looks she gave me, the secrecy, the tension between her and Mama, the instant connection we had, Mama's denial of cheating on dad. I felt like my head was about to explode.

"No." I shook my head sitting up. "No."

"I was just kidding Nola." Avery laughed. "Why would Neima not tell you, if you were her daughter?"

"Shut up Avery, I need to think." I got up and started to pace, practically wearing a hole in the carpet.

Avery sat on the floor watching me.

Neima was seventeen or eighteen when she left, she had been old enough. She left immediately after I was born, I calculated the years and the time it would take. They never spoke of her, could it be because they were trying to protect me from the fact that she did not want me. My chest tightened, the truth dancing above the horizon. My box of secrets began to make sense.