The Other Half of Me (20 page)

Jenny—

I see that it’s a message from Alexa and my heart pivots.

Sorry sorry sorry. We’re both sorry. I know you called but I didn’t pick up—

Again my stomach dips as I read—what if she never wants to talk again?

I’m sure you have a lot to say, but so do I. I didn’t call, because I was mad and hurt. Still, there’s something you need to know.

I swallow and prepare myself for what’s next.

As soon as I got home, I had an e-mail waiting for me.

I hear my parents calling for me from outside. I hear Tate laughing and my sisters singing some song. I wonder about the future, about seeing Alexa in the city and checking on my artwork there, about running with my dad and about fall and school and if Tate will hold my hand as we walk through the school doors. I keep reading Alexa’s message, wondering what she thinks I need to know.

You and I are sisters, right? I think we’ve proven that. But this e-mail I got—well, it changes things. What I’m trying to tell you is that there’s someone else—another one of us. A sibling connected through Donor 142.

I don’t have to reared the message to absorb all the content. More of us. Us.

Just when you think you have summed everything up, painted it clearly and given meaning to what was once just a pool of colored paint, another canvas crops up blank and ready to be filled. Another one of us. Expectations are only half of what you can imagine—one part what you want, another part what you only think you do. So I never had my perfect fit with Alexa, and I didn’t get that Ferris wheel with Tate, yet there are other moments I’ve had in the past two weeks I couldn’t have envisioned. Maybe that’s what the best part of life is, those days or minutes you can’t ever frame or paint beforehand.

After I e-mail her back, I make my way out to the backyard. I am part of a circle of family and friends. Music hums from the large speakers, the path to the tent is torch-lighted, and everywhere laughter and talking meshes to form a backdrop of contenment. Yes, fall is days away, change imminent, but for right now, I am here.

There are circles everywhere; twenty-four-hour days and cycles, drawings of full moons and suns made by kids across the globe. The point is that the days and circles keep coming if you’re lucky. Events matter, whether they are marble-small and ordinary, or the enormous ones that stretch out ocean-wide. Each moment pulls you from the past into now, and then into whatever is next on your horizon.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Emily Franklin is the author of the critically acclaimed series The Principles of Love, as well as two novels for adults,
The Girls’ Almanac
and
Liner Notes.
Forthcoming from Penguin is another series, Chalet Girls. Emily Franklin edited the anthology
It’s a Wonderful Lie: 26 Truths About Life in Your Twenties
and the forthcoming essay collection
How Do You Spell Chanukah?
She is the coeditor of
Before: Short Stories About Pregnancy from Our Top Writers.
Her work has appeared in the
Boston Globe
and
Mississippi Review
, as well as in
Some Kind of Wonderful: Contemporary Writers on the Films of John Hughes
and
When I Was a Loser: True Stories of (Barely) Surviving High School.
Emily Franklin lives near Boston with her husband and their young children.

Also by Emily Franklin

The Principles of Love (series)

Piece, Love, and Happiness

Love from London

All You Need Is Love

Summer of Love

The Girls’ Almanac

Liner Notes

Published by Delacorte Press an imprint of Random House Children’s Books a division of Random House, Inc.
New York

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Text copyright © 2007 by Emily Franklin

All rights reserved.

Delacorte Press and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

www.randomhouse.com/teens

Educators and librarians, for a variety of teaching tools, visit us at

www.randomhouse.com/teachers

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Franklin, Emily.

The other half of me / Emily Franklin.—1st ed.

p. cm.

Summary: Feeling out of place in her athletic family, artistic sixteen-year-old Jenny Fitzgerald, whose biological father was a sperm donor, finds her half sister through the Sibling Donor Registry and contacts her, hoping that this will make her feel complete.

[1. Identity—Fiction. 2. Brothers and sisters—Fiction. 3. Family life—Connecticut—Fiction. 4. Artists—Fiction. 5. Painting—Fiction. 6. Dating (Social customs)—Fiction. 7. Connecticut—Fiction.] I. Title.

PZ7.F8583Ot 2007

[Fic]—dc22

2006036825

eISBN: 978-0-375-89058-1

v3.0