A chord resonates in me — the adoptee chord, as in tune as ever. I will probably never know why my birth mother didn’t want me, but the pain of it never abates. Even the smallest slight reminds me of my first life experience and forever legacy: rejection. My parents don’t understand this at all — But of course you were wanted! We wanted you! You were everything we’d ever dreamed of! I have long since stopped trying to explain, because no one understands, and because it hurts my parents to hear, since they can’t fix it. I wish having been unwanted didn’t hurt so much, but it does.

So I do what I do best, which is to be helpful. I help serve dinner, help feed Jonah, help clean up. As an accidental and unwanted addition to the earth’s problematically vast population, I feel an obligation to justify my existence. So I try to be useful, to walk a straight path, no detours allowed.

And as much as I love my family and as fortunate as I am, there is a dark little place inside me that envies my brother. Unlike me, he has nothing to justify — he was called into the world intentionally, a joyous surprise that arrived years after my parents gave up on conceiving and adopted me. Unlike me, he was never unwanted. He has been loved and cherished since he was conceived.

Jonah was a miracle.

I was a mistake.

Sam

School on Monday morning sucks with the ferocity of a black hole.

In English Mr. Tatlow announces we’ll be spending the week doing collaborative analyses of Hamlet. Of course I get assigned to work with someone I’d rather set on fire — Connor Armstrong, a guy I’ve somehow been stuck in English with every year. He only reads Shakespeare for the dick jokes and thinks he’s clever for repeating them at every opportunity. At least it’s only an in-class project and we won’t have to meet up outside of that.

As if that weren’t bad enough, five steps after I leave the English classroom, some oblivious clod of a jock knocks my messenger bag off my shoulder. I spend the next three minutes playing a frantic game of pick-up-shit as the clueless masses trample my stuff. This unfortunate exercise makes me late to gym, which means I have to run laps — something I’m only motivated to do when being chased by a T. rex made of chain saws (i.e., never). By the time class ends, all I want is five minutes of humanless peace.

I duck into the bathroom closest to the gym to avoid the flood of people heading for the cafeteria. With everyone making a run for the lunch lines, it’s empty and quiet other than the slow drip of a leaking faucet. I enter the least befouled stall and slump against a wall to check my texts.