Andie moved her hand from where it rested on her boyfriend, Travis’s, leg to reach over and give my hand a reassuring squeeze. ‘I know it’s frustrating, girl, but I’m sure people don’t see their messages right away. Maybe they don’t have email notifications set up or just don’t pop in there very often after getting their initial results. It doesn’t mean you won’t ever hear back.’

‘I know,’ I said, taking a long sip. ‘I’m just getting impatient. I want to know more about my family right now.’ I slammed my fist into the back of the couch on the last word. ‘You know me,’ I said, biting anxiously at my lip.

‘Oh yeah, I know how much you hate not knowing things. Honestly, as shocked as I am that your parents kept this from you, I’m even more shocked that they were able to.’

I snorted through my frustration.

‘What do you mean?’ Travis asked.

‘I know you haven’t really experienced Lizzie’s laser focus when she’s on the hunt, but let’s just put it this way, when she wants to find something out, there’s no stopping her.’

‘What can I say? It’s what I do,’ I replied smugly, patting myself on the back.

Turning back to me, Andie said, ‘Yeah, yeah. Remember that time a pipe burst and flooded my house and I had to spend the night with you on Christmas Eve? Your dad made us watch the first three Star Wars movies, and then what happened that night, Liz?’ Andie asked, squinting her eyes at me.

‘Andie, I was thirteen.’

She leaned forward, playfully punching me in the upper arm. ‘My point exactly. The sickness started early in this one,’ she said in her best Darth Vader voice.

‘Do, or do not. There is no try,’ I replied in a mangled attempt at Yoda. As much as we’d groaned about my dad making us watch the originals, we’d actually loved them, even though we’d never admitted that to my dad.

Andie and I burst out laughing. ‘Wait, what happened on Christmas Eve?’ Travis interrupted.

When Andie caught her breath, she said, ‘Oh, right. Well, Liz really wanted her own computer in her room to …’ she pulled up her fingers to mime air quotes, ‘… do schoolwork.’ She glanced at me with a sly smile. ‘But what she really wanted was to secretly make a Myspace profile and keep tabs on everyone at school. Amirite?’ I shrugged my shoulders, neither confirming nor denying the accusation. Andie rolled her eyes back to Travis. ‘Anyway, she talked me into sneaking downstairs after her parents went to bed. She opened every single one of her gifts looking for the computer and then rewrapped them so her parents wouldn’t know. She couldn’t even wait a few hours.’ Andie laughed, shaking her head. ‘She totally got away with it, too.’