I shook off the memories and stared my sister down. “Reach out?” I repeated. “You got placed with a family, a good family, and moved three thousand miles away to the East Coast. Exactly how was I supposed to reach out?”

I could feel Jackson’s eyes on my face. He didn’t know anything about my past, because I never talked about it. I was certain he was examining these pieces and trying to figure out how they fit into the puzzle that was me. I would have told him not to bother, but I was too focused on making my past, in the human form of my sister, go away. I didn’t want anyone to see me in my self-imposed isolation, especially Lexi. The pity would flatten what little self-respect I had left. And believe me, I hadn’t been operating at capacity for a long while.

“There’s this crazy thing called the Internet. You could have found me. You could have stayed in my life,” she argued. Her pointy chin was set at the stubborn angle I remembered so well when she didn’t get her way.

“Is that what your new family told you?” I stared at her, incredulous. I didn’t want to shotgun any positive feelings she had about her adoptive family, but they had made it very clear, painfully clear, when they moved that I was to stay far, far away.

“No,” she said. She glanced down and then back, still brave even after all these years. “Mom admitted that Dad told you to keep your distance when we left Arizona. They were worried you’d be a bad influence on me.”

It was jarring to hear her call her adoptive parents Mom and Dad. It’s what I’d wanted for her when she left, but it made the chasm between us feel that much wider.

“He said it a hell of a lot more plainly to me than that,” I corrected her. “When did she tell you?” Suddenly, it was very important for me to know how long she had known the truth.

“After he died last year,” Lexi said. “Mom started to get worried that if something should happen to her, I’d have no one, and she told me I should find you. When I said I doubted that you were interested in me because I’d never heard from you after we moved to Virginia, she told me what Dad said to you.” She looked sad. “You still could have reached out to me, you know.”

I stared at her. Hard. She had no idea. That day, the day they packed up and left Arizona, taking my baby sister with them, had been the worst day of my entire life. It still was, ranking even higher than the day the bottom had fallen out on me, which was saying something.