The Family Photo That Didn't Have Me In It novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Wrong Name

Amelie reads Emery's name off the convocation podium to thousands, Dad slaps Emery behind the science building, and the viral post calling her a monster turns out to be Griffin's.

At nine the next morning, four thousand freshmen sat in rows of folding chairs on the football field.

I sat in the last row of the chemistry section, under the scoreboard.

The clock on the scoreboard said 8:58.

I checked my phone anyway, and the screenshot was still there, five years of dread in three lines.

I'd told myself all night I could still stop it.

I could have walked down to the front row and taken the folder out of her hands.

I stayed in my seat.

If I was going to stop being the girl who fixes everything, it had to start with something small enough to survive.

My family had seats in the front, roped off with a gold cord.

Mom had her phone up before anyone walked onstage.

Dad was shaking hands down the aisle with the president's aide, laughing, a man who sold forty cars a month.

"And now, your freshman class speaker," the president said. "One of this state's top ten scholars."

Amelie rose from the front row in her crystal gown.

The sun hit her and she lit up.

The boy beside me whistled under his breath.

"That's the genius? She looks like a pageant queen."

"Twins," the girl on his other side whispered. "The other one's around here somewhere."

I didn't move.

Amelie climbed the steps, set the folder on the podium, and gave the field her softest smile.

She opened the folder.

She looked down.

"Good morning," she read. "My name is Emery Tilden, and I'm a chemist."

Four thousand people heard it.

For one second, nobody understood.

Then a ripple went through the chairs, row by row, like wind over a field.

Amelie's smile stayed exactly where it was.

Her eyes went back to the first line and stayed there.

In the front row, Mom lowered her phone an inch.

I knew that face.

It was the face she made at the NICU window in every story she told about it.

Amelie laughed into the microphone, breathless.

"Sorry. I mean. My sister. Wrote this. For me."

She pushed on, because Amelie always pushed on when people were watching.

"My grandmother grew up drinking water from the big lake. Every summer the..."

She squinted.

"The sigh-ano bacteria. Bloom. And produce micro..."

She stopped.

"Micro-sis-tin," she tried. "Which is a hepa... a hepato..."

Somebody near the forty-yard line laughed out loud.

Then a lot of people did.

"What is she even reading?"

"Is that English?"

"I thought she was supposed to be the smart one."

A week of my life, and she couldn't say the word for the thing in my grandmother's cup.

Amelie turned two pages at once, then turned one back.

Her chin started to shake.

She looked out at the front row, at Mom, at Dad, at Griffin half out of his seat.

The president coughed once and nodded at a woman by the stage stairs.

The woman put a gentle hand on Amelie's back and walked her off.

The crystals flashed all the way down the steps.

"Let's give her a hand," the president said. "Nerves get the best of us."

The applause sounded like rain on a tin roof.

I picked up my bag and left before the dean finished the next sentence.

I made it as far as the shady path behind the science building.

Then I heard Amelie sobbing, and I knew who was coming.

They came around the corner in a pack.

Mom had Amelie tucked under her arm, gown and all, and she was stroking her hair.

Dillon walked in front, red to the ears.

Griffin had Amelie's folder in his fist.

Dad got to me first.

"You did that on purpose."

"I sent her the speech she asked for," I said. "My speech. With my name on it."

"You knew she'd read it cold!"

"She had a whole night. She never opened it."

His palm hit my cheek so hard my head turned and my ear rang.

Nobody said anything.

Dad looked at his own hand like it belonged to somebody else.

Then he looked at me like I'd made him do it.

Dillon looked at the bricks.

Griffin looked at me with his mouth pressed flat.

My face burned on one side.

I kept my hands at my sides.

"Emery," Griffin said, low and patient. "I'm trying to help you. Here's what's going to happen."

He held up his phone.

"You're going to post on the student forum tonight. You sent her the wrong file by accident."

"It's your fault and you're sorry."

"It wasn't an accident."

"Nobody needs to know that." He stepped closer. "Your record is perfect. The professors will forgive you anything."

"Amelie just got laughed at by four thousand people."

"She read my name off my speech."

"Be a good girl," he said softly. "Fix it."

Ten years ago he'd knelt in our driveway and wrapped my knee and told me he'd protect me.

He'd been the first person I ever believed.

"No," I said.

Mom actually gasped.

"I'm not apologizing. I'm not posting anything. If she wants to give speeches, she can write one."

Griffin's face went very still.

Dillon finally looked up. "Em. Come on."

"Come on what? You told her she needed the stage more than me. She had it."

His mouth opened.

For a second I thought he might say something true.

Then Amelie wailed into Mom's shoulder. "She hates me. She's always hated me."

Mom glared at me over Amelie's red hair.

"Look what you did to your sister."

I walked past them.

Nobody stopped me.

Behind me, I heard Griffin say, "Leave it. I'll handle it."

That evening, academic affairs emailed me.

Transfer approved. Effective Monday. Northbound ticket attached, Saturday, 11:40 a.m.

I read it twice and put my phone face down on my sleeping bag.

At ten, the buzzing started.

It buzzed against the floor of the quad until the whole phone was walking.

I flipped it over.

Thirty-one notifications from the student forum.

The top post on the front page was pinned, and it tagged me.

The title said: The "genius" who threw her own twin under the bus at convocation.

There was a picture of Amelie on the stage steps in her gown, crying so beautifully it looked staged.

Under it, four paragraphs about a jealous sister who'd sabotaged a sick girl on purpose.

The last line said: Some people are born monsters and get scholarships for it.

Two thousand likes.

I scrolled to the bottom.

It was signed with his full name.

Griffin Upton.

The first like on it, timestamped four minutes after he posted, was my mother's.

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