A Need So Beautiful Read Online Free Page B

you’ve gotten Sarah’s shopping out of the way?” She’s not hinting. She’s telling me.
    “Of course.”
    “Good. You know I don’t like you riding the bus when it gets late. I told Alex that too, but I know his little fifteen-year-old butt was out after twelve.” She raises her voice so that it carries toward his bedroom. “He’s lucky he’s not grounded.”
    I smile, knowing that Mercy would never ground us. Scold us endlessly, yes. But never punish us. It just isn’t her way.
    I’ve been with Mercy for over ten years, longer than Alex or Georgia. She used to tell me about the day she first saw me in the hospital, a six-year-old with a pale pink dress and ribbons in my hair, sitting all alone in the waiting room. No one knew who dropped me off, or whom I belonged to.
    Mercy had just gotten her license to foster, so when no one claimed me, she put in a request to take me home with her. After nearly a year of searching, my parents were never found, so Mercy filed to become my legal guardian. She likes to say that I found her .
    It used to haunt me, not having natural parents. I’ve tried so many times to remember my early childhood, but nothing comes to me. Like I didn’t exist until the moment I sat down in the hospital waiting room. Mercy and Monroe both think my memory loss is post-traumatic stress. They say it sometimes erases painful experiences.
    But I gave up dwelling about my past a long time ago. There’s no reason to. Mercy treats me like her own, and with Alex here with us, it’s like we’re a real family. We’ve each found the place where we belong.
    I’ve never told them about the Need. As far as Mercy knows, I have terrible menstrual cramps and severe asthma. The Need usually knocks the air out of me, so it wasn’t really hard to fake not being able to breathe. When I was a kid, I was too scared to ever tell Mercy about my episodes, afraid that if she found out she’d realize I wasn’t normal, and then she’d give me back.
    And now it’s been so long that I’m not sure how to bring it up. I don’t know, maybe I’m still scared of losing my only home.
    A door closes and Alex comes from the hall, his toothbrush sticking out of his mouth as he runs his hand through his still-wet, shoulder-length black hair. When he sees me, he waves.
    “Hey, Charlotte,” he mumbles through clenched teeth. “Nice coat.”
    “Thanks. Going out?”
    Alex takes the toothbrush out of his mouth. “Nope. Staying in. You?”
    “All night.”
    We smile at each other and I slip off my jacket, laying it over the back of the tweed sofa. Like me, Alex sneaks out to see his boyfriend during the week. It’s just so much easier than asking for permission, which we’d never get.
    Mercy mumbles something in Spanish to Alex as she walks past him into the kitchen, obviously still mad about his late-night bus ride. He rolls his eyes at me while Mercy takes a Tupperware filled with leftovers from the fridge.
    The house is quiet, and I wonder why loud rap music isn’t coming from the back bedroom as usual. “Hey,” I ask Alex. “Where’s Georgia?”
    “Hell if I care,” he says, shrugging and sitting on the stool at the counter.
    Mercy walks by and lightly smacks him in the back of the head. “Be nice to your sister.”
    I laugh because Georgia and Alex fight like actual brother and sister, even though Georgia has only been here about six months. She’s totally secretive and often bitchy, but then again, most fosters who come through start off like that. Alex and I were the only ones who became permanent. Neither of us ever had anywhere else to go.
    “She’s not my sister, Ma,” Alex replies. “Not unless you’re going to adopt her, too.”
    “Georgia has a family down south,” Mercy says, putting the Tupperware in her insulated lunch bag. “And if it weren’t a temporary situation, maybe I would.” She raises her chin defiantly and I can see in her eyes that she feels guilty. Sometimes I think