Forever Then

Prologue

YOU HAVE A MATCH

Gretchen

six months ago

DNA is a fascinating thing. A little spit run through some fancy machines overseen by a team of scientists and, voila , a comprehensive ancestry report, complete with a list of any genetic matches in their system, lands in your inbox.

Spit, seal, send, and all my burning questions would be answered in one little email.

Last summer, I returned to my hometown in Illinois before starting my senior year of college.

I worked my usual summer job at the coffee shop to save for the upcoming semester.

My scholarship paid for tuition and some of my housing expenses while my parents managed to cover the remainder, which, as they have pointed out to me ad nauseam over the years, is the equivalent of the tuition costs for nearly four full years at a state school where I had earned a full-ride scholarship.

Yes, the cost of living in Manhattan is astronomical, but I was content to work my way through school, earning the money necessary to fill the gaps. And I have…and then some. Hell, I had to budget months in advance to even afford that DNA kit because every penny counts in my life.

I had my reasons for picking New York.

Studying fashion design and merchandising was my dream and what better place to do that than Manhattan. But it wasn’t only about the degree. The melting pot drew me in, too. A city where more people looked like me.

I love my family and small hometown, but my olive skin and black-as-night hair alongside my fair-skinned, light-haired family has always left me feeling like a fish out of water.

My mom does have a fraction of Native American blood in her heritage, but it’s been watered down by generations of cross-cultural and cross-country marriages.

Next to me, she doesn’t look native at all.

The older I’ve gotten, the more I’ve yearned to know where I came from.

It took me twenty-one years to muster the courage to take this one small step. Despite the unconditional love of my well-intentioned parents and brother, I knew this was something I had to do on my own.

So, on a sizzling summer day last June, when I walked out of the coffee shop after my shift and heard that ping in my pocket, my heart lurched.

As I settled in the driver’s seat of my dad’s old Honda Civic, I opened the email on my phone. There it was, plain as day: Your results are in!

I quickly navigated from the email via the link and read through all the information with bated breath.

My ancestry results were not necessarily news to me; my parents had told me as much. I’m predominantly of Hispanic/Latino, specifically Mexican, and Indigenous Peoples, specifically Native American, heritage. What I was most interested in were my DNA matches. Those would be my ticket.

After endless scrolling, I finally found what I was looking for. I clicked the link, lungs seizing as the results appeared on my tiny screen .

No matches.

I wept—ugly tears there in the parking lot. I had put all my hope in that vial of saliva.

Instinct had me reaching for my phone to dial a familiar number, but reality crashed in—I hadn’t told anyone. Not even him .

There’s only ever been one person in my life I imagined sharing this with, but it’d been two years since we’d last spoken.

After everything that had happened, Connor Vining still came to the forefront of my mind.

Because, come hell or high water apparently, he’s always the first person I think of when I need a real friend, and real friends have never come easy for me.

I pasted a smile on my face for the rest of the summer, checking my account every day hoping that my DNA match page would reveal something helpful.

All I needed was a starting point, but it never came.

When my senior year of college officially began, I re-prioritized. Between my studies, working part-time, and the fast pace of New York life, I barely had time to think about it. My daily check-ins on my genetic report became less frequent until it was out of my mind completely.

Almost.

Resigning myself to Plan B—whatever that was—I decided to wait until after graduation to pursue anything further.

It's now finals week in my next to last semester of college. The last few weeks have been chocked full of late-night study groups, coffee and waning willpower.

I find my seat in the lecture hall, settling in for my last exam of the semester.

My phone pings with an incoming email. I pull it from my bag, silence it and then tap to my inbox to delete what is sure to be another promotional email from Crate and Barrel.

You buy one throw blanket two years ago and suddenly you’re in a digital marketing relationship with a stage five spammer.

The screen transitions and I suck in a breath at the subject line: You have a DNA match!

My chest constricts, stomach twirling. Before I can open it, my professor begins to distribute the test packets. I quickly stash my phone away, willing my thoughts into focus for the next hour.

It's the longest hour of my life.

As soon as I hand in my completed exam, I bolt out the door.

Juggling my bag in one hand, I clumsily maneuver myself into my winter coat, one arm and then the other.

To anyone passing by, I probably look like a frenzied mess, bag flinging, arms pushing and pulling, while I maniacally traverse three flights of stairs.

When I’m finally outside, I stop to retrieve my phone. My thumb hovers over the email icon, like tapping it might activate the next nuclear bomb.

It’s been six months since my initial, lackluster results came in. I’m twenty-one years old and I’ve never met another person with my DNA. This mysterious match is my family. To what degree, I don’t know. But it's a start.

A beautiful start.

At some point within the last thirty seconds, I’ve started to cry—this happens to me a lot.

I can’t do this here, not amongst the throng of students pressing in around me.

No, I’ll use the scenic route home to calm myself down, lower my expectations, so I can approach this with more logic than I’m capable of right now.

Can you call it a scenic route when you run the whole way and don’t take in any scenery?

Twenty minutes later, I’m at my apartment, relieved to discover that my roommate is still out.

I discard my winter gear in the entryway and book it to my room where I grab my laptop and settle on the bed.

Navigating to my email, I refresh the screen and find the unread message sitting at the top of my inbox.

One last deep breath and I open it.

Gabriella Ruiz, 3 rd Cousin—once removed, New Mexico—no photo attached.

I imagine that whole “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon” thing. The complex sequence of connection points between myself and a third cousin might as well be rocket science. I can’t make sense of it.

There’s an option to message her directly, but I hesitate. What would I even say ?

A quick search on social media reveals countless options. A few accounts list their home as New Mexico, but only a handful of those are public accounts wherein lie hundreds of pictures—more faces than I could even begin to weed through in my hunt for answers.

I don’t know where to begin, so I busy myself with packing for my flight home tomorrow, whipping up my fourth packet of ramen this week and watching the next episode of Emily in Paris .

A text from my brother is a welcome distraction.

Drew

Hey! Reagan and I can’t wait to see you at Christmas. It’s been too long. Miss you!

Me

Me too! I fly home tomorrow. What day do you guys get there?

Drew

We only have a few days off. We’ll be there middle of next week.

Promise me you’ll take an Uber to the airport.

Me

*insert eye roll emoji* I’ve told you. The subways are not that bad.

Drew

1: Use the emoji

2: Promise me, Gretch.

Me

1: Never

2: Fine. I promise. Later, loser.

As his little sister, it’s my duty to never grant him the satisfaction of being right. Also, I already scheduled my Uber.

It’s midnight when I climb into bed. I grab my phone to stare at that name again: Gabriella Ruiz. If I read it enough times, maybe some groundbreaking detail will appear that I missed before .

“Screw it,” I mutter as I open a new browser tab.

I type out the words I’ve never allowed myself to put into a search engine since I first heard them on a Dateline special back in high school.

It’s probably expensive. I probably can’t afford it. But what else are emergency credit cards for? I deserve to know where I came from.

I search: adoption detectives.