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"Show e on the coffee table in front of the sofa--the very place where I’d eaten supper alher Acaderade It was a table norhetti and bad burritos, but that day we all sat staring down at the only real clue we had about my past

"You found it…" Mo the unfinished question "It ith the rest of Mr Solouess Ca"

I felt the couch shift as ood, Cam Smart"

The CoveOps teacher looked proud; the aunt sounded prouder I know I should have said thank you, but it felt like cheating to accept a co credit for somebody else’s hard work

"Ca?"

For a second, the question see ti looked like I guess eren’t exactly love-notes-in-the-locker people We were too busy being terrorists-want-to-kidnap-us people It’s easy to see how one would get in the way of the other

"Oh," Bex said with a laugh, "it’s hers I’d know that crazy-person scrawl anywhere"

I ran a finger along the words I had absolutely no e The stae I sent frohed softly to o to Rome"

How many covert conversations had my roommates and I had in the past three years? Howdown at soin to count It felt so up to thatway frouess we should start by X-raying it," Liz said slowly "We’ll need to scan it for biohazards, of course, and--"

Abby lunged forward, cutting Liz off She didn’t hesitate as she grabbed the package and ripped Scraps of paper and packingas Abby turned the envelope upside down and dumped the contents onto the table

"Or we could do that," Liz finished

I don’t knohat I’d been expecting, but it seemed a little anticlimactic, to tell you the truth There were no bombs, no treasure maps where X marked the spot--just a small pile of bracelets, each with thin wires twisted into the words Bex, Liz, and Macey I reach for each and handed theazed down at the delicate wires that spelled their names

There were two small brown paper packets, the names Mom and Abby written across them in my familiar scrawl, and I handed them to their neners, watched the on delicate chains

The last package was simply labeled Me

I could barely breathe as I tipped the tiny envelope upside down and i cool and metal land on my palm On the end of a very fine chain, I found a sher Acadeh that I could see why it would catch my eye and uess you rong that day when you caot us so after all"

But I barely heard h the scraps of paper and packingelse in the pile

"It’s not here," I said

"What’s that, kiddo?" Mom asked me

"Dad’s journal I hoped maybe I’d sent it back, but it’s not here It’s just…jewelry," I said Suddenly, I wanted to hurl the necklace across the roo proof that I’d been to Ro to show for it but so up in Austria, I actually wanted to cry "It’s just stupid souvenirs It doesn’t tell us anything!"

I tried to get up, but Bex was already taking the seat on the arm of the couch beside me, the bracelet around her wrist

"You didn’t just send us souvenirs, Careed "You sent us souvenirs…froher Girl in history has fantasized about the places her job will take her Incoue arms dealer of some sort And my dream, believe it or not, had always taken place in Rome

I was in Ro forfor the taste of truly authentic pizza It was the kind of thing I shouldn’t have been able to forget The irony was alether and turned to my et a jet here by the end of the day"

I watched Bex and Liz begin to es of private jet travel Zach and I were the only ones who saw the look that crossed Aunt Abby’s face

I’d only seen that look twice before Once in uard Another tih the night It had been almost a year since I’d seen er There was no rage It was siret so deep that neither word could do it justice

The only word that came to mind was heartbreak

"What is it, Abby?" I asked "What aren’t you telling me?"

"Rome…" Abby said, just as ht to know, Rachel," Abby snapped, but then lowered both her voice and her gaze "Cam deserves to know that it’s all ," Mom said, but Abby shook her head