Claire Holt as Elizabeth.

Innocent Elizabeth.

That's what my grandfather had called me until I gave Susie Perkins a black eye.

I'd been tough for years, but the punching was new. There was a trick to giving someone a black eye, with the capability of even being an art. You had to come into contact with the eye with just enough force to create a bruise on them, but keep the skin on your hand delicate and nice.

In my defense, that day I would have probably just pulled on her hair and let her go, but she had to go there.

She had to call me an orphan.

It wasn't a secret that my sister and I were adopted due to the fact that we had two dads. My sister still makes a joke how when Father was trying to explain reproduction to me, I asked whether it was him or Papa that had given birth to me.

Growing up, my family wasn't too interesting, certainly not interesting enough to get us the latest slot on Dr. Phil or Oprah since we were just a family.

And we loved each other.

However, family is family and we all know the buttons to push. My family had to learn that if you push mine, you would get a black eye.

It was around this time that my parents began having second thoughts about my weekly Karate classes.

My Papa once told me that I always gave an answer for everything. He'd just ask me who had put all the sushi in the trash and I told him I had just saved our lives because of salmonella.

I then pointed out that he was wrong and I didn't have the answers to everything, I just had a lot of questions that nobody I knew had the answers to.

My Father could tell me when I learned to walk and talk and even what I wanted to be when I grew up. To this day I still think I was crazy to think I wanted to work at NASA. We have enough problems at Earth, I didn't need to solve anything in space.

I had big questions, but so many more small ones. I was never able to explain my feet since I was rather small and had huge feet. I have the feet of a person four inches taller than me and I'm only 5'2. At fifteen my body is still surprising me, but I'm mostly happy with it. And while I don't know where I got my cool toned blonde hair from and my light blue eyes, I'm generally happy with the configuration of me. Everything is how it should be, yet I have no idea how it got there in the first place.

Not knowing can also lead to some awkward situations, such as the time my aunt blurted out, "We think you're Swedish." This was based on my love for raggmunk and kroppkakor. Who would get a DNA test when you have food preferences?

The point of this was, I know myself as much as my family does. And I want to know more.

I want to know everything.

I should make myself clear that I absolutely love my family. Even with the many questions I have, that is something that never needs to be answered. I love my Father and the way he calls me Lizzie. I love my Papa and the memories of him reading to me every night before I fell asleep. I love my sister and her sense of always being in the right. I love her to the headgear she wears at night.

They love me and I love them. However, I can't leave my past behind and it is the biggest question I have.

I know that my birth mother kept me for two weeks. She gave birth to me and took me home before deciding she didn't care anymore.

What happens in two weeks that you decide you don't want your child?

I don't think you should stick your nose into questions that you aren't prepared to answer.

Every day I tell myself that I'm prepared, but I do know that I'm an amazing liar.

Author's Note

This chapter was the prologue so it will be shorter than what the next ones will be.