Because It Is My Blood by Gabrielle Zevin

wear a disguise. Thus, the wig.”
    I shook my head and wondered how many of my plans Charles Delacroix had guessed. “Why would he do that?”
    “My father is a mystery.”
    He pulled a stool over to the bed. He rubbed at his hip.
    “Arsley was the one who took the picture,” I told him.
    “I know,” Win said, bowing his head. “I shouldn’t have done that. Taken your hand, I mean. Not in such a public place.” As he said this, he stroked my fingertips with his own.
    “You couldn’t have known how it would all turn out.”
    “I did know, Annie. I did. I had been warned. By my father. By my father’s campaign manager. By Alison Wheeler. By you, even. I didn’t care.”
    “What do you mean, ‘by Alison Wheeler’?”
    Win looked at me. “Anya, haven’t you guessed?”
    I shook my head.
    “I was the one who asked Alison to go to you in the library.”
    “Why would she do that?”
    “Well, she didn’t want to but she knew I wanted to be near you. And I convinced her that lunch would be safe enough since Arsley and Scarlet and Alison would be there, too.”
    I was still confused. “Why would your girlfriend do that?”
    “Anya! Don’t tell me you didn’t suspect!”
    “Suspect what?”
    “Alison is my friend but she also works for my father’s campaign. They asked her if she would pretend to be my girlfriend during the campaign season so it would appear that I had put my relationship with Anya Balanchine— you —behind me. It was July—we weren’t together—and, despite everything, I wanted to help my father. How could I say no? He is my father, Anya. I love him. As I love you.”
    Had Anya Balanchine— me —not been handcuffed to the bed, she would have run out of the room. I felt like my brain was exploding and my heart, too. He reached over the bed rail and wiped my cheek with his sleeve. I suppose I was crying.
    “You really didn’t suspect?”
    I shook my head. My throat was thick and useless. “I thought you had tired of me,” I said in a voice about as intelligible as my uncle Yuri’s.
    “Annie,” he said. “Annie, that could never happen.”
    “We won’t see each other for a really long time,” I whispered.
    “I know,” Win whispered back. “Dad told me that might be the case.”
    “It could be years.”
    “I’ll wait,” he said.
    “I don’t want you to,” I told him.
    “There’s never been anyone else for me but you.” He looked over his shoulder to see if anyone was watching us. He leaned over the bed and put his hand on the back of my head. “I love your hair,” he said.
    “I’m cutting it all off.” Simon Green and I had thought I would be less recognizable when I was traveling without my mane. Shears would be waiting for me on Ellis Island.
    “That’s a shame. I’m glad I don’t have to see that.” He pulled my head closer to him and then he kissed me, and even though it was probably pressing my luck, I kissed him again.
    “How can I stay in touch with you?” he asked.
    I thought about this. E-mail wasn’t safe. I couldn’t give him the address of the cacao farm, even if I knew it. Maybe Yuji Ono could deliver a letter to me. “In a month or two, go to Simon Green. He’ll know how to get to me. Don’t go through Mr. Kipling.”
    Win nodded. “Will you write me?”
    “I’ll try,” I told him.
    He reached over the bed rail and set his hand on my heart. “The news said this almost stopped.”
    “Sometimes I wish it would. What good is it, you know?”
    Win shook his head. “Don’t say that.”
    “Of all the boyfriends in the world, you are the least suitable one I could have picked.”
    “Same to you. Only girlfriend , I mean.”
    He rested his head on my chest and we were quiet until the time for visiting was over.
    As Win walked to the door, he adjusted his absurd wig.
    “If you meet someone, I’ll understand,” I told him. We were seventeen years old, for God’s sake, and our future was uncertain. “We shouldn’t make any