The Truth Project Read online

  Dedication

  To Bug. My first baby. My always sister.

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Begin Reading

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Books by Dante Medema

  Back Ad

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  My parents created everything in the image

  of a perfect Alaskan family.

  The home on the hillside

  a cabin in Kenai

  2.5 kids

  matching Xtratuf boots

  a 5-star safety-test-rated Volvo

  with all-wheel drive.

  Pretty sure I’m the .5 kid.

  Sana-Friend ♥

  Sana: You know what I think?

  Me: It’s awfully late to be texting?

  Maybe I should let people sleep?

  Maybe I should BE asleep?

  Sana: You’re not people.

  You’re my Cordelia.

  Me: What do you want?

  Sana: She’s grumpy when she’s tired.

  What are you going to do when you go off to fancy AF Columbia University and have to stay up all night going to frat parties so you can fit in?

  Me: I might be up late, but I am not going to frat parties.

  Sana: You’re no fun. Did you submit your senior project proposal yet?

  Me: No, I thought I’d wait until the last minute.

  Sana: . . .

  Me: Obviously a joke. I turned it in the first day submissions were open.

  Sana: See? This is why Columbia gave you early acceptance.

  Did you remember to request me as a partner?

  Sorry to hound you again but I’m nervous. I really need a good partner.

  You know I choke when it comes to written stuff.

  Me: Yes, I remembered. You’re going to do fine even if we don’t get paired.

  Sana: Easy for you to say. You’re like really good at school stuff.

  Even if I GET into college I’m going to need a good grade on my senior project to keep my GPA up.

  Me: Oh my gosh. Stop!

  Sana: You barely need to try. So you can focus all your energy on helping me record some soccer lessons. And edit them. And share them on all your social media. And maybe do the entire written portion for me?

  K. Thanx.

  Me: Hey. I have to try. Just like anyone else.

  I already ordered the GeneQuest kit.

  Any day now I’ll be researching my ancestry and writing poems about it.

  Plus it’s going to tell me adopted.

  Sana: Here we go.

  Me: What?

  Sana: Always with the “I’m adopted” and “I don’t fit in.”

  I get it. You don’t feel like you fit in, but you’re not fucking adopted.

  You have the best life.

  Don’t shit on it.

  I’d trade my trailer for your hillside mansion any day.

  Me: For the last time, it’s not a mansion.

  I love your trailer. It’s cozy, and no one walks into your room without knocking.

  Sana: That’s because I don’t have a room.

  GOD Delia! Way to make me feel bad about my life!

  Me: . . .

  I’m sorry. You know that’s not what I meant.

  Sana: . . .

  Me: Sana.

  Sana: I know.

  But it’s still kinda like a shelter dog listening to a forever-home dog complain about his living arrangements.

  I’ll also take extra help on my college application. Thanks.

  Pretty soon you’ll be off at Columbia living the life.

  While I’m stuck here in Tundra Cove.

  Me and my soccer ball.

  The sign entering town says:

  Tundra Cove

  Population 5,356

  If we don’t already know you, we will.

  Sana always says there’s nothing to do here.

  That it’s the same parties

  with the same people

  trying to prove

  you don’t know them

  as well as you think.

  I always thought I could spend my whole life here.

  Finding beauty in the small things.

  The way we’re nestled close enough to the inlet

  that you can see beluga whales breach

  or watch blue melt into pink in a perfect

  cotton candy sunset over the water.

  But also we’re on a mountain,

  with endless trails to get lost on

  and giant trees that seem to shoot up

  out of nowhere

  so high I forget

  that the leaves at the top

  aren’t part of the sky.

  But Sana has always been too big for this town.

  She needs to tell people they don’t really see her

  —prove them wrong.

  I don’t tell them I’m different,

  because why bother?

  They’d never believe me anyway.

  To: Cordelia Koenig ([email protected])

  From: Vidya Nadeer ([email protected])

  Subject: Re: Senior Project Application

  Cordelia,

  I’m so glad to get your proposal! I adore the idea of using a GeneQuest DNA kit to discover your roots and find how ancestry shapes you as a person through poems. I’ve lived in Tundra Cove since I was a child, but my family is from Kashmir with entirely different traditions and customs.

  I like this idea—I do—however I can’t help but notice (despite the poetry aspect) you chose the exact same project as your older sister, Beatrice. I was her advisor as well, and while I expect you will impress me equally with yours, I want to ensure you take a great deal of effort to make this your own. Sometimes students with early acceptance can skim through the rest of their senior year, and I want you to get the most out of it. This grade is still very important to your GPA. Please let me know how you intend to make this stand out from Beatrice’s.

  I’ve assigned Kodiak Jones as your partner. I agree with your email: the two of you will work well together, and hopefully I can convince both of you to join me next month for the Pacific Northwest Young Poets Conference. As I mentioned in class, I will be speaking there and taking a group of promising students. Please consider attending.

  That’s all I have for now,

  Vidya Nadeer

  I can never tell Sana the truth.

  How before she asked me to request her,

  I’d already requested Kodiak Jones.

  Because when he performed

  at the slam poetry contest last year,

  he broke apart, free like the bald eagles

  who live near the inlet.

  His arms spread into wings,

  the vibration in his chest

  daring our school to judge him.

  When Kodiak almost sang his words,

  like it was the only way to let them out—

  a soft rhythm

  followed by a crescendo

  I felt them in my soul.

  Because he’s not the silly boy

  I told ghost stories with.

  The boy I grew up admiring.

  He’s the boy who staples

  pages of his notebook shut

  like even he’s afraid to see

  what’s between them.

  Whose brown eyes dart away

  if I let myself look too long.

  The boy who sings his poetry

  the way I can only dream to do.

  Dinner is always the same.

  My sister, Iris, speaks in hashtags

  because she’s twelve and thinks it’s
funny.

  She puts up air quotes. Hashtag Boring. Hashtag Tired

  Hashtag I-don’t-want-to-go-to-school-anymore.

  Hashtag can’t-it-be-summer-so-I-can-be-outside?

  Dad speaks in Shakespeare

  because he’s a professor and thinks it’s funny.

  His day was quiet.

  He’s grading papers for Lit 101.

  He’s got some promising students this year.

  Mom rolls her eyes at them both

  because she’s a real estate agent

  and doesn’t think anything is funny.

  She has a new listing she can’t wait to sell.

  Maybe this is the one that’ll make her stop working so

  hard.

  That will make her smile instead of frown at the phone

  she’s glued to.

  I clear my throat, and they all stare.

  Because I get lost in metaphors they don’t understand.

  My stories live in daydreams

  written in verse

  I never, ever share.

  Unfit for lighthearted dinner conversation.

  Every. Single. Night.

  “My day was good,” I say.

  “We got our project partner assignments.”

  They wait, and I see Mama crumple a little bit when I say,

  “Kodiak Jones.”

  Mom’s face twists like it’s sour,

  but I know it’s not the wine.

  She’s friends with Kodiak’s mom.

  Both real estate agents,

  same church,

  play on the same recreational softball team.

  They share secrets like they share recipes.

  Dad doesn’t care about Kodiak.

  “What did you decide on for your project?”

  “Poetry, that’s wonderful—can I help?”

  But he teaches Shakespeare, not poetry.

  “‘It is a wise father that knows his own child’—

  William was a poet!”

  He jokes.

  He quotes.

  He always jokes and quotes.

  “Be careful,”

  Mama says.

  “That boy is trouble.”

  Who is this boy you see?

  Kodiak isn’t trouble.

  He’s troubled.

  Before he was “trouble” he was

  “Kodiak.”

  And he was the boy I spent every Tundra Cove summer

  following around on my bike with skinned knees

  and terrible tan lines where my shorts met my thighs.

  The one whose family used to go to the fair with us

  —a 2-hour drive—every year.

  And our parents would walk around

  while we ate corn on the cob

  and rode the Tilt-A-Whirl until we felt sick.

  He was the same boy who taught me how to whistle.

  And when his mouth curled around like a little O

  I felt my heart skip a beat for the first time.

  The person I shared my first poem with.

  And it was okay,

  because he was sharing poems with me too.

  Kodiak was my best friend

  before I even knew who Sana was.

  And one day

  on our way home from school,

  kicking stones down a muddy path

  under giant spruce trees,

  I told him about my first crush.

  That my stomach felt a little funny

  whenever he was around.

  And that I played out entire conversations

  with him in my head,

  wondering if I’d ever have the courage

  to tell him out loud

  what I felt in my heart.

  Kodiak never smiled

  and never teased.

  And I never said

  I was talking about him.

  It happened slowly.

  First he stopped walking home with me

  to hang out in the woods behind the school.

  That’s where he started smoking.

  And one day when I walked back

  to where trees protected the gnarled roots

  from snow—

  they were all gathered around a pit

  with empty cans and trash everywhere.

  I asked him why.

  He told me,

  “Sometimes you do things you don’t understand

  to make sense of the things you do.”

  But he wasn’t looking at me.

  He was looking at her.

  Liv. The new girl with a wild smile and purple hair.

  And once he was Liv’s, he wasn’t anyone else’s anymore.

  He looked at her

  the way I always wanted him to look at me

  and they kissed

  the way I wanted to kiss him.

  When his mom sat at our kitchen table crying

  because she walked in on them in his room,

  she said she didn’t know

  what to do with him anymore.

  She found cigarettes and vodka and

  at-least-they-were-being-safe condoms.

  He was skipping school.

  He wasn’t coming home.

  And in the hallways,

  when I’d wave,

  he didn’t look at me

  like a boy I ever knew.

  I thought maybe we’d lost him for always.

  But then everything last year happened

  and he changed again.

  Then when I saw him in the hallways

  he started smiling again

  like maybe he had made sense of what

  he didn’t understand before.

  Sana-Friend ♥

  Sana: Deeeeeelia

  Deeeeelia!

  CORDELIA ANN KOENIG ANSWER MY TEXT RIGHT NOW

  Me: You know my middle name isn’t actually Ann, right?

  Sana: Bullshit.

  Me: What do you need, friend of mine who can’t let me eat dinner without blowing up my phone?

  Sana: I just got an email from my new advisor. They switched me to Mr. Kim.

  So racist. I bet I got paired with him since he’s Asian AF and I’m half Asian AF.

  Me: Well, Ms. Nadeer is Indian and I’m white AF, so there goes that theory.

  Sana: I had Ms. Nadeer! That’s what I don’t get. All of a sudden they switch me to Mr. Kim and I got paired with Madison Lee. See where I’m going with this?

  Me: This doesn’t have anything to do with the fact that you and Maddy basically run the soccer team and both your senior projects involve soccer, plus Mr. Kim happens to be the coach?

  Sana: Plus they didn’t pair me and you as project partners which is STUPID. Literally everyone else I know who made requests got them.

  Me: I know! I got my letter too!

  I had Honors English with Maddy sophomore year. She’ll be great at helping you with the written portion.

  Sana: You’re still going to help me record some soccer lessons right?

  Me: Find a student yet?

  Sana: Yeah! There’s a girl three trailers down who wants me to teach her. Her mom told me she’ll pay in cigarettes so that’s cool.

  Me: That’s perfect! Starting your prison money stash early, I see.

  Sana: Who’d you get paired with?

  Me: I’m afraid to tell you.

  Sana: Shut up. It better not be Emma. If it’s Emma Daniels I’m going to scream.

  Me: . . .

  Sana: Oh my fucking stars. It’s Emma Daniels. Can you please ask her if she’s gay?

  Or bi?

  Please let her be at least a little bi.

  Me: Why don’t you use your internet sleuthing skills to figure that out?

  Spoiler alert.

  It’s not Emma.

  Sana: As if I haven’t tried. Can you still ask her?

  Me: Staaaaaaahp! I am not going to ask her if she’s gay.

  Sana: C’mon. I’ve only liked her since ninth gra
de.

  Me: Back when you were still pretending to like boys.

  Sana: Yes. Think of the heartache Emma could have saved Liam.

  Me: Poor Liam.

  Sana: May he rest in peace.

  Me: He’s not dead!

  Sana: He is to me! He did not react well at all to me coming out.

  Me: In his defense you did lie to him about being straight for like a year.

  Sana: Meh.

  So really.

  Who’d you get set up with?

  Me: Kodiak Jones.

  Sana: Shut the front door. Kodiak?

  I can’t believe someone even got paired with him after last year.

  Huh.

  He’s an odd fit for you don’t you think?

  Little miss perfect poet who never breaks the rules and . . . ?

  How do you describe the train wreck that was last year?

  Me: It makes a lot of sense, actually. His project also involves poetry.

  Sana: Still. How did that happen?

  Me: No idea.

  Sana: He won’t need any help. He probably won’t even do the project.

  I heard he’s missed so much school he’s going to repeat next year anyway.

  So you can still help me fail at mine.

  While you’re at college next year I can work at the world’s last Blockbuster and use up all those cigarettes my neighbor promised.

  Me: You’re going to college.

  I read over all your applications.

  They were solid.

  Stop worrying.

  Sana: The Sasaki women aren’t known for college-going.

  Me: . . .

  Sana: Okay fine. I never got to meet anyone from my dad’s side of the family.

  I have no idea what the Sasaki women are known for.

  But going off my mom’s side I’m more likely to get pregnant in six months.

  Me: Pretty hard to get pregnant when you only want to do girls.

  Sana: Touché.

  To: Vidya Nadeer ([email protected])

  From: Cordelia Koenig ([email protected])

  Subject: Re: Re: Senior Project Application

  Dear Ms. Nadeer,

  Thank you so much for your input. As you might remember, I was incredibly inspired during your poetry unit in AP English last semester. Since, I’ve made it my goal to implement poetry into my life in as many ways as I can before going to Columbia this fall. I intend to use poetry as my primary form of exposition for my senior project as I discover how my genealogy affects me personally. I know Beatrice found her look into our ancestry to be life changing, and I can only hope this project will help me grow as a poet while I learn something new in the process.