Here's the first chapter! Let me know what you think in the comments!
"Stop Emily! Come back here!" I heard my grandmothers voice as she called me by that name again.
She hated the one her own daughter had given me. She hated that I was never a thing like her and every bit like my mother. She hated that I looked exactly like my father, no trace of her or my grandfather in my slim face.
She could accept that I liked books. Any and all nonfiction books were allowed in the house, along with approved modern fiction, but the classics were kept so far away from me that I transferred schools twice until she found an acceptable English class curriculum.
She couldn't stand when I spent all my time hidden away, out of her reach, in the New York public library. Most of all, she couldn't stand my eyes. On more than once occasion she tried to convince my grandfather to buy me brown colored contact lenses.
She stole everything from me. She hid my father's name, only once letting me hear it when she slipped up in a drunken rage. She kept my mother's diaries from me. She kept my original birth certificate from me. She lied and lied and lied some more.
"Emily Martinez come back here!" I could not afford to stop running. I was 16 and spending the rest of my life trapped by her was something I couldn't allow.
"Ellie!" I heard someone yell from across the street. There was Mei Lin, my best friend with her motorcycle waving me down.
I took a quick peak at the oncoming traffic before deciding I had enough time to sprint across the street.
"Officers!" I heard that old witch yelling, "Officers stop her! She's a run away!"
By the time I made it to the opposite cross walk one of them had locked his arms around me, stopping me from making my escape.
"I'm 18!" I yelled, "If you don't let me go I'll press charges for kidnapping and assault!"
That was enough for the officer to loosen his grip as he considered the situation. I took the chance to throw an elbow in his gut and run away towards Mei Lin. She was just waiting for me to hop on her bike. The instant my arms were locked around her waist, she sped off down the street.
At the corner 2nd Avenue beside the United Nations we hung a right and parked across the street from the New York Public Library.
"Are you sure about this, Ellie?" she asked, "What if you find something that you can't unsee?"
"I have to know, Mei! What if he's still out there? What if he wants to find me just as much as I want to find him? If I can find my dad then I never have to go back to that witch ever again. From every horrible thing she's ever said about him, it sounds like we're almost the same person!"
"Fine," she sighed, "But I'm staying with you the whole time. We're in this together, okay?"
"You got it!" I smiled and grabbed her hand as we headed up the steps into the library.
I took my usual spot at the table two from the center of the room and 8 seats in. There was a name plaque on the chair, but whatever it once read was gone now, worn down from all the use and sweaty hands.
I pulled my backpack off my back, laying it on the table. Taking the files out of it, I showed them all the Mei Lin.
"Look, this is my real name! I knew that was a reason everyone called me Ellie as a kid!" I pointed to the name on my original birth certificate. 'Elowen' it read.
"Look at this too!" she pointed to the date of birth line. 2015. I was a year older than I thought. I was 17. So I hadn't skipped a grade. I was just lied to once again.
"I guess there was a reason she never let me have a passport or a drivers license. It would require me to see the documents like this." I pulled another piece out of the folder, "And this is where she officially changed my name."
At 5 years old my name had been changed officially from Elowen L. Martinez to Emily L. Martinez. There was no full name to go with that L. There never was. Just a letter and another mystery.
"Did you try doing a DNA test?" Mei asked, "Maybe someone from you dad's side of the family is in one of those systems."
"I did a spit test. I had the results emailed to me just that witch was keeping tabs on my emails and deleted them before I could see them." I frowned, "I sent the site an email asking for them to send me the results again, but they haven't replied."
"Let me see if I can recover the email. You've always been better with books anyway. Once we have a name, we can start working with paper records if you want." she smiled.
"Yeah! I also want to pay a visit to New York Pres. I was born there so I'm hoping they have some records about my mother since she died there."
"You said she left behind some journals, right? We should try to get those back from the witch too." Mei smiled, "I'll pull the fire alarm and you climb in through the escape?"
"Sounds like a plan. We should do that tomorrow around rush hour. The traffic will make it take a while for the police and firefighters to show up. Most people will be out at work or on their way back too, so there will be less witnesses."
"This is why you're my best friend! I have the bad ideas and you do the logistics!" she smiled and started working on my laptop.
I started flipping through the rest of my legal documents and taking down notes of all the discrepancies in what she told me and what they said.
After a while, I found that my birth name, birth year, and passport status were all lied about. I had a passport from the time she and my grandfather had taken me on a vacation to Italy as a little kid. I didn't remember leaving the country at all, but I guess that beach week when I was 8 must have been to Italy.
"Ellie! I got it!" she showed me the recovered email. I had matches! I had family out there! I'm coming dad! I'm going to find you!