Page 73 of Bending Under Pressure

“Really?” Keelan nods, and I grin. “I knew there was a reason I liked you.”

“Are you going to tell me what happened with Jess?” This is the first time I’ve had a chance to speak to Cameron since we left him with Jess yesterday. He spent all day with her. Once I got back from playing tennis with Haley and saw he was home, I went straight to his room. He’s lying on his bed playing video games and I take a seat in the chair.

Cam keeps his eyes focused on the TV. “She’s going through some stuff.”

“Stuff that’s not related to what happened with y’all?”

“Yep.” He doesn’t add anything else for a minute or so. “Sorry about blowing up on you. The mess with Jess was stressing me out, and I took it out on you.”

“Didn’t have anything to do with you not knowing where you came from?”

He clenches his jaw. “No.”

“Sure about that?”

“Leave it alone, Keelan.”

He obviously isn’t going to spill his guts to me. We sit in silence for a bit while I watch him play the game. I’m tempted to push the issue some more, but decide against it. I don’t want to create problems with my brother when I don’t have to.

“I’m going to ask Mom and Dad if I can change my last name to Sanderson.”

My head snaps toward him. Change his name?

“Just wanted to let you know,” he adds.

“We can do that?” Changing my last name from Moore to Sanderson never occurred to me before.

“Yeah, I looked it up. Mom and Dad would just have to fill out some forms. That’s pretty much it.”

It sounds so easy. Why didn’t we think of this sooner? I’d love to be a Sanderson, to seal myself into my family even more. “I want to do it too. When are we going to talk to them?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“Right now?” I ask, eager to get the process started, even if it’s just by asking our parents.

“Sure.”

We both hop up. I’m not the only one who is excited. We bound down the stairs and into the kitchen where our parents are cooking dinner together.

“We need to talk to y’all about something,” Cameron begins.

“Oh, dear. This can’t be good. Brace yourself, John,” Mom says, making Dad laugh.

He places a lid on whatever’s cooking on the stove and comes to stand next to Mom at the counter, where she’s preparing a salad. “All right. Let’s hear it.”

Cameron looks to me, I nod, and he takes a deep breath. “We want to change our last names to Sanderson.” Their eyes widen with surprise. “If that’s okay with y’all,” he quickly adds.

Dad’s gaze is locked on Cameron. Based on that and his next question, I know that Cam’s outburst had to do with him not knowing where he came from. “Are you sure?”

“Yes,” he replies without hesitation.

Mom’s eyes become watery. “We’d love to give you boys our last name. We wanted to when we adopted you, but we didn’t want to confuse you. How long have y’all be thinking about this?”

“Long enough to be sure,” Cameron answers.

She hesitates, but I’m not sure why. Until she speaks. “Let’s wait a month, okay? I just want y’all to be sure. We’d need to look into what we’d have to do because y’all are minors still. It may not seem like a big transition, but it will be. You’ll have to get accustomed to writing a different last name, answering to it, and things like that. If in a month, you’re still absolutely sure, then we’ll start the paperwork.”

“We’re not going to change our minds,” Cam says before I can.

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