Chapter 140 I am Casey

Chapter 140 I am Casey
Casey's POV

I stared at the bracelet around my wrist.
The little silver star Nathan had given me caught the afternoon light coming through my bedroom window, and for several minutes I simply watched it move whenever I turned my hand.
It was such a small thing.
A bracelet.
A gift from my younger brother and yet I couldn't seem to stop touching it.
Maybe because every time my fingers brushed the tiny star, I remembered him sitting beside me by the lake yesterday, talking as though we'd known each other for years instead of days.
You're my sister.
He had said it so easily with no hesitation and no question and I had believed him. That was the strange part.
I believed him. I believed Victoria when she called me her daughter. I believed Alexander when he called me sweetheart.
I believed Nathan when he called me his sister and somehow, believing all of them had created another question I hadn't expected.
Who was I?
I looked down at the notebook sitting open on my bed. At the top of the page, I'd written two names.
Casey Roosevelt.
Underneath it:
Casey Sterling.
I stared at them and rhen I sighed and closed the notebook.
"Ridiculous."
The room was quiet. I picked up my phone.
There were messages from Nathan, Chris and Olivia waiting for me. Nathan had sent a picture of himself making an exaggeratedly offended face.
Nathan: Still refusing to admit I'm the better skater.
I smiled. Me: You fell before I did.
His reply came almost immediately. Nathan: Lies.
I laughed softly and then I opened Chris's message.
Chris: How are you today?
I stared at the words. That was the problem, I didn't know.
I typed: Me: I don't know.
The typing bubble appeared almost instantly.
Chris: Want to talk about it?
I hesitated. Me: Yes.
His reply was simple. Chris: I'm here.
I put the phone down and for a moment, I considered calling him. Instead, I stood and walked toward the mirror.
I looked at myself. Twenty-two years old with brown hair and tired eyes.
A face that had always belonged to me, even when I hadn't known where it came from.
I wondered if Victoria looked at my face and saw herself. I wondered if Alexander saw himself in me and I wondered what Nathan thought when he looked at me.
Then another thought came. What did I see? For most of my life, I had answered that question without thinking.
I was Casey Roosevelt. Rita and Loki had adopted me. They were my parents and Rebecca was my sister.
That had been my world. It hadn't been a happy world and it hadn't been the family I deserved but it had still been the only family I knew.
I had spent years trying to understand why Rita and Loki hated me. Why they had adopted a child they couldn't seem to stand.
Why I could never make them proud. Why Rebecca looked at me as though my existence offended her.
I had blamed myself for years and I had wondered what I had done wrong then everything changed.
Rita and Loki weren't my biological parents. Victoria and Alexander were.
And suddenly the question wasn't why did they hate me? It was why did they take me?
That question was still waiting for an answer. I walked back to the bed and sat down.
The Sterling name felt strange, not wrong just unfamiliar. I'd heard it attached to me in conversations over the past few days.
Casey Sterling, their daughter and Nathan's sister but when I looked at my reflection, I still saw the girl who had grown up in the Roosevelt house.
The girl who had learned to stay quiet when Rita was angry. The girl who knew how to recognize Loki's footsteps before he even entered the room.
The girl who had learned not to ask for too much. The girl who had eventually moved into her own apartment at eighteen because she couldn't take living there anymore.
That girl was still me. The Sterling family couldn't erase her and I didn't want them to.
That realization surprised me. I didn't want to erase Casey Roosevelt. I just didn't know what the name meant anymore.
My phone buzzed.
Olivia: Are you okay?
I smiled sadly. Olivia always seemed to know.
I typed: Me: I'm trying to figure something out.
Olivia: That's dangerous.
I laughed. Me: Very funny.
Olivia: What's wrong?
I stared at the screen before answering. Me: I don't know what to call myself anymore.
Her response came a minute later. Olivia: You mean your surname?
Me: Yeah.
Then another message. Olivia: You're Casey.
I blinked. Me: That's not really an answer.
Olivia: It is.
I stared at it as another message appeared.
Olivia: You've always been Casey. Rita didn't create you. The Sterlings didn't create you. You're still you.
My eyes burned as I read it twice and then a third time.
She was right. My name hadn't changed who I was. My childhood hadn't changed who I was. My biological parents hadn't changed who I was.
They had changed what I knew about myself but that wasn't the same thing. I leaned back against the pillows.
Maybe I had been looking at this the wrong way.
Maybe I didn't have to choose.
Maybe I could be Casey Roosevelt because that was the name I had grown up with.
Maybe I could become Casey Sterling because that was the family I had been born into.
Maybe both could exist but then another question surfaced.
Did I even want to keep Roosevelt?
I closed my eyes. That was harder. The name Roosevelt belonged to the people who had raised me.
It also belonged to years of hurt. To memories I couldn't simply throw away. To Chris and Olivia knowing me by that name. To every school record and every friendship and every part of the woman I had become but it also belonged to Rita and Loki and suddenly I hated that.
I hated that they had given me a name that had become part of me while knowing they had taken me from the people who should have raised me.
I opened my eyes. My phone buzzed again and this time it was Chris.
Chris: You disappeared.
I smiled. Me: Sorry.
Chris: Don't apologize. Talk to me.
I hesitated and then I called him.
He answered almost immediately. "Hey." His voice was warm.
I closed my eyes. "Hi."
"You sound tired."
"I am."
"What happened?"
"Nothing happened."
There was a pause. "Casey."
I smiled faintly.
"You know when people say nothing happened and they actually mean something happened?"
"Usually."
I sighed. "I don't know who I am."
He didn't rush to answer. That was one of the things I loved about him. He let me find the words.
"I know I'm still me," I continued. "I know that. But everything I believed about myself has changed."
"That's understandable."
"I spent twenty-two years believing I was a Roosevelt."
"You were raised as one."
"Exactly." I looked down at the bracelet. "And now I'm a Sterling."
"You're also still Casey."
"I know."
"Then maybe that's where you start."
I smiled. "You sound like Olivia."
"I'll take that as a compliment."
I laughed softly then my smile faded. "What if I don't want to stop being a Roosevelt?"
"Then don't."
"What if I want to be a Sterling?"
"Then be one."
"It's not that simple."
"No." His voice softened. "But it doesn't have to be decided today."
I was quiet. "Chris?"
"Yeah?"
"Do you think my parents will be hurt if I keep Roosevelt?"
"No."
"You don't know that."
"I know Victoria from what you have told me."
I swallowed. 
"She wants you. Not your surname."
My eyes filled. "And Alexander?"
"Same."
I wiped away a tear. "I think I'm scared that if I become a Sterling, I'm somehow erasing the girl I was."
"You're not." He paused. "You're giving her somewhere safe to go."
I closed my eyes. That sentence settled somewhere deep inside me.
For years, I'd thought becoming someone else was the only way to escape the past.
Maybe it wasn't. Maybe I could carry the girl I'd been into the life I was building now. Maybe she deserved to come with me.
I looked at the bracelet again. Nathan had given me a star. A tiny reminder that I belonged somewhere.
Maybe belonging didn't require me to forget where I'd come from.
Maybe it only required me to stop blaming myself for the things that had been done to me.
"I think I'm beginning to understand," I whispered.
"Good."
"I don't have to choose."
"No." His voice was gentle. "You just have to figure out what feels right for you."
I smiled.
For the first time since learning the truth, the question Who am I? didn't feel like something frightening.
It felt like the beginning of an answer. I wasn't only a Roosevelt and I wasn't only a Sterling.
I was Casey and maybe that was enough to begin with.