Please Don't Tell Part 3

Maybe I can sew the tiger's leg. I rotate it and it comes off in my hand.

"It makes me anxious when you don't answer," he blurts. "I start thinking I said something annoying and that I should stop talking and that maybe you don't like me anymore, and I know it's ridiculous but I can't help it."

People are always turning silence into a knife to stab themselves with. "I would never stop liking you, I promise."

"Okay. Thanks." Relief, embarra.s.sment.

"I should probably go. I have a thousand years of homework. I'm still failing American History because I hate America and I hate history." Make another joke, show him I'm fine. "Also tomorrow's trash pickup day so I gotta go put myself out on the curb."

"Please don't say things like that."

Wrong joke. "Just kidding."

"You're the only person at school I feel comfortable around, and you're a very important friend to me, and I don't think you should call yourself trash."

"You always cheer me up every single time you talk to me, did you know that?"

I can feel him smiling.

"Don't stay up too late tonight, okay?" I tell him before I hang up.

I stare at my history book on the floor. Princ.i.p.al Eastman's brought me in twice to talk about American History. But I can't start the homework. It's not just a sheet of paper, it's the horrible black hole of my future.

I toss the broken tiger into my closet, go out into the hall, knock three times on Grace's door.

She doesn't open it all the way. "What's up, Joy?"

It's the way teachers talk to you when you go to them after cla.s.s and they know you're gonna ask for an extension. That kind of weary readiness.

"I went to his funeral." Mom and Dad are watching football downstairs. The noise blares up to us. She still doesn't let me in.

"How was it?"

"It was okay."

"Uh-huh."

Let me in, let me in, let me in.

She tilts the door closed a little more. "I'm doing some school stuff. . . ."

"Yeah."

"So I kind of need to concentrate."

"Oh! I'll leave you alone."

She hesitates. "You okay?"

"I'm always okay." Now I need to ask it back. But what if she finally admits that she's not, and I still have no clue what the right words are- She closes the door before I can find them.

We used to crawl into bed together and turn off all the lights and watch YouTube videos until we sobbed with laughter.

Back in my room, I check Adam's Facebook. His wall goes straight from thirty-seven happy birthday posts to fifty-eight death posts. He's got more friends now.

Maybe he reeled drunk through the woods to look soulfully at the moon and think about what a f.u.c.king "artist" he was. And that last birthday shot caught around his ankles, and the wind carried him into the quarry.

The breeze drags a splintered piece of the overgrown oak tree branch against my window screen. Must've done that when I snuck out. The breeze rustles Grace's old drawings taped to my wall, crayon versions of us. She always drew me taller and gave me a sword.

I get up to close the window. But there's an envelope on the sill. Sealed neatly, thick. My name's written on the back.

A weird feeling settles in my stomach.

I tear it open, feel inside. Photographs, stiff and glossy, and a folded piece of paper. A letter.

Only the first few lines make sense to me before the rest blurs and my mind gets stuck and my hands stop feeling like anything.

To Joy Morris-

I was at the party. I was at the quarry. I saw what you did.

I saw you murder Adam Gordon.

THREE.

June 7 Grace "YALE." PRINc.i.p.aL EASTMAN THROWS A PAMPHLET onto the pile on his desk. "Brown." Pamphlet. "Penn State. Even Harvard, Grace. I called you in here because your grades, your test scores, they are outstanding. The best in your cla.s.s. Yes, it's only the end of your soph.o.m.ore year, but you should be thinking about college."

Fourteen pamphlets on the desk. A mountain I have to climb every day. Schedule: study for three hours daily, minimum. Social life: nonexistent.

"A lot of students see summer as their vacation time, so this is your chance to get ahead. Volunteer work? Amazing on an application. And it's never too early to start SAT prep cla.s.ses."

Schedule: study four hours a day, minimum. Two hours volunteer work. SAT prep cla.s.s on weekends. Two hours exercise-there needs to be less of me. Five hours for sleep. Makeup: two hours.

My phone buzzes on top of my backpack. I adjust my shirt, comb bangs out flat with my fingers, look down at the screen. It's my sister.

LAST DAY OF SCHOOL Ya.s.sSSS. ME AND NOV IN FRONT OF BUS CIRCLE, FIND US.

Princ.i.p.al Eastman leans forward, looking at me like I'm the best photo he's ever taken. "The Honors Club and the Environmentalism Club and the-what was the other one?"

"Art Club," I mumble, chewing the inside of my cheek.

"They've appreciated your partic.i.p.ation this year. You ought to think about helping out with the school newspaper. To be honest, I'm a bit worried about the direction it's taken under November Roseby."

My phone buzzes. Her again.

big plans for this summer! gonna be v fun.

Eastman claps my shoulder. I'm dismissed. I get up, pulling my shirt down flat over my stomach.

GRAACEEEEE where r u?

She gave up on me being social during the school year. She's trying hard again, now that it's summer. Why does she want me so bad? What's there to have?

I text her back.

don't wait for me! i have some stuff to do! :) I have to walk the hallway loop of the school twice before I can go home. If I can do it in two hundred steps, I'll burn fifty calories and I won't disappoint anybody.

I start my lap. Lockers left open, empty cla.s.srooms. Around the corner of the science wing are the gla.s.s doors to the outdoor relaxation garden. Ms. Bell's idea, a place for students to unwind. One more way for Princ.i.p.al Eastman to claim our school's different, even though we're exactly like every public high school in every small town in every state. Nothing special here. Keep going. The city's that way.

I step into the little outdoor courtyard, full of cheap plants. The seeds in the bird feeder are moldy. It was only filled once. Even the birds are headed someplace better.

Ninety-five. Ninety-six. Keeping steps small so I don't go over. My phone buzzes twice in my back pocket. Two more texts from Joy, I'm sure, all in caps.

"You high?" someone says.

Startled, I turn. Adam Gordon, inches away. Him. Really cute junior. Sitting on the plaster bench, glossy acoustic guitar on his lap. I've looked at him all year, but he's never looked at me. I drop all my college handouts, so cliche it must have been on purpose. My future in the dirt.

"Did you even see me?" Adam laughs, not helping. I gather the handouts. Measure each movement. Must move smoothly, not awkwardly. He leans forward, his T-shirt crumpling at the waist. "You look so high."

What's being high like: stammering, heart racing? Maybe this is it. Wavy dark hair skims his cheekbones. Dark eyes. Dark soul? Writes beautiful, sad music, plays it for talent shows, musicals. He has a way of looking at people like they're special. Like Joy does. Whenever I see him, I want to ask if he's okay.

"I thought you were a freshman." He gestures at the pamphlets.

"Soph.o.m.ore. Or, I was. I'm a junior now, technically." I wince.

He taps his cigarette on the edge of the bench. His fingers are calloused. "Applying extra-extra early decision?"

"Princ.i.p.al Eastman wants me to look to the future." I. Sound. So. Ridiculous.

"He probably just wanted to look down your shirt." He smirks. A bad-boy smile, like the twenty-five-year-old actors who think they can play seventeen-year-old boys in teen movies. "Kidding. A guy with a telescope couldn't get a glimpse down there." He holds out a cigarette. "Want one?"

"No, thank you." Should have said yes. Was he just looking at my chest? I'm wearing two sports bras. "Does Princ.i.p.al Eastman look down shirts?"

"Yeah, he's a pedo." He shifts his guitar onto his other leg. "But some girls here are thirsty for it."

Is he joking? Do I joke back?

"If that's what you're into, wear, like, a b.u.t.ton-down. Pop the top two before he calls you into his office. Easy." He breathes smoke and fire. "You freshman and soph.o.m.ore girls. Half of you have no clue. Makes a guy wanna look out for you."

Sometimes I think everyone but me had a secret meeting about the way people are supposed to talk.

"Kidding." He coughs out an acrid smell. His eyes are foggy and rimmed with red. Meaning any mistakes I make might be ones he'll forget.

"Eastman's the worst," I venture. "I bet he hides in the girls' bathroom on his lunch break."

He snorts so hard his guitar slides off his lap and thuds against the bench. "Ladies and gentlemen, we have the world's only funny undercla.s.smen."

I made him laugh!

"Monroe, right?" He's looking at me. Finally.

"Morris. Grace Morris."

"Oh yeah, right. One of the twins. The smart one and the obnoxious one. Which one are you again?"

I nervous-giggle. Joy hates that habit. I don't know how to stop.

"Kidding. You're supposed to be brilliant, right? Everyone else at this school is so f.u.c.king stupid." He yanks a book out of his bag. Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged. "Have you read this? I'm halfway through."

It's a terrible book.

"We should talk philosophy sometime. I can never find anyone who can keep up with me."

I have this fantasy where I finally ask if he's okay. Fantasy Adam says, "n.o.body's asked me that in years. Thank you. No. I'm not okay." I say, "Me neither." And he says, "Maybe we can be not okay together."

G.o.d, I'm stupid.

In real life, he tilts his head to the side. Smirks. "You know, just from a guy's perspective, you'd be cuter with less makeup."

Mornings: makeup, two hours.

"I, uh . . ."

"Don't cover up your face," he says. "You should relax. Be more like your sister. She truly does not give a f.u.c.k." He laughs and adds quickly, "But not too much like her."

I die a little inside.

That night, Joy fights with Mom and Dad.

She cries like she lives, never making the sound of herself smaller. It fills the house. Downstairs: Dad banging dishes against the sink. Mom banging the vacuum against the floor. They always clean the house after they fight with her. But she stains.

If I roll this pencil between my fingers thirteen times before Mom stops vacuuming, Joy'll stop crying.