Please Don't Tell Part 30

I don't think you'll show anyone this email. It would mean admitting you were the one who put up the photos and swapped the DVDs. Either way, I'm far away now. If you accuse me, I'll lie. But I thought I at least owed it to you to tell you that it's over.

We made our school a better place. A safer place.

Ca.s.sius Somerset "It was him," Preston's face goes pale and then red. "I was right about him, all along. We'll make him pay for this-"

"No. We won't."

"What?"

I lift my face toward the sky. It's clear. The sun cuts around the edge of the building just enough to douse us completely with light. "I'm sick of revenge."

"We can't just let him get away with this," he says, disbelieving.

I lift my hands, examine them. These hands never pushed anyone into the quarry. They're normal hands. I'm a normal person.

There is no secret evil core in me.

"He's gone, Preston," I say. "Getting revenge will just stop this from being over."

"He blackmailed you for something you didn't do."

I'm never going to get another one of those notes again.

I can sleep. I can eat. I can focus on Grace. I can make everything about Grace again. This time I'm going to do it better.

"How are you not angry? You're . . . you."

Maybe Grace's Joy got angry. But this is my version. And I decide when it's worth getting angry.

"I didn't do it, Preston."

He groans. "We always knew you didn't do it."

"I wasn't sure," I whisper. "I don't think anybody knows themselves that well. The only way to find out is to be in the situation. I was . . . and I couldn't remember what I did."

I only cry for a few minutes. Preston fidgets miserably beside me. I wipe my eyes, because I know what it's like to want to help and not know how.

I stand up, because I still need to be with November today, because I need to find Levi, even if I'm afraid to face him. But my head fills with light and I lose my balance. Preston catches me.

"You okay?"

"No." I sound delirious. "But I will be."

He sighs, but he doesn't put me down. "You're actually going to let this go."

"I want to try letting something go," I tell him.

When I get home that night, I steal into Grace's room first.

"Joy," she mumbles as I slip into bed beside her, like I used to. Like I always will.

"I have to show you something," I whisper.

The invisible force field between us is weaker. Maybe it was only so strong because I needed it to be.

She wakes up, pulling the quilt over both our heads so that we're in a tent. "Did you talk to November?" she says tentatively.

I show her the email. The cold light of the phone screen illuminates every detail of her face. Sometimes the fact that we're identical seems ludicrous to me. She's so different. Her pores are clogged with makeup I don't wear. Her eyebrows are stubbly with plucked hairs that I let live. She's decorated with choices that are hers alone.

There's only the sound of our breathing and the heavy silence of somebody reading something very important.

Finally she looks up.

My phone light fades. I can't see her at all in the dark, but we're so close that the vibrations of her voice shiver along my skin. "Ca.s.sius did this to you?" she chokes. "I can't believe . . ."

"Don't hate him," I tell her.

"How can I not?" The whites of her eyes shine.

"You're right," I say. "Hate him until you don't need to hate him anymore. But don't do anything about it."

"You can't trust any guy. No matter how they act." Her voice shakes. Her hair tickles my chin. It lies fine and straight on the pillow, any evidence of our curls burned out of it. "Once, I thought Ca.s.sius was . . ."

"It's okay."

"I was wrong about November." In the dark, I can hear all her emotion. It's only in the daylight that she hides it.

"The whole school knows that-they know what he did to her now," I tell her. "She wrote about it in the school newspaper. I'll bring you a copy. You can read it if you want."

"Is she okay?" she says in a tiny voice.

"She's okay." And I believe it.

I want to believe it about Grace, too.

"I hoped you'd blame November," she says, shivery. "I wanted you to hate her. I was scared you were leaving me behind for her. I'm always scared you're leaving me behind."

"I never will, I promise." I can center my life around her again.

"I'm sorry I've been so distant," she whispers. "I thought if I could push you away before you could do it to me, it wouldn't hurt so much."

Her body heat soaks the tiny s.p.a.ce we share until beads of sweat pop on my cheeks. "Now it'll be you and me again. Just us," I say.

For some reason, I remember what Levi said, about how neither of us have had the chance to find out who we are without each other. My spine p.r.i.c.kles strangely.

She clasps her hands together in front of her mouth. "I won't doubt you anymore."

This is all I ever wanted. To have things be the way they were. But now, for some reason, this feels wrong. Like trying to put on an old favorite shirt only to find it doesn't fit anymore.

I swallow. It doesn't matter. I owe her. I'll spend the rest of my life making it up to her.

"You and me," I tell her, twisting my words until there's happiness in them.

"You and me," she repeats.

Us.

I lean my forehead against hers, just to check, one more time if that twin telepathy has come into being yet. If I can read her mind.

But no current of secrets pa.s.ses between our skin.

That's okay. They don't need to.

All our secrets have been laid to rest.

The next morning, I wake up in my own bed. I don't remember leaving Grace's room.

I push the covers back and then I'm shivering, freezing cold everywhere, in my blood, fingertips numb, head throbbing, popping full of needles.

"You're sick," Mom informs me after she takes my temperature. She sits back on my bed, studying me while a dragon eviscerates my chest. "Did you take ibuprofen?"

I sneeze.

"I'll call you out," she sighs. "But talk to your teachers about any missed a.s.signments first thing tomorrow. Your father and I have to go to work, but Grace will be home."

Us.

Mom leaves and I go back to dying. This sickness feels like an exorcism. Like all the fear from the past month is being drained from my body.

I'm sick for three days.

It's a blur of fever, arguing with Dad about going to the doctor, Mom bringing me soup, Grace delivering gla.s.ses of water to my bedside table. Her coming into my room isn't an event anymore. Once, when she goes downstairs, I get up and walk in and out of her doorway five times just to prove I can.

On the fourth day, I wake up and I can see straight. I'm not sweating anymore. I check the clock-two thirty in the afternoon. There are a couple of gla.s.ses of water on my bedside table, Grace's contributions. I chug them both. Someone knocks on my door.

"Come in," I croak. Mom and Dad are gone. It's got to be Grace.

But it's not Grace. It's Levi.

"The front door was unlocked. Dunno if that counts as breaking and entering. I brought you soup," Levi says nervously, a Tupperware container under his arm. "I googled the recipe and I bought dried shiitake mushrooms and I let it simmer for four hours."

Levi?

Levi's in my house.

I'm 110 percent awake. I bolt upright, tissues falling off my chest.

Did Grace see him come up the stairs?

I was wrong. I didn't tell her every secret.

"November Roseby said you were sick. She gave me your address." Levi stares at my posters, at my bookshelf, like they're fascinating. My room's not as horrifying as it was a month ago, but it's still pretty bad. I don't freak out about it, though, or the fact that I haven't brushed my hair in three days, or that I'm wearing one of Dad's old shirts, because if Grace comes in- "Are you drinking enough water?" he stutters. "Do you need orange juice? I can go buy orange juice. Do you need more tissues?"

"You have to leave." My throat's full of razor blades. This is the one thing left that could mess things up again.

"That's fair. I figured you'd feel that way." He sets the Tupperware on my bedside table and turns to go.

Grace still sleeps so late. She's probably asleep now. I can risk a few minutes.

"What way?" I ask.

"Well." His voice is scratchy, too, but not because he's sick. "I'm related to the guy who raped one of your best friends."

"That's not why . . ." But I can't finish my sentence.

"It is." He won't meet my eyes. "That's why you hated Adam. That's why you didn't want to be around me at first. And that day it rained, that's why you pushed me away, right?"

There's none of his usual humor. Just guilt.

"I didn't want you to lose your version of him," I say weakly.

"f.u.c.k that version. When I read that editorial . . ." He stops halfway to my door. "My first thought was, what's going to happen if my dad sees it? I'm an a.s.shole."

"You're not-"

"Don't." His back knots up. "I a.s.sumed Adam was this-perfect person."

I wince away from the self-loathing in his voice.

He twists his earring hard. Then he exhales and forces a smile. "Now I get it. He was never worth knowing, so I don't have to spend my whole life being sad I didn't get the chance. I'm glad I never cried about him."

I blink hard a few times.

"I'll go now," he says. "I get that you probably won't want to be near me, considering genetics."

"Genetics don't mean anything." I sit up. "Just because you're related to him doesn't mean you're like him. Don't go, okay?"

"It's okay. You don't have to make things up to me." He swallows. "My mom called this morning. She's been discharged. I'm flying back to Indiana in a couple days."

There's a long silence. "That's great," I croak, but I'm a jerk for not saying it immediately.

"I was always just here temporarily," he says helplessly.

"Right. Yeah. Of course."

"That's all I had to say." He smiles sadly. "Feel better." He turns, and I hear him going down the stairs.

If I don't follow him, I'll never see him again.