Please Don't Tell (2 page)

“You didn't have anything to do with him falling, then.”

“No.”
I need her to believe I'm not capable of that. No matter what threats I've made, raging at my worst. “I thought I'd confront him or something. It was stupid. But I left before anything happened to him. The night's . . . blurry.”

“You were drunk?”

Remember what happened the last time you got drunk there?

“I was scared,” I say.

Sweat dyes dark circles under her armpits, on her chest. People always say twins can read each other's minds. I'm supposed to be able to read her mind.

“Are we still fighting?” I ask.

“I guess not.”

“Can you get off the treadmill?”

“Can't. I ate, like, five hundred extra calories by accident.”

Which is one of the things she says these days that I don't get.

Then she's silent forever, except for the pound of her feet on the treadmill. Silence is the worst thing someone can give you. Your mind fills it with every possible bad thing.

He's gone, but nothing's changed. What if this is just the way things are now?

“Joy?” She steps off the treadmill, finally. Her makeup's not so perfect after all, foundation-caked scabs on her forehead where she's been squeezing blackheads, eyebrows plucked raw. But her eyes are still a little bluer than mine.

“I'm fine,” she's saying. “I'm fine with it. I've always been fine. Everything will be okay now.”

I
'
VE NEVER THOUGHT ABOUT HOW BIG A
coffin a six-foot-tall person needs. The lid's open and I can't see him from our spot in the back, but I can feel his ghost. Since it happened, any room he was in was on fire. This one's barely smoking.

November slouches beside me, her earbuds twisted around her wrist. “You okay?”

I make myself smile. “I'm always okay.”

She nods. “So, Grace isn't . . .”

“No, she's not coming.”

She nods again.

Above us, there's a dustless plaster Jesus on a glossy black cross, even though it's a funeral home, not a church. There's another service going on across the hall,
smaller but with people crying louder. How many funerals does a town like Stanwick have per week? How often do people die?

I look around. Half the school's here. Even Principal Eastman sits in front, tall and straight so people notice he came. Ms. Bell, a beaded black scarf around her neck, murmurs to Ben Stockholm, quick hands illustrating everything she says. Cassius is in the corner, hunched like something's fighting its way out of his spine. I can't tell if I feel bad for him or if I want to yell at him.

And Mr. Gordon—Adam's dad—stands near the casket, fumbling to shake people's hands as they greet him. His alcohol stink battles the smell of all the flowers, makes the hidden bottle in my pocket burn. His hair curls in gray waves under his cheekbones, skin too taut over a jawline that probably cut through hearts like butter when he was eighteen. Adam would have looked like him.

“I don't care how famous this song is,” Nov grunts. “It's creepy how they keep playing it on repeat.”

Abe Gordon, Adam's grandfather, sings over the speakers: “And I'll carry you down to the quarry, once it's dark and there's no point sayin' sorry . . .”

Suddenly everyone is shuffling, taking their seats, and Mr. Gordon picks up the microphone.

“Adam was . . . my son.” Mr. Gordon strangles the mic. His voice filters through gravel. “And he was . . . his grandfather's grandson. He'd've made it as far as my father, that's the musical talent he had. . . .”

Parents have no idea how little they know about the people they gave life to.

“Adam—” And then Mr. Gordon shakes his head, takes a deep breath, and pukes. The mic broadcasts the sound, the smell hitting us all at once. He staggers. An Asian guy I've never seen before—his hair gelled in short spikes and a T-shirt blazing orange underneath a too-small black vest—leaps up, catching Mr. Gordon's elbow. I can't hear what the guy says as he quickly steers Mr. Gordon past us and out the door, but his tone's low and comforting.

“Jeeesus,” November mutters.

“Who's that guy?” I whisper. “Why's Mr. Gordon his responsibility?”

She shrugs.

Two funeral home employees clean up while Abe Gordon continues to sing about the quarry where the grandson he never met died. It used to be a love song, now it's a dirge. Sweat laminates my shirt to my back. I want to take off my skin.

There's whispers throughout the crowd. No one knows what's happening now. But then Cassius approaches the mic, his black eye puffed purple. The overhead lights wash out the paler parts of him. From here, it's like someone splattered him with paint.

“What's he doing?” November mumbles.

“I was Adam's best friend. . . .” he starts.

Cassius is the school artist. Adam was the school musician. The sweet-voiced daydreamer and the smirking
asshole. I grip the minibottle in my pocket.

“And I'm here to tell you he was a fucking prick.”

An audible gasp sounds. A new kind of silence washes over the room. My throat seals shut.

I should have been the one brave enough to say it.

Cassius stares helplessly around the room. His eyes hit mine, and I fold into the bench. Then he drops the mic, tucks in his shoulders, and walks out fast, chased by glares and whispers.

“Someone's gotta go after him.” November squeezes my shoulder, and then she's gone. I guess funerals mean taking responsibility for the sadness of people you barely know.

Everyone waits for some family member to grab the wheel, but Mr. Gordon was all Adam had. So after another awkward moment, people start rising. Slowly, a queue forms. Final good-byes. I stand behind everybody else.

The line moves joltingly, like an execution, a pause for each person to leap off the cliff at the end. Tears. Murmurs. Propped between pews is a photo collage of Adam through the years: A toddler with the ghost of his face mashes a toy keyboard. An eight-year-old reaches through reindeer wrapping paper for the fretboard of a guitar. Was this kid-version of Adam always capable of what he did? If something changed, what and when? Did he notice?

I step up to the casket and see that each hard, crisp tendril of his hair is arranged specifically on the pillow, arms bent over his chest, mouth locked, hidden stitches disappearing into his temple. There's no rush of memories from my missing night. If something had changed in me to
make me capable of murder, I'd notice, right?

People look at bodies to understand how they're just empty houses, and then they're not scared anymore, right?

I hate him. I hate him so much I wish I'd killed him—

No! I dig my fingernails into my palms. I don't want to be scary. Or to wish for that.

But I am. And I do.

The funeral home bathroom is all fake elegance—fake marble sinks, plastic craft-store flowers in a plastic vase, a plastic doily underneath. But there's nothing realer than a toilet, or the things people write on the wall above one. Sharpie underneath the door hinge:
I still have your sweater
. This is grief, dirty and cold. It's hiding in a bathroom and doing yo
ur shameful things where no one else can see. Mostly it's the word carved in tiny letters above the coat hook:
please
.

Please don't let me be a girl who looks at a dead person and wishes she'd killed him. Let me be what someone peering in would see, a girl crying, too tall maybe, hair too wild, but nobody's nightmare.

Grace used to hide in the bathroom in kindergarten, as soon as Mom dropped us off. She'd come out only if I promised to hold her hand.

I take out my bottle, drop it. It clatters like the world's ending, but doesn't break. I swallow the contents. Breathe. It's my head, I'm in control of it, and Adam's dead, dead, dead.

Through the wall, there's the dry rasp of someone
throwing up in the men's room. Then a thud, a ceramic clonk, and a softly whispered “fuck.”

I know what it is to swear hopelessly to yourself in a bathroom. So I gather myself and go next door.

I've never been in a men's room. It's the same as the girls', minus the fake flowers, plus a urinal. A man's legs stick out under the door to the only stall.

I step forward.

The stranger from earlier is looping Mr. Gordon's arm over his shoulders. He's shed his vest, his orange shirt flecked with puke. He braces himself against the tiles, face dimming with that kind of desperation people get when they have to lift something way too heavy for them.

“Can I help?” It comes out so normal.

He looks up, relieved. “Thanks, would you mind?” he pants. “I wanna take him to his car.”

We maneuver Mr. Gordon up, his legs jumbling, suit ruined. This is real alcohol. An adult going to the store and buying a forty and drinking all of it.

The parking lot's cold for upstate New York in October, though the sunlight's laser sharp, the kind that always burns me and spares Grace, thanks to the SPF-30 moisturizer she puts on every day. We prop Mr. Gordon against his blue Mazda. He slouches semiconscious against the hood. The stranger wipes his forehead, smiles gratefully at me.

“Thank you so much. I'm Levi. You're the nicest person in the world.”

It's like every word's tattooed on his heart, he's so sincere.

He's two inches shorter than me. Eyebrows, perfect. His upper lip's fuller than the bottom. If he combined with Grace and me, we'd have an even mouth.

“I had no idea what I was gonna do with him in there,” he says.

We realize simultaneously we have no idea what we're going to do with him out here.

“You don't drive, do you?”

I shake my head. “I just got my permit. Sorry.”

“Don't be sorry.” He rolls a shoulder, winces, crouches. Mr. Gordon grumbles nonsense. There's a special kind of shittiness about an adult whose life's a train wreck. I have time to fix mine. But maybe that's what he thought when he was sixteen.

My phone buzzes. It's November.

Giving Cassius a ride home. Lemme know if u need me to come back for ya.

People start filtering out, looking at the sky and the ground and every car in the lot except Mr. Gordon's. The easiest way to deal with a problem is to pretend it doesn't exist, as taught by my parents. Only Ms. Bell heads toward us. There're rules against staff touching students, but she hugs me. Levi, too. He hugs her back tight.

“You guys know each other?” I'm stuck on the mystery of who he is.

“Nope.” Ms. Bell bends and shouts, “Mr. Gordon!” A
groan. She straightens. “Joy, I'm bringin' my car around, and I'm takin' him home. He won't get to see his son bein' buried, but if you ask me, I don't think he'd see it even if we plonked him down next to the minister.”

It takes her three minutes to back her car up to us. We tip Mr. Gordon into the backseat.

After she's driven off, Levi says, “Thanks again. For helping, and for being the first person in Stanwick I've talked to. Makes me think all of you must be pretty nice.”

He doesn't see the train wreck. But it's not as obvious on me, like a pukey suit and Jell-O legs. “I can't believe he got so wasted.”

“It's not his fault. People do things to cope.”

“People shouldn't need . . . that kind of coping.”

“Everyone has something they use to cope.” His eyes are wood brown, oak branches, sunlight. “Doesn't make 'em bad people.”

I should ask how he knew Adam, but I don't want to hear that they were friends. Maybe he helped Mr. Gordon for the same reason November's giving Cassius a ride home.

“The graveyard's across the road,” he says hesitantly. “Walk with me?”

I nod and walk with him.

Grace and I were seven the last time we came to the graveyard. It was after some nameless great-uncle had a heart attack in front of
Antiques Roadshow
. I stole a daisy from
someone else's grave, put it in Grace's hair, and cried when Mom snatched it back.

Now it's a summer graveyard with winter air. We surround the fresh pit, everyone silent. Adam'll lie here forever, neutralized. He won't follow me out.

The minister tells some nice lies about Adam, and then several men lift the casket and lower it into the open hole. I'll make sure they don't fuck it up. This is why the time machine didn't work yesterday—they hadn't buried him yet. Grace'll be fine as soon as he's covered in dirt.

Kennedy cries for real, heaving sobs over the dirt patter. Sarah clings to her back. I'm rigid. No girl should ever cry for him.

Grace never cried.

Then Levi's beside Kennedy, whispering gently to her. She quiets. Does he know her? Or does he just know what to say? If I were like him, I'd've found the right words to tell Grace in the exercise room. I'd've found the right words in the summer.

The shovel noise devolves from artillery fire to heavy rainfall. One foot of dirt. Two. The graveyard empties. The sun dips lower and the men work until there's a mound of clean earth.

But there's no magic text from Grace announcing she's okay. Nothing teleports me back to the beginning of the summer. I'm still here. He's still here.

He
is
going to follow me out.

“Joy?”

I turn. Levi's still here, too. I realize we're alone next to the grave. Everyone must've left.

He touches my wrist, and I yank back.

“Sorry,” he says immediately. “Um.”

I look away. Half the graves nearby have fresh flowers. Daisies. Grace's favorite.

“You must've cared a lot about him.”

If dead people can make someone pay ten dollars for a bunch of flowers at the grocery store and drive here to drop them off, what else can they do?

“I hated him,” I say.

“Oh.” Sadness fits him worse than that vest.

“He—” The truth claws my throat. I choke on it. “Never mind. Fuck. I'm sorry. Shit. I don't mean to swear so much.”

“It's fucking fine.” He smiles a little bit. Even though the sun's setting, the graveyard lightens.

But his smile disappears when he glances at the grave again. It's clear he wishes Adam weren't dead. Which means he and I are fundamentally incompatible human beings.

I start to say bye, but instead, suddenly, I'm gulping. I can't control anything that comes out of my mouth, but I can control what comes out of my eyes. I'm
not
going to cry over Adam's grave. I take a deep breath. And then tears leak out anyway.

“Whoa, hey. It's okay.”

Strangers say that like they know what's okay and what's not.

“Death is hard.” He lifts his hands:
I'm not going to hurt you
. “Even if you didn't like him. Sometimes that makes it harder.”

I don't want him to take responsibility for my sadness. But he's making me feel a little better. What doorway did he find into my head, and how can I find the same one into Grace's?

“How'd you get here if you don't drive?” I ask.

“Came with my, um. My dad.” A cold breeze speckles his bare arms with goose bumps. He tugs a baseball cap out of his pocket, puts it on. It's bent, threads sprouting from the brim. It messes up his hair. “Looks like I'll be hoofing it.”