Please Don't Tell (20 page)

I want her to stay frozen here with me.

“Everything you said this summer about breaking me out of my shell, that was selfish, too, wasn't it?” I say in my new ice voice. “You just wanted me with you so you'd feel comfortable doing the crazy stuff
you
wanted to do. You wanted me in the background so you'd feel safe fucking Cassius.”

Her eyes open wide. The part of me that cares is locked outside.

“You never cared about protecting me.” I can't stop. “I was just there as a safety net. So you got to be the brave one. That's always been the point of me, being this background that you get to stand out against.”

She hasn't moved an inch. Good. Now we're both frozen.

Trying to be different is dangerous. People only change for the worse.

She opens her mouth, shuts it again. Then she backs out into the hallway. It's the first time in her life she hasn't slammed the door after a fight. She closes it so gently it's
like she's shutting a dead person's eyes.

I stay in my room while, three miles away, the rest of the world celebrates the fact that Adam Gordon was born.

Then, at two a.m., while I'm lying awake, my phone blows up with Cassius Somerset's name.

I didn't know what adam was doing that night I swear. I just found out. I'm so sorry.

I am so sorry grace.

My fingers shaking, I text back.
what are you talking about?

adam just said.

I punched him and Im going to do worse than that.

Im going to kill him.

whatever you heard. forget about it.

I shouldnt have listened to him. Your sister was there. she should have stopped it.

She should have checked on you. I should have checked on you. jesus Im sorry
.

Does your sister even know? is that why she came tonight?

joy is there? joy went to his birthday party?

She came to his birthday party and got fucking drunk. what is wrong with her?

is she okay? has she talked to him?

cassius answer me. is my sister okay?

don't let anything happen to her.

you have to make sure nothing happens to her.

THE NEXT MORNING, NOVEMBER
'
S EDITORIAL
is all over school.

I read it three times.

WHY I DIDN'T TELL WHEN ADAM GORDON RAPED ME
When I was little, I thought I knew what strength was. It was
a powerful person, fighting bad guys. Everyone understands that kind of hero. They're in every story. The police officer, the soldier, the warrior princess, the rebel. Heroes protect people, slay the enemy beast, climb the perilous mountain.

      
But what happens when getting out of bed in the morning takes as much energy as climbing a mountain? When going to school feels like jumping into the villain's pit of rattlesnakes? When the enemy's nothing you can
shoot an arrow at but a voice inside you, and you can't destroy it without destroying yourself?

      
We're heroes, too. But we don't look as good on a movie screen. The problem is that we don't know what we are until we see ourselves somewhere. That's what stories are for, except when we don't look like the people in our stories, it keeps us in the dark. Things turn ugly in the dark. And when we don't see our battles treated like real battles, when we don't get to see how brave others are for struggling with the same thing as us, we don't understand that we're brave, too.

      
If getting out of bed in the morning is as hard for you as fighting a monster, then you're a monster-fighting badass. If going to school makes you want to cry and you go anyway, you're a hero and your story is worth something.

      
I changed my name to November because that was the month I got sent to a mental health facility after Adam Gordon raped me. I expected therapy to be bullshit. And some of it was. But mostly, while I was there, I realized what I wasn't. I wasn't weak. None of the people I met there were weak because they were sad. People say
don't let things get to you
, but sometimes things just get to you and that's the way it is. And it's okay.

      
Originally, I was going to write this as a letter to him. But you are so much more important than he is. And I want you to know that wherever you are, whatever you're struggling with, I see you. Your monsters are real, and you're brave, and I'm proud of you.

The newspaper is recalled once Vice Principal Matthews realizes what was printed, but copies are everywhere. People hide it in their lockers, stuff it in their sweatshirts, read it under their desks in class. There's a lot of whispering.

Levi isn't in American History.

When the bell rings for lunch, November's waiting for me outside the classroom door. Half the people passing by stare at her, and there's a nasty comment somewhere in the crowd, but she ignores it.

“Do we really have to do this?” she groans.

“Yes. I'm escorting you everywhere today.” I glare at a freshman who points out November to his friend, muttering behind his hand.

“It's cool, Joy. I don't care what they think.” Her smile's real. “I thought I would, but I don't. I wrote it for the right reasons.”

“Are people being okay to you?” I say over the rush of hallway noise as we walk together.

“Some people are being dicks and some people are not being dicks. But that's life.” She hitches her bag higher. “I got a few hugs.”

“Hugs?”

“Brodie Simmons said I helped with her depression. That is a nice thing to be told.”

“You helped me, too,” I say. It's true. I can handle thinking clearly for the first time in forever. I still don't know who the blackmailer is, but I'm going to figure it out. Today I'll be there for November, but then I'm going to find a way to stop this.

November squeezes my arm. I push away my thoughts. I want to be the great friend she thinks I am. “So nobody's harassing you?”

“Joy Morris, I can take care of myself,” she says. “The only annoying part of today was Vice Principal Matthews. She kept me in her office all morning. I'm banned from the school newspaper.”

“That's bullshit!” I snarl, fuming. “I'm going in there and—”

“Who cares?” She smiles again. “I said what I wanted to say.”

We round the corner of the hallway and head into the cafeteria. The cafeteria has never gone silent before, but today it comes pretty close. November snickers as we get in line.

“By the way,” she says under her breath, “daily reminder that it wasn't your fault.”

“Daily reminder that it wasn't your fault, either.”

“Not working yet, is it?”

I shake my head.

“Maybe eventually,” she says quietly.

Before we can get our food, there's a commotion by the doors. It's Ben, trailed by Kennedy and Sarah. Ben has a sheaf of papers under his arm. He slams one to the cafeteria wall and tapes it there.

“Don't start shit, Joy,” November says to me as Ben whips around and beelines straight for us.

“I thought you might be interested in this,” he says loudly. Now the cafeteria really is dead silent. He pushes a
flyer toward her. I intercept it. There's a picture of Adam's face and the words
Remember our friend the way he really was.
“We're planning another memorial service for Adam next week. The point is to celebrate what a
great guy
he was. From the memories of people who knew him, not a lying bitch who hated him for no reason.”

November puts out a hand in front of me, but I'm not lunging, even though I'm quaking with fury. She's right. She can handle this herself. My anger's not the important thing. Sometimes being a good friend means standing back.

“The amount I give a shit about what you have to say is so small it couldn't be seen with a microscope,” she says coolly.

Kennedy and Sarah press in behind us. Kennedy's glaring. Sarah bites her lip.

Ben leans in. He's breathing as heavily as he did the day he fought with Levi. “You can disguise it with fake-inspirational mental health bullshit all you want, but I know what you're doing. You just want attention.”

The freshmen at the tables nearest me are motionless, sandwiches halfway to their mouths. It'd be funny if my skin wasn't buzzing. Even the people who were coming out of the food line are still, their trays tipping in their hands.

One of them is Levi.

My stomach jolts. I thought he skipped today. Our eyes meet for a split second. He's not smiling. He looks really tired. There's only an apple on his tray.

Please let him believe her.

“You all realize she's lying, right?” Ben addresses the cafeteria at large. “She said it herself. She got chucked in a mental hospital. She's fucking crazy.”

I punched him in third grade. I'm burning to do it again, but November's staring him down like a badass, unflinching, and he tenses.

Levi abandons his tray on a nearby table and walks toward us.

“You're on my side, right?” Ben says to him. “Adam's half bro?”

Levi's cheeks are hollower than normal. His baseball cap is nowhere in sight. “Why don't you fuck off?”

“I should've known.” Ben laughs mockingly. “You're way more of a pussy than Adam—”

“Will you shut up?” It's Sarah, trembling. She glances nervously at November.

“I liked your editorial,” she says rapidly, looking petrified. “It was—it—I'm sorry.”

The corner of Nov's mouth lifts. She holds out a fist. After a moment, Sarah returns the bump.

Levi stares at all of us for a second. His throat works. I can't tell what he's thinking. He backs away, turns, and half runs out of the cafeteria without telling me what it is.

Ben and Sarah are arguing, their voices raised, but I don't catch a word of it.

“Go,” November mouths to me.

So I do.

But I hesitated too long. By the time I reach the halls, they're empty.

I take out my phone to text him, even though I have no idea what to say.

There's a new email on my screen from the address [email protected]

Instinctively I know who it's from. My heart stops. But it's done that so many times, and it always starts again.

“Joy?” someone says. I turn, and Preston is coming out of the science wing, one of his lunch hiding places. My chest uncoils at the sight of him.

“Perfect timing,” I say.

He steps closer, and I hold the screen up wordlessly. He squints at it, then his eyes go wide.

“You think?”

Breathe. I can handle this fear now. “Guess he's entered the digital era.”

“We can track the IP address,” he gasps.

“Let's read it first.” I keep my voice calm, but my palms are sweating. “Not here. Outside.”

We slip out through the side door beside the math classrooms and crouch together against the brick wall, next to the Dumpsters. When my hand starts shaking, Preston opens the email for me. We read it together.

To Joy Morris—

I guess I can tell you who I am now.

The day Adam died was the day I found out what he did to Grace. Do you know what it's like to realize
that the person you called your best friend was a stranger? A monster?

By the time I followed him to the quarry, everyone else at his birthday party had left. I hid in the trees while he walked, drunk, to the edge. I don't think he jumped. But it wasn't quite like he fell. It was like the quarry pulled him in.

Most of the time, when people do bad things, nothing happens to them.

It all began when I found those pictures in Savannah's room. I don't trust the police—I thought if I brought the photos to them, they'd brush me aside.

If someone caught me putting them up, Savannah would hate me forever. That's when I thought of you. I knew you'd been blackout drunk at Adam's birthday party, that there was no way you remembered that night, and that you must have wanted him dead after what he did to Grace. I was too scared to put up the photos, but you're brave. I knew youd be able to go through with it.

How rationally were
you
thinking after finding out something horrible had happened to your sister?

And maybe part of me thought you deserved to suffer for what happened this summer. It was supposed to end after that. But November invited me to her house one day, and while she was downstairs, I found that security video of Officer Roseby in his room. I went through his closet—I knew he'd had something to hide. I knew if everyone saw it, he'd have to stop harassing me.

And when November and I got closer, when she finally told me what Adam did to her, I knew the school needed to know the truth. November needed them to know, even if she couldn't tell them herself.

I never meant to use you more than once. It just worked so well the first time. But you used me, didn't you, this summer? So we're even.

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.

Cassius 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.