Please Don't Tell (8 page)

IT TURNS OUT THAT WHEN YOU DON
'
T
sleep at night, you sleep in class. And it turns out that when your principal is under house arrest, there's nobody for your teachers to complain to. Even if you do it all week.

Time slides by without me getting involved. The men's choir puts on a memorial performance for Adam. Savannah doesn't come back. Cassius isn't in school, either. Grace acts like she never said anything. Levi pokes me awake in American History long enough to copy his quiz answers, but he doesn't ask again about the photos, and I don't explain. I spend the weekend half-conscious on Preston's bed while he brainstorms ways to safely ask Cassius if he's, you know, blackmailing me and also possibly a murderer.

When you don't sleep, things stop being real and you
don't have to worry about them as much. Until Sunday night, when there's a new note taped to the outside of my nailed-shut window and I have to go out in the dark and climb the tree to get it.

To Joy Morris—

Good job.

I go back to my room and kick my bedside table so hard that the drawer splinters.

“Joy?” Grace's voice comes suddenly from the hallway. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah. Just stubbed my toe!” I holler back, crumpling the note.

I've got four minibottles left from Dad's sample package. I drink two, until my throat's numb, and my head is—

Fuck this.

I grab a piece of paper and a black Sharpie and scrawl:
LEAVE ME ALONE. YOU DON'T HAVE ANY PROOF.
I tear out the nails with Dad's hammer, grunting, yanking until I can open the window wide enough to trap the note beneath the frame. Then I pull up my chair, lay my kitchen knife on my lap—the big cleaver, Mom's been asking where it went—and wait.

Could Cassius really balance on that branch? He lives
down the street and around the corner. I could go there right now, knock on his door, bring my knife, make him tell me the truth.

When you don't sleep, you think about these things.

Mom calls me for dinner and I claim a stomachache. Grace is in her bedroom, Dad in the exercise room, Mom in her office. We spend the night in our individual holes. Pres hasn't been sleeping well, either, so I don't text him about the new note.

I wonder how Savannah's been sleeping.

I tilt back in my chair, and Levi's sweatshirt slides to the ground. I forgot it was there. I almost forgot about him. Why hasn't he gone back to Indiana yet?

To distract myself, I open Facebook, search his name. His profile's public. He already has more friends from Stanwick than I do. His smile's so bright in his picture. It isn't fair for one person to have so much sunlight.

My window's still dark and empty.

I google his full name and the Indiana town listed on his profile. Apparently he was on the tennis team in eighth grade. He volunteered at an animal shelter. I skim the second page of results, the third. The first link on this page is a blog, captioned:
dear adam
. Shivering, I click it.

so you're gone now. i guess that means you'll never read any of these.

when i got the call, i remembered this blog right away. it's been three years since I posted. i don't
know what i thought it would accomplish. i'm the only one who knows about it.

I shouldn't be doing this. It's a personal blog. He probably didn't think anyone would find it.

I open the archives, clicking the very first post, from years ago. Middle school?

this is for my creative writing class! we're supposed to write a bunch of letters to somebody we look up to. mr hendrick probably meant famous people, but i decided to write to my half brother. he's going to be a famous musician someday, so maybe that counts. also, he's impossible to get in touch with, so he's like a famous person that way, too.

The posts continue, around one every month. He kept it up way after he passed in the creative writing assignment.

adam, do you remember that baseball cap you gave me for christmas when I was 9? this is dorky, but i still have it. it's too small for me now but I wear it anyway.

it's kind of nice having you for a half brother. you don't talk to me, so I get to make you up.

The baseball cap in his sweatshirt pocket is still in my closet. If Adam had ever read these when he was alive, he would have laughed. Levi deserves to be related to someone better.

But Grace does, too.

i had this stupid daydream the other day about what would happen if you replied to my emails and we actually talked. i think it would be nice.

I feel so weird reading this. Stop. I'm gonna stop.

There's so many of them, rambling, raw. All this yearning for someone who never really existed. Adam'll live on in his head as some wonderful person, a missed relationship. It's the kind of thing people regret on their deathbeds.

I want Levi to know. I grit my teeth and dig my nails into my wrist.

But of course he can't.

I read until the words blur, until everything inside and outside the house is quiet and the sky outside my window starts getting a little bit lighter.

The next morning, I wake up slumped in my chair, laptop battery dead, my mouth dusty, someone knocking on my door.

“Joy, I need you to come downstairs right now.”

Mom's voice is razor thin. Am I late for school? I check my clock. I don't have to leave for another half hour. I
hide the knife under a corner of my carpet and close my laptop. In the daylight, it feels a lot slimier that I re
ad Levi's blog.

Mom's footsteps retreat. My note's still on the windowsill. The blackmailer didn't come back. Maybe his last note was the end and I'll never have to know who he is.

Downstairs, Officer Roseby is in our living room.

“Sorry for coming so early. Was hoping to catch Joy before school started,” he says, clearly not sorry at all. A cop in uniform looks larger than life, like he should be in a video game, not in my house where my sister's sleeping. He's pale in the morning light, his blond hair scraped back over his scalp. “I'm asking around about the night Adam Gordon passed away.”

I'm awake down to my toes.

“I thought that was an accident,” Dad says. His socks are mismatched, and Mom's shirt is misbuttoned.

“The department believes so. But his father asked if I'd talk to a few kids who were at the party. Sort of as a favor. Just to be sure. We ought to know how much of a factor drugs and alcohol were.”

I'm shaking. If he was here because I'm a suspect, he'd say so, right? If he searches my room—the notes, the knife . . . What if Grace comes downstairs?

“Joy was grounded that night.” Mom side-eyes me. “She didn't go to this party.”

“It's not like your daughter doesn't have a history of rule breaking, ma'am.”

I'm on his bad-kids list. If I called the cops on the blackmailer, he wouldn't believe anything I said. I think of him finding out what happened to Grace, asking skeptical questions in our living room.

“Did you speak to Adam at his birthday party?” he asks me.

“No,” I say before I realize I just accidentally confirmed I was there.

Mom stares at me, silently filling the room with poison.

Roseby looks at our walls. Grace took down all the pictures of her, like she untags every photo of herself on Facebook. “What about your sister? Was she there?”

“No, and she's asleep. She doesn't want to talk to you.”

“Watch yourself, young lady. Especially after I was kind enough to let you go with a warning this past July.”

I'm boiling over.

“I have my own teenage daughter. You have to watch them round the clock,” he says to Dad, then turns back to me. “Were you involved in any drugs at this party?”

“Since this is just a ‘favor' for Mr. Gordon, Joy doesn't really have to keep answering your questions. And I'm afraid we're late for work.” Mom's a dragon. I want to hold on to her. The urge is so strong I'm amazed to discover how much of me is still a kid.

“Of course,” he says ironically. “Thank you for your time.”

The minute he leaves, Mom breathes fire.

“Really, Joy? I can't believe you snuck out again after we
picked you up from the police station this summer
.”

My eyes sting. I mash my toe into the carpet.

“Especially to go to a party near that quarry,” Dad agrees. “What happened to the Gordon boy could've happened to you.”

“You're grounded on weekends for the next three weeks.” Mom grits her teeth. “I thought you were trying.”

“I am trying.” Don't cry.

“If you were, you w
ouldn't be failing American History,” she says like she's explaining basic math. “You wouldn't have detention every other week and police wouldn't be in our house.”

Go through my room, then. Find the notes. Tell me what to do.

“Do you ever consider the possibility that stuff is going on in my life that makes it hard to focus on school?” I say.

“It's just homework, Joy.” Dad sighs. “It shouldn't be that hard.”

I can't explain how homework zaps me with a panic that gets bigger and bigger until it feels like I have to either put it away or stab myself.

“If anything's going on, you can tell us. You know that,” says Mom.

“You're just as smart as Grace,” Dad says quietly. “You ought to be able to do as well as her.”

I hate how furious I am. “I'm not as smart as Grace. We're not good at the same shit, so quit holding us to the same standard.”

“Language,” Dad snaps. “Go to your room until it's time for school.”

“Do you realize what a ridiculous punishment that is?” I'm barreling down the tracks. “I spend all my time in my room. What is the point of sending me there?”

“Just . . . go get dressed,” says Mom. “Perhaps tonight we can have a mature conversation about this.”

I storm upstairs, slam my door. Grace is probably awake and hiding. She hides from fights and that's why I have to be the fighter.

I open the window, snatch my untouched note back from the mangled sill. I'll burn all the notes tonight. Outside, the tree branch bobs infuriatingly in the morning sun. I unfold it, and my heart slices in half. Beneath what I wrote,
you don't have proof,
there's something printed in blocky, unrecognizable handwriting.

DON'T I?

THE FIELD BEHIND THE MIDDLE SCHOOL IS
wet, but that doesn't stop anybody from sitting on it. Kennedy, Ben, Sarah: three out of the five artsy seniors. Cassius isn't here and neither is Adam. I've never talked to them before, and they don't seem interested in starting. They've barely said a word to Joy or November either, even though November's in their grade.

The middle school road is dark, except for the pool of yellow light from the streetlamp. It's a bad idea to do this in the open.

“Quit checking
the road. The cops won't come,” Joy says confidently. Like she's smoked weed (bud? pot?) under the stars with the seniors before. Like I'm the only one doing this for the first time. She's wearing November's
too-small sweatshirt. She rocks back on her knees, watching the seniors poke grassy stuff into a little glass pipe (bowl? bong?) and pass it in a circle.

I miss the trick to what they're doing. November exhales smoke, holds the pipe to me.

“No thank you,” I say like a kindergartner.

“No problem,” says November kindly. She turns to Joy. Moves her like a doll, adjusts her hands around the pipe (bowl?). Lights it for her. Murmurs instructions. Joy's eyes cross. I blush for her, but Kennedy-Ben-Sarah aren't watching. They're on their backs, arms tangled up like they're not conscious of their bodies. What's it like to not be conscious of your body?

Joy coughs. Hard. Forever. November pats her back.

“Fuck middle school,” Kennedy says. “It's like a crypt of bad memories.”

I wish I could say it: fuck middle school. Anything I don't like, just: fuck it.

“Remember what a bitch you were, Ken?”

“Remember all the shitty anime I watched?”

“I was sooo depressed in eighth grade. . . .”

There's no way they, too, were balls of silence and fear back then, or ever. Kennedy has pastel-pink hair. Ben's wearing a tie. Sarah's shirt quotes
The Great Gatsby
. They're like teenagers in books, and movies made out of books, with deep thoughts, quirky hobbies. They fall in love and it fixes them. They're interesting.

I'm never going to be broken in a way that makes someone
fall in love with me. My sadness will never be interesting. I'm not a girl who makes a good story.

Joy makes a good story.

“I don't know if it's working,” she keeps saying. She rolls around in the grass. Getting soaked. “Grace, remember our lunch table by the stairs in middle school? I wonder who sits there now. What do you think Cat and them are doing tonight? Making out with an SAT prep book?”

I haven't seen my old friends since school ended last month. Maybe that means they're not my friends anymore. Strange how it can happen, just like that.

“You know that Halloween-themed fair they have every year on this field?” she asks. “We didn't go last year. We went every year before then. We should go this year.”

Everybody in our whole town goes to that fair. Teachers, doctors, they all make the twin comments wherever they run into us: how we look the same but
they
can tell us apart. Like we're theirs because they can see the difference.

Joy faces November. “Did you like middle school, Nov?”

“The people who liked middle school are the reasons why everybody else hated middle school.” November's got one earbud in again. She's apart from everyone.

“How come you were gone our sophomore year?” Ben asks bluntly. There's something aggressive in his expression. “I always wondered.”

She plays with the rubber bands on her wrists. There's a long silence.

Finally Joy says, “Do you guys have any more weed? I don't feel anything.”

Everyone reassures her: they didn't feel it their first time either, don't exhale right away. She nods, mimes taking notes. She's always been able to turn herself into a project.

“Remember how you punched me in elementary school for making fun of your sister's paintings?” Ben asks her, grinning. “I was a grade above you, too.”

“I did!” She's delighted.

I lie on the grass. There's peace in being forgotten. This would be a good moment to think some profound thoughts about the stars. But I'm too anxious. I want to go home.

I close my eyes. I hear the lighter flick on. Joy coughs again. Then the darkness glows behind my eyelids. Headlights. I shoot upright, but it's not cop lights.

“I invited Adam,” Ben says. “Hope that's cool.”

Oh no. I have to fix my shirt. Have to fix my hair. I'm wearing too much makeup. Maybe he won't notice in the dark. Of course he'll notice.

And then Joy's arms fall over my shoulders. “Oh my God, this is your chance.” Her eyes are red.

By the road, Adam hops the little fence. His guitar case bounces against his back with each step.

“'Sup, all,” he says once he reaches us. Does he see me?

“Help us out with this.” Ben hands him the pipe. Adam lights it easily. He knows. I have to pretend I know. He inhales smoke and holds it out to me, ignoring everyone else.

He does see me!

“I didn't know you knew Ben and them,” he says.

I shrug. Cringe. “I don't. Not really.”

“Don't make me smoke this alone.” He sits cross-legged. Next to me. “There's a shit ton in here.”

I look at him. He looks back with his dark eyes, darker at night. He lights the bowl for me. Does he know this is my first time? His chest brushes my shoulders. I do what everyone told Joy to do: breathe in, take my thumb off the hole, don't breathe out—

“Hey, you wouldn't do it with
me
!” Joy's next to me suddenly, upset. I breathe out the smoke too early.

“Can you two get a ride home?” November says to us. She's glaring at Adam. “I feel like going to bed.”

“Oh, let me guess,” he groans. “In the last two seconds I've managed to do something that contributes to the worldwide oppression of women, gay people, and everyone else probably.”

“Or sometimes people just want to go to sleep,” she says coolly, but her eyes are knives.

“Fine.” He fake salutes. “Night. Miss ya already.”

“You are such an asshole.”

His eyes get darker. Kennedy-Ben-Sarah clump together, useless. Joy's normally the first to join a fight, but her gaze is unfocused.

“Can you not?” I say to November.

Adam grins at me. My stomach swoops. November scowls hard. She whispers something to Joy, hugs her quickly, turns to go.

“What, I don't get a hug?” Adam teases.

“Die.”

Her hate is so pure that I'm amazed Adam doesn't bleed.

“Do you guys have any idea what her problem is?” he asks once she's gone. “Hasn't she always been a bitch to me, Ben? Pretty sure she just hates me because I'm a straight white guy.”

“She used to like you,” says Ben, smirking.

Joy stares after November as she walks alone across the field.

“Thanks for sticking up for me.” Adam gives me a brief tight squeeze. I'm warm everywhere. Blossoming.

Joy scoots toward us. She pulls me aside, down into the grass, away from Adam.

“Nov said to make sure we didn't go anywhere with Adam alone,” she whispers.

“She hates him.” I feel brave. “It's like she hates every guy. It's stupid.”

“Nov's our friend.”

“She's
your
friend,” I say. She blinks at me. I sigh, murmur, “Joy, I like him.”

She rubs her eyes. “Just be sure you don't put him before us.”

I don't think she's paying attention to what's coming out of her mouth. “You've been putting November before us.”

“Are we fighting? I'm confused.”

“You said you'd give him a chance. You've never even talked to him.”

“Fine. I'll talk to him.” And then she's wobbling back toward the group. “Where's Cassius tonight?” she asks Adam, like a challenge. My scalp gets hot.

“Fuck if I know.” He's stretched out, shirt riding up. “I need a break from him sometimes. Guy has a lot of weird thoughts.”

Next week is when he wants to paint me. I haven't told Joy—she wouldn't understand that I'm doing it for her.

“Don't say that about your husband!” Sarah chirps. “You guys are so married.”

“He's not my type.”

He looks at me and smiles!

After awhile, Joy brings out a whiskey bottle—how she had that in her bag I don't know. But now we're drinking and the night's blurring.

“Okay, everyone. I have an announcement to make.” Joy struggles to her feet. “I hate secrets. Secrets are shit. Can we agree on that? Oh, wait.” She bends over, takes off her shoes, and throws them several feet away before continuing. “Secrets keep people apart.”

Kennedy-Ben-Sarah crack up. Adam grins. I grin, too. My dumb cute sister.

“So in the interest of that, all of you should know . . . wow . . . Okay, this grass feels amazing. All of you should take off your shoes right now, and then after that, you should know that she”—she points at me—“likes him.” She points at Adam. “And you, Adam, you be good to her, or I'll kick your ass.”

I freeze.

I'm dying.

I hate her.

“Aw,” Sarah coos into Kennedy's shoulder. “That's so cute.”

I can't look at Adam. But I feel him sidle up.

“So you like me?”

“She's high,” I say weakly. “She doesn't know what she's saying.” Except she does. I don't get why she always screws things up for no reason.

But he's not laughing. Not reassuring everyone he only dates thin girls. He's still looking at me. And it's really nice to have him look at me.

I'm sorry
, I tell Joy in my head. She's picking at blades of grass, giggling.
I don't hate you. I'm not mad. Not ever.

“Talk to me, Grace Morris.” Adam brushes my shoulder. “Tell me your story.”

I don't have one.

“I'd rather hear yours,” I manage.

“I'm still writing mine. It's going to be a good one. There's a lot I plan on getting done in this life. You ever thought about what you want to do?”

Get good grades. “I don't know. Be a doctor. Help people, I guess?”

He rolls his eyes. “I'm not one of those people who talks about wanting to
help others
. That's very naïve. They're doing it to make themselves feel good. I want to get famous for my sake, and I'm going to be honest about that.”

I wish I hadn't said anything.

“Not one single person who lives in this town is interesting,” he says.

Don't disappoint him. Be interesting.

“It's like we get held to a different set of standards . . . because we're smarter,” I say. Cringe. I'm not smarter than anyone, not in any way that counts.

But he says, “Fuckin' right.”

If I can curl and uncurl my fist thirteen times before anyone stands up, I won't screw up the next thing I say, either.

“I'm having these assorted losers over my house at the end of the month,” he says. “You should come. Raise the average IQ. There's not enough smart people in my life.”

My stomach leaps. It takes me a second to recognize it: happiness.

“I'll show you my bed. It cost, like, two thousand dollars. Tempur-Pedic.” He pushes his shoulder into mine and winks. “You'd look good in it.”

It's so hard to tell when he's joking. Would a normal girl be annoyed or flattered? What would Joy do?

“I wanted to tell you, um,” I start. Bad transition. “You . . . you should never feel like you have to live up to your grandfather. That's a lot of pressure—”

“What are you talking about?” He laughs, but it's mean. “What do I care what music some old dude made a billion years ago? He's dead and irrelevant.”

His warmth is gone. I ruined it.

He looks around restlessly, glances at Joy's goofy smile. He mean-laughs again. “Is this her first time?”

“It's mine, too,” I say defensively.

“Don't get all November on me. I like you sweet.” He looks at me more closely. “Lemme pack another bowl.”

This time, when he lights it, I suck in hard, determined to do it right. His face, so close: “Don't breathe out yet.” I don't. A fire builds in my chest. My eyes water. I cough loudly. Can't stop. He pays no attention, takes a long hit, holds the pipe out to me again. I don't want it. I take it anyway.

My thoughts are tangled. I'm wearing too much makeup. Gross. I'm gross.

“Quit hiding your face.” He pulls at me. No. Don't look. Even if someone saw what's inside me, they wouldn't want to help.

Adam disappears at the end of a long tunnel. Then Joy's with me. In the grass. “Grace?” She's the sky. I'm underground. She's so tall. My eighteen-minute-older sister. Protecting me from monsters. But the real monster's in me, and while she's waving her sword, it's eating me.

I'm vanishing. She presses her forehead to mine, giggling, and I'm still vanishing.

Then, suddenly: bright, bright lights.

“Oh shit!”

Noises. Everyone getting up. Joy's yanking at me. “Grace. Graaaace. Come on.” Adam's running. I watch him, sideways. His guitar bouncing on his back.
Write
a song about me.
Shouting. Flashlight beams. Crackling voices. Joy, panicking. “We gotta run, come on!”

I'm in a cage, Joy. I can run in as many circles as I want. I'm still not going anywhere.

“I can't believe this,” Mom keeps saying. “I just can't believe this.”

She drives fast, jerking around each corner. Stanwick shuts down after ten p.m. Everyone else in the world might as well be dead.

Joy's balled up in her seat, shoeless. It's been—two hours? Three? Everything's still furry-edged.