Please Don't Tell Part 17

"I don't know what it is anymore." Stop talking.

"Man," he says. "Why does there need to be a point to anybody? People aren't parts in a robot with little functions or whatever. You're alive-who said that was contingent on being good at some big thing? Or maybe there's a lot of little reasons for you being around, like you helping me with my dad, and like watering your houseplants."

I sc.r.a.pe my hand across my eyes. "Advice Levi wasn't gone for long."

"That wasn't Advice Levi, that was Ramble Levi. Normally I only bring him out for final papers."

"He says some cool stuff, I guess."

"I just consulted him and he says he wants to hang out with you more. Also, he thinks you're cute."

I blanch. "I said no flirting."

"Sorry. I say this s.h.i.+t and I immediately get deeply embarra.s.sed. Self-Loathing Levi is like, 'sup."

"Bad Jokes Joy thinks you're cute, too," I say accidentally. "She's the only one, though."

He grins so big. "I don't believe you. I'll have to ask the other ones myself."

I know who the other Joys are, and they're not good. But he doesn't see them.

"So, in the spirit of that," he says, "do you want to go to the movies with me sometime this week?"

I freeze.

Grace wouldn't be p.i.s.sed if she knew how un-Adam he is. She probably doesn't even know Adam had a half brother who goes to our school now. And I need to keep out of the house, so the blackmailer doesn't- I jolt. It's the first time I've thought about the blackmailer since I've been with him.

He's still waiting for my answer.

It's selfish and wrong and f.u.c.ked-up, but those are the other Joys. So I say yes.

Later that night, after Mom picks me up, I sit at the dining room table with her and Dad, the three of us eating carrots and chicken and mashed potatoes like nice normal people. I mash my carrots around in one of the heavy clay bowls that Grace and I made at arts and crafts camp one summer, years ago.

"Pa.s.s the carrots, Joy," says Dad.

I pa.s.s the carrots.

"Pa.s.s the salt, Joy."

I pa.s.s the salt. "Where's Grace?"

"She's hard at work on her independent project and couldn't come down to dinner," Mom says like it's something to be proud of, that she's not eating.

"What's she working on tonight?" I ask.

They look at each other and shrug. "Research on the computer," Mom says.

"I'm sure you know more than we do," Dad says. "You girls talk about everything."

One Christmas, when we were fourteen, Aunt Theresa told Mom: "Makes your job easier, having twins. My best friend has 'em. They practically raise each other."

"Joy?" Mom says.

I jump. "What do you want? The pepper?"

"I just want to say how proud I am that you got yourself an American History tutor. I'm glad you're getting back on track."

"We always thought it'd be wonderful if you and Grace attended the same college," Dad says. "You could room together."

And get jobs at the same company, and have a joint wedding, and give birth in the same month, and live next door, and never find out who we are without each other. Except I'm already finding out who Joy Without Grace is. And she's not good.

"I'm finished."

If I eat too much, I regain the ability to think. I get up and go upstairs.

Every time I open my bedroom door, I half expect to have to fight a nightmare figure. But when I go in, the blackmailer isn't standing there. Grace is.

"Hi," she says nervously. "Sorry."

She buffers sentences with apologies. Like Levi.

"Don't be sorry." I close the door slowly behind me. I don't want her in here, when the blackmailer knows my address and there's a knife under my pillow and notes under my mattress, but at the same time I do want her in here.

"What's up? You okay? It's been, like, a thousand years since I've seen you," I say.

I've been avoiding her, unsure if I could hide the blackmail from her. But I think I can. I think I can hide more things from her than I ever knew I could.

"Of course I'm okay." She tucks a pale blond strand of hair back. "I have to talk to you."

I'm not going to screw this up. What was it Levi said about advice?

"I found this in your backpack." She takes out one of my empty minibottles.

"Why were you in my backpack?"

"I needed a pen." She sets the bottle on my desk, looks at me all solemn. "You're drinking these at school."

"It's just to-" Stop thinking. "I needed-" s.h.i.+t. "It was before he died."

"So why's it still in your backpack?"

"I never clean it out." I pause. "And don't you have pens in your room?"

"Joy."

"I can't believe you're mothering me," I burst out. "How are you the one mothering me?"

"You can't drink these at school. Or anywhere. You shouldn't."

Why can't she be the mess for once?

"Bad things happen when you drink, Joy," she says.

I go numb. She starts to hunt through my drawers, finds another bottle, pockets it. "Any more?"

"No," I lie.

"All right. We cleared that up." The awkwardness returns. "So, um. Where'd you go today?"

"Boy from cla.s.s is tutoring me in American History," I say tiredly.

"A boy? I could've tutored you in American History." She tries to push her hair behind her ear again, forgetting she already did it. "What boy?"

"Just . . . some dude from cla.s.s."

"And you're alone in his house."

"His . . . his dad's there. What's with this third-degree questioning?"

"American History's not that hard. You don't need a tutor." She scowls. "Also, stop spending all your time at Preston's house. You're always there now. Is he your boyfriend?"

"No." I blink. "Pres isn't like other guys."

"Every guy is like other guys."

"Grace, you know you can talk to me, right?" I say in a rush. "Should I ask how you feel, like, about him dying-"

"I told you, I don't feel any way about it," she snaps.

"That can't be true."

"Why are you always trying to force things out of me?" She locks her hands together behind her back. "Just let me be okay."

"I know you're okay, I just wanted you to know that you can talk-"

"There's nothing to talk about! Do you want me to be messed up? So you don't feel like you're the only one?"

I wince.

"I'm sorry," she says, squeezing her eyes shut. "I shouldn't have said that."

"No," I say hopelessly. "You're right. That's exactly what I'm doing. Trying to get you to be the f.u.c.ked-up one so I can be the one who's not. I'm garbage."

"No, no, Joy." She does a motion like she's gonna hug me, then lets her arms fall back. "You think you're capable of all these bad things, but you're not."

"You're not the one supposed to be comforting me."

She sighs, exasperated. "We can't both need comforting."

"You're the one who has a right to. And I'm taking it away. I wish I was like you."

"Someone has to be me and someone has to be you," she says strangely. Then she shakes her head. "You're acting like it's my crisis and it's not. It's yours."

"Girls?"

We stiffen. Mom's knocking.

"I just checked the mailbox and there was a letter for you, Joy," she says excitedly through the door. "I think it's a college recruitment newsletter."

What would happen if Mom and Dad listened harder, walked in at the wrong moment, reached into the wrong pocket of my backpack? There's a whole world they miss by inches every day.

A thick manila envelope zooms under my door. Grace has been getting them for months. It's my first. They must collect student names by GPA.

"What are you talking about in here? Boys?" Mom only gets this girlish teasing voice when she finds Grace and me alone together. "Can I come in? I have a thing or two to say about boys."

"Homework," I manage.

"All righty then." She's not hurt. She's always a.s.sumed that our world was whole and safe and she didn't need to be a part of it. "Don't stay up too late."

Her footsteps disappear.

"College, huh," Grace mumbles.

Safe topic. "You still getting all those emails from Brown?"

"I don't think I'm going to go."

"To Brown?"

"To college."

I stop in the middle of opening my envelope. "Oh thank G.o.d, that's the first joke you've made in ages."

She shrugs. "Who's joking?"

"College has been your main hobby since we were, like, five." When I was thirteen, I had posters of boy bands. She had posters of Dartmouth.

"What's in college? Guys? Parties? I don't care about that stuff. I can learn on my own. I'm proving that now. And no college is going to want someone who took her junior year off."

A new panic rises in me. "You can go back to school next semester."

"There are still guys there. And all guys are like him."

"No, Grace. You can't throw away college-"

"You never cared about college, either."

"So what? That's me!"