Please Don't Tell Part 4

The vacuum whirs off immediately.

I should study. I should go for a run. Half an hour and I can burn three hundred calories. That cancels out lunch.

Downstairs: Mom, Dad, talking. We can always hear what they say in the living room. Either they don't realize, they don't care, or they want us to hear everything.

"I just don't get why she doesn't try as hard as Grace," Mom's saying.

I slip out into the hallway and through Joy's door.

Her room is inside out. She saves everything: birthday cards, handmade presents from first grade, memories scattered in the open. A monument to how dorky I used to be. Even stupider than I am now. Everything triggers a crystal moment of embarra.s.sment. Moments that stay alive because of her. I wish she'd let things die.

She's splayed in the center of the rumpled quilt. Dirty clothes, stuffed animals. Her hair everywhere. Drowning her pillow. It's hard not to love somebody who hides nothing.

"Hey." Double-check to make sure I said it. "Hey." Around her, my volume turns way down. Sometimes my words don't make it out at all.

She flings herself onto her back. She's so tall. Six feet. I guess I'm the same height, but it doesn't feel like it. Her s.h.i.+rt hikes over her hip. Her stomach's flatter than mine. It sucks to be the chubby twin.

"So I told them that I'm sick of them treating me like their first draft, their screwup."

This is what she does: shocks people into silence, then takes it as confirmation she's right.

"See? You can't even deny it."

"That's ridiculous." I sound like I don't mean it. "Maybe you could try being a little less . . . honest about what you're thinking all the time?"

"I have to be honest," she says angrily. "It's the only way I can get anything from them. They're like robot parents. Sometimes I can get an actual human being to look at me for a second, and then the overlord takes back over and it's beep-beep, we-are-the-parents, beep, we-don't-need-to-explain-ourselves-to-you, beep, talk-to-us-when-you've-calmed-down. Except to them, I'm never calmed down."

Because she never does calm down. She slams around the house. Taking her mood out on kitchen cabinets. The fridge door.

"It doesn't matter if I make a good point. All that matters is the tone I make it in," she says.

"They just don't like it when you accuse them of favoritism."

She props herself up on one elbow. "Because that's what it is! They're obsessed with you, and they're sick of me being a f.u.c.kup. Which is fair! I am a f.u.c.kup! But they should at least admit it."

My face warms. "You're being unreasonable."

"Ugh." She throws her head back. Her hair springs all over the place. "You don't know. Sneeze and they're like, wow, Grace, best sneeze ever, A freakin' plus. I could construct a twenty-foot-tall statue of them out of toenail clippings and they'd still be all, your sister could have done a better job."

Her anger is always a weird soup of humor and self-loathing. Which is why it's so hard to deal with. "I don't have it easy, either."

"You've always liked their attention."

She tosses out words with no idea how much they sting. "You never used to be like this."

"Oh, hush about what used to be. You don't know."

"You're trying to get a rise out of me the same way you try to get a rise out of them."

"And you're a.n.a.lyzing me and taking their side and you never used to be like that."

"You've always liked their attention, too." When we were little, she was the kid everyone recorded in the hopes she'd go viral online. She was so loud. When we stood at separate ends of the playground and called for our parents at the same time, they'd go to her. They never heard me.

"Wow, okay. I'm being obnoxious. I am aware that I'm being obnoxious. I'm sorry, Grace." She nudges my arm like a cat. "I know I'm being impossible and you're so patient and nice and ugh."

"You know I'm not mad." I nudge her back. "I'd never be mad at you."

"Remember when I buried all your Halloween candy in the yard and you didn't get mad?"

"Because I was crying about not getting that much, and you thought it'd grow into candy plants."

"You still should have been mad."

If I got mad at her, I wouldn't have anyone else.

"Change of topic. You're in here now, we're hanging out now. Let's play the secrets game," she says, like the last time we played it was yesterday and not five years ago. She sits up, grinning. I try not to want to run away. "Me first. You're gonna die about this. I had a s.e.x dream about Ca.s.sius Somerset last night."

The president of the Art Club, the quiet boy with the skin condition. Adam's best friend. Since when does she have s.e.x dreams? Should I be having s.e.x dreams?

"Your turn," she says.

She hates Adam because November hates Adam. They make fun of his guitar, his band T-s.h.i.+rts, his hair. She'd point out all his flaws. Ruin him. I'd never see him again in any way but hers.

I don't say anything.

My real secrets now: I'm afraid of everything. I don't ever want to get out of bed. I hate school. I'm fat. I'm not good enough. I want to be her.

She thinks I never used to be like this, but I've always been like this.

"Jeez, Grace. You gotta open up more. Like me!" She laughs. "But not too much like me."

FOUR.

October 3 Joy To Joy Morris- I was at the party. I was at the quarry. I saw what you did.

I saw you murder Adam Gordon.

I want you to post the enclosed photos all over the school. Do it early in the morning before anyone can take them down. Slip them into lockers. Hide them in cla.s.sroom desks. Don't bring them to the police.

Speaking of the police: If you don't do what I say, I'll tell the police what I saw.

I'll tell them what you did.

This is impossible.

n.o.body saw anything; there was nothing to see. Preston said I left the party before Adam died.

I crumple the letter and throw it into a corner of my room, not even looking at the photos in the envelope. I turn off the lights, crawl under my blanket. My own breathing echoes harshly back at me. I need Grace here with me, I need- It's a dream, I try to convince myself. I'm going to go to sleep now. When I wake up, this will all disappear.

Instead I tremble for long, dark hours. I pretend my breathing is Grace's. When we were kids, she'd get nightmares, bad ones, and I'd climb into her bed and tell her nothing bad can happen to someone who's under a blanket. I pull the covers over my head and pray that's really true.

When the sun rises, the letter and envelope are exactly where I left them. Okay. So it's a f.u.c.ked-up prank. I'll take it to Princ.i.p.al Eastman. Or Ms. Bell. Somebody'll recognize the handwriting.

But when I get up to look at everything in the light of day, I realize the note's typed, not printed.

I saw you murder Adam Gordon.

I didn't, I didn't. I wanted to, but I didn't.

I scatter the pictures on the carpet. There's three, four. But they aren't photographs of me shoving Adam into the quarry. They're images of Princ.i.p.al Eastman, his thick hair, jutting chin, the ridge of his naked shoulder, the rest of him naked, too- Just like the girl he's with.

I've seen her in the halls. She's a freshman. Young. Too young for his hands to be crossed pseudoartistically over her stomach, over- This is illegal. This is wrong. Princ.i.p.al Eastman papers his office walls with portraits of himself with students, but none like this. I think of all the hours Grace has spent in that office.

I'm dizzy. I have to call the police.

Don't bring them to the police.

I have to tell somebody.

If you don't do what I say, I'll tell the police what I saw.

But what did he see? My lips tingle, my blood slows in my veins. I try to put the photos back in the envelope and drop them twice.

Could I tell Mom, Dad? Jesus, no. November-no, no, she has to think I'm okay. Grace? I can't show her these pictures. What if they trigger- What if she believes what this person's saying? That I murdered- I bend over and breathe with my head between my knees for a few seconds.

Preston. Pres'll remind me how I couldn't've done it, how he looked for me, how I was gone before Adam died. I just need to hear him say it again. Then I'll take the photos to the police and get Princ.i.p.al Eastman arrested.

I get dressed, force myself to eat something. Mom's on the phone with a client on the drive to school. It's not until she pulls up to the curb, so early that only one bus is here, that she covers her phone with her hand and mouths, "Are you okay? You're pale."

"I'm fine."

I'm fine. The envelope is in my backpack. Grace is still sleeping, probably. She sleeps later and later now.

"Your father and I work today. I'm at the office until six and he's training a new client. We can't pick you up if you're sick."

"I'm fine, Mom."

She stares for a minute, brow furrowed, while I rearrange my face. Finally she nods and lets me go.

Pres always hangs out downstairs before the bell. I go past the gym and the double doors that lead to the auditorium, I turn in to the hallway that leads to the art room, and I stop. There he is, at the end of the hallway, walking toward me, not noticing me yet. He always slouches, which hides the fact that he's one of the few here taller than me.

Four freshmen trail him. Three are guys I've seen getting high in the relaxation garden after school, so proud about it. They're tiny, loud, they throw stuff in the cafeteria. One, a girl, lags- The girl from the photos.

Her name . . . Sahara, or Savannah. She's shy. I get the sense she hangs out with the guys for the same reason I hung with Grace's study group-because I wasn't attached to anyone else.

I don't want her here at school. I don't want her anywhere near Princ.i.p.al Eastman.

Then one of the freshmen calls Preston the f-word.

Pres looks up, sees me finally, his face red. The freshmen slow. In the back, Savannah bites her lip, ties her hair to the side, and unties it again. People do not normally bully Preston. This is because, in the second semester of our freshman year, I gave the captain of the lacrosse team a b.l.o.o.d.y nose for calling him a r.e.t.a.r.d.

"What the f.u.c.k do you want?" The freshman sn.i.g.g.e.rs at me. I stare at him. Adam wore that exact Jim Morrison T-s.h.i.+rt.

And then I punch him in the face.

All the photos are still on Princ.i.p.al Eastman's office walls. In the one next to the window, he's with Savannah, his arm around her shoulders while she looks at the floor. In another one, he's with Grace. I'm gonna throw up.

"I know Adam Gordon's death affected many of us strongly." Eastman talks slowly, heavily. Is it him or is something wrong with my ears? Are his photos that blurry or are my eyes messed up? "But after this morning's display of violence, I'm seriously considering suspension, Ms. Morris. And Mr. Fennis tells me you're still failing American History. What's going on with you, Joy?"

Don't talk to me, don't look at me, I want my sister.

I turn my hands over, like they'd've been stained if I'd pushed Adam. My mind spins. Was Preston wrong about me leaving the birthday party early? Or is someone using me to try and humiliate Princ.i.p.al Eastman? Someone who knows I blacked out that night, that I had a reason to want Adam dead? But the only people who know about that reason are me and Grace and Pres and a dead person.

Eastman leans forward across his desk, puts his hand on my knee. I yank back so hard my chair nearly tips over- "Princ.i.p.al Eastman?" someone says.

Sunlight pours into the room. Levi's in the doorway. Levi, Adam's half brother, from the funeral.

"You are?" Princ.i.p.al Eastman squints.

"Levi Pham. I'm just starting today. You wanted to meet with me," he says cheerfully. "Adam Gordon's half brother, remember? I have my mom's last name."

Go away, go away.

Eastman winces. "I'm dealing with a situation. Please wait outside and I'll call you in."

He stares at my leg, the one Eastman touched. "Actually, I thought you might want my input, since I saw what happened. I was in the hallway."

He's lying. Why's he lying?

"Preston was getting bullied," he continues. "Joy stuck up for him."

"Yes, thank you," Eastman says irritably. "But that hardly excuses violence."

"Everything I heard about this school stressed the no-bullying environment. I thought it was impressive. Joy told me how important this school's reputation is to her."

"She did?"

The walls, my lungs, they're shrinking.

"She was the first Stanwick High student I talked to," says Levi. "Told me all about how the princ.i.p.al makes it so n.o.body's singled out."