The Lucky Ones(70)

“Scared,” Roland said. “But not mad. Although I think she said we were being ‘stupid.’”

“If she was half as in love with you as I was,” Allison said, “and you told her that you and I had fooled around, what do you think she would feel?”

“I don’t think she was in love with me at the time,” he said. “She never said she was.”

“I never said I was, either,” Allison said. They drove a few more miles before she could speak again.

“What exactly did she say when you told her?” Allison asked.

“She reminded me of Dad’s rule about us, you know, not doing that sort of thing with each other.”

“I remember that rule,” Allison said.

“Kendra said that was the sort of thing that got kids kicked out of group homes. Dad wasn’t going to kick me out—I was adopted—but he might kick you out, she thought. She was worried about you, not me.”

“Is that all she said?”

“She told me to make sure it never happened again. That’s all.”

“And you’re just telling me this now?” Allison asked.

“Trust me, if you knew Kendra the way I did, you would know she wouldn’t push you or anyone else down the stairs. Or call your aunt and terrify her. That’s not like her at all.”

“Was it like Oliver to kill himself?”

Roland didn’t answer.

“Do you know where she is?” Allison asked.

“I don’t know her address. Long time ago I asked Dad if he ever heard from her, and he said as far as he knew she was fine and well and living in Olympia. Works at home doing something in computer programming. There’s really no reason to bother her.”

Allison wasn’t sure about that.

“Now you’re being too quiet,” Roland said after they’d driven for about another fifteen minutes in silence. “What are you thinking about?”

“I was thinking about that day. You told Kendra but nobody else, right?”

“Right...”

“And Dad didn’t tell you Oliver killed himself. No one told me about your sister, Rachel, until Deacon did a few days ago. And Dad didn’t tell you all about that phone call to my aunt. And he didn’t tell you all that my fall might not have been an accident. On top of all that, Deacon and Thora said they were together when my fall happened, but Deacon said they were outside and Thora said they were inside, which means one of them or both of them aren’t telling me the whole truth. That’s a lot of secrets in one house, isn’t it?”

Roland said nothing.

“Just has me wondering,” Allison said.

“What?”

“What else are you all hiding from each other? And from me?”

“You don’t have to sound so suspicious,” Roland said. “There’s a big difference between keeping secrets and wanting your privacy. None of us—me, Deac, Thor—we don’t ask each other about what happened to us in BC times.”

“BC?”

“Before Capello,” he said. “We don’t want to talk about it. We don’t want to pry. None of it is secret. It’s just...private.”

“I respect your right to privacy, but I think there are some things I deserve to know.”

“You’re right, you do. If I thought for one second Kendra did it, I’d tell you. We broke Dad’s rules, me and her, and so we’ve never told anyone we were a couple. That’s private,” he said. “Not some deep dark secret.”

“What if Dr. Capello knew?”

“What?”

“What if he knew about you and Kendra? Possible?”

“Possible, maybe,” Roland said. “We didn’t tell him, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t figure it out. We were sleeping together sometimes while he was one floor above us. Deacon could have found out and blabbed. Or Thora even. Why?”

“Follow me here,” she said, excited because the pieces were clicking into place. “The day after I came here, I told your dad I didn’t feel safe staying at the house because I didn’t know who’d hurt me. He wants me to stay for, you know, reasons.”

“Me,” Roland said.

“You.”

“And because he loves you and missed you.”

“That, too,” Allison said. “So he needs to tell me something to get me to stay. He says it was Oliver. Why? Oliver’s dead. Not like we can get a dead person into trouble. It’s safe to blame Oliver. And your dad wouldn’t want to tell me it’s Kendra because I’d ask why she did it and then he’d have to tell me about you and her. He knows she hurt me out of jealousy, but he doesn’t want me to go after your ex-girlfriend for something that happened so long ago. Does that make any kind of sense to you?”

“I suppose,” he said. “It’s logical.”

“And my aunt thought it was me calling her. That means it was very likely a girl. So that leaves Kendra or Thora.”

“It wasn’t Thora,” Roland said. “It’s just so hard to picture Kendra doing that.” He rubbed his forehead as if the very idea of it gave him a headache.

“She was a young girl in love. Girls in love do dumb, risky things—for example, kiss your big brother on the beach even though you’re twelve and he’s almost seventeen.”