The Secrets We Keep(3)

It was the same in real life. At my father’s office Christmas party, she was the one he introduced first. When we went to church, she got to sit between them. When a relative or an old friend asked my mom about the twins, it was Maddy’s accomplishments Mom launched into first. Me they were still trying to figure out.

I was the smart, quiet one who preferred the inside of a book to parties. Quirky and reserved, that’s how they described me to their friends. Quirky and reserved.

I quietly closed the door and made my way downstairs. It was pitch-black outside, the moon hidden behind a thick bank of clouds. It had rained earlier and, from the looks of it, was going to again.

I grabbed my coat and hat from the hall closet and headed outside. Luckily, the neighbors had left their porch lights on, or I would’ve walked smack into the trash cans at the end of our driveway. As it was, I’d already stumbled twice—once over Bailey’s half-chewed rope toy and again, steps later, over a sprinkler head. That last one landed me on my butt, cursing and trying to brush the dampness from my jeans.

When I finally made it to my car, I realized Maddy’s car was in the way. She’d parked straight across our driveway, blocking everybody in.

“Seriously, Maddy?” I said as I kicked her tire. It’d be fine if she was the first to leave in the morning, but she never was. Maddy was always the last one out the door, putting her makeup on in the rearview mirror while she raced to school. It was me who rearranged the cars each morning so Dad could get to work and I could get to school.

I winced at my throbbing toe and made my way back to the house. Moving the cars around wasn’t an option. If turning off the TV had the potential to wake my parents up, then shuffling cars in the driveway would certainly have them stumbling down the stairs wondering where I was going.

I hung my keys on the hook next to the door. There were five hooks there, each clearly labeled with a name. Mine, Dad’s, Mom’s, Maddy’s, even one designated for the lawn tractor keys, but Maddy’s weren’t there. Of course they wouldn’t be there. Knowing her, she’d probably thrown them on the counter when she came in, figuring one of us would find them and hang them up.

“This is the last time, Maddy. I swear to God, this is the last time I do anything for you,” I muttered to myself as I fished around our kitchen counters in the dark. She couldn’t make bailing her out easy. Nope, Maddy had to make everything as difficult as possible.

I finally found her keys wedged behind the radio. I picked them up, swearing to tear her a new one for being so selfish, then headed back out into the damp night air. If everything went as it should, I’d be home and in bed in less than a half hour with another of Maddy’s promises to make it up to me stashed away in my brain.





2

It was drizzling by the time I reached Alex’s house. Except for a few scattered cars parked between the trees, you’d never have known there was a party going on. I guess that was a perk of being really rich—a long driveway and lots of land to buffer sound.

I remembered the day Maddy met Alex Furey. We were freshmen, and it was our third day of school. I thought going to a new school with my sister would make everything easier, figured I’d have at least one person to sit with at the lunch table. I didn’t take into account that we had no classes together, that Maddy was a lot more outgoing than me, or that we had very little in common. I assumed we’d stick together, and I’d have a built-in safety net.

Maddy let me crowd her those first few days, smiling and encouraging me to go off on my own and make some new friends. I tried: sitting next to people who I didn’t recognize in my classes and saying hi to the few kids who looked my way. But when none of them said hi back, I ignored them and minded my own business.

That first Wednesday, I went to find Maddy in the cafeteria, excited about the drawing I’d done in open studio. The lunchroom was as loud as always, the smell a cross between burned pizza and nasty gym socks. Looking forward to a half hour of peace, I grabbed a tray and bought something I deemed safe enough to eat—a hot dog—and headed in to find her. But she wasn’t sitting in the corner of the cafeteria like she had been on Monday and Tuesday. That table was empty—eight vacant chairs surrounding an equally deserted table. I searched the other tables, automatically focusing on those kids sitting alone. No Maddy. It wasn’t until I scanned the center of the room, my eyes skating across the six tables that had been jammed together, that I saw her. She wasn’t sitting in a chair. She was perched on top of the table, her arms draped around some kid’s neck. And she was laughing.

I stood there watching her, debating whether to go over and sit down next to her or to seek out one of the empty tables that littered the corners. Luckily, I didn’t have to make the decision. Maddy made it for me.

She extricated herself from the boy’s hold and hopped down off the table. I couldn’t hear her over the noise, but I gathered from the flick of her wrists that she was telling him she’d be back in a minute.

“Hey,” she said as she stopped in front of me. “I waited for you outside the cafeteria, but—”

“Yeah, sorry, I had a question about a geometry problem,” I said, cutting off her lie. She’d never waited for me outside before. Not once during junior high and not once since we started here.

“Who are they?” I asked, looking past her to the group of people now staring at us.