The Secrets We Keep(58)

Alex shrugged, and my heart sank. “We spent a lot of time together in school when you were out recovering from the accident. You refused to talk to her, made me be the one to answer her calls and relay information. What did you expect?”

I resisted the urge to answer, to yell that his getting close to Jenna was in no way my fault. That I had expected him to give me some time, not run to Jenna for comfort. Instead, I shook my head and ground my nails deeper into my palms.

“I’m not sleeping with her,” Alex said.

I didn’t know how to respond to that. Just because they hadn’t had sex didn’t mean something wasn’t going on. It didn’t make all the time he spent with her okay.

“You’re different now, Maddy,” he continued. “Distant and quiet. I can’t even get you to open up to me, never mind your friends.”

I thought about challenging him, asking him what he thought our conversation in the hall yesterday afternoon was about, but I didn’t. I went on the defensive: “What does that have to do with anything?”

“Nothing, but it’s nice to spend time with somebody who knew the old you.”

The old me? The original Maddy? Even Alex, the boy who ignored every indication that I wasn’t Maddy, was beginning to doubt me. And without him, I couldn’t navigate this lie … this life of Maddy’s. I’d killed my sister, and then in some attempt to give her back her life, I’d completely destroyed the one good thing she had—Alex.

“If I try harder, if I start talking to you about what happened and going to parties and field hockey practice again, will you stop spending so much time with Jenna? Will you stop letting her come between us?”

He leaned his head back and closed his eyes, then sighed as he shook his head. “I don’t know. I don’t think you can go back to the way you used to be. I don’t think anybody could after going through that.”

I knew what he was saying—it wasn’t Jenna who had driven a wedge between Alex and me, it was me. Alex and my parents were the one constant in this whole mess, and they were starting to slip away.

I could feel the tears building behind my lashes and cursed them. Tears weren’t going to help me and they couldn’t bring my sister back. And at the end of the day, that was the only thing I wanted—my sister. Alive. The promise that they’d call her name right after mine at graduation. The knowledge that even if we went to separate colleges, she’d only be a phone call or a spring break away. I wanted to meet her future husband for the first time over dinner, and laugh as Dad grilled him with asinine questions. I wanted to help her pick out her wedding dress and complain about the short maid-of-honor dress she’d undoubtedly make me wear. And I wanted our kids to play hide-and-seek in Mom and Dad’s house while Maddy and I did the dishes and served up dessert. That was what I wanted. That was what I needed, and it wasn’t ever going to happen.

Alex reached for my hand, and I let him take it. “It’s not that I don’t love you, Maddy. God, I so do, but I am beginning to think I’m not the one to help you get past this.”

Nobody could help me get past this.

I yanked my hand away and shoved it underneath my legs. I didn’t want to be touched, or consoled, or eased into being dumped. At this point, I wanted to be left alone.

I quickly swiped at the lone tear I could feel rolling down my cheek. Until a month ago, I didn’t even like Alex Furey and couldn’t figure out why my sister was so utterly fascinated with him. But he’d come to visit me every day in the hospital, stopped by each night while I was at home. He did everything he could think of to try to pull me out of the darkness in my mind. And when I’d come back to school, he protected me, shielded me from the questions and speculation. That was what Maddy saw in him. That was the Alex she knew and loved. And I’d destroyed that like I’d destroyed her.

“Go,” I told him. He started to argue with me, and I pushed him away. “I’m fine, Alex, go.”

He kissed my cheek before reaching into the backseat for his bag. “I love you, Maddy. That won’t ever change.”


The cold air hit me as he opened the door, the few pieces of paper I had left on the floor taking flight. Alex caught a gum wrapper, balled it up, and shoved it into his coat pocket. The other piece of paper, the one I’d been carrying around in my back pocket, the one about Molly, managed to make it outside the car. He picked it up and stared at it, his face going white as he realized what it was.

Dropping his bag to the ground, he climbed back into my car and locked the door. Tossing the article onto the dashboard, he turned in his seat to face me. “Talk, Maddy. Now.”





38

“Why are you bringing this up?” Alex asked. “You put this behind you a long time ago, Maddy. We put it behind us. Leave it there.”

Maddy hadn’t put it behind her. She’d buried it in a shoe box in her closet with a bag of pills. And judging from the most recent addition to her quasi scrapbook, which incidentally was a copy of the anime club’s September newsletter, she had revisited the memory often.

I suspected Maddy’s interest in Molly’s drug tests was more than friendly concern. It wasn’t like Maddy had kept shoe box files on her other friends. But judging from the panic I could see written across Alex’s face, I’d have bet my life—if I still had mine to give—that Maddy felt guilty, that she’d done something she regretted and couldn’t fix. Something that had been slowly, painfully eating her alive.