The Secrets We Keep(59)

Now I needed to figure out how deep that connection went. “Why did you let me do it? If you love me so much, then why didn’t you stop me?”

I held my breath as I waited for his response, hoping that I was wrong and Maddy had nothing to do with any of this.

“If you remember correctly, I tried. I told you it wasn’t worth it, that I didn’t care if you were captain of the field hockey team or a JV player who never made it off the bench,” Alex said.

“That’s not true,” I said, baiting him so he’d tell me more. Alex loved being popular, he and Maddy both did.

“So you’re guilty of what—giving her one too many beers last year at one of my parties? Let it go at that, Maddy. For both our sakes, please, let it go at that.”

“I didn’t just give her a beer,” I fired back. I was walking a fine line now and risked exposing myself. But I needed the truth. I needed to know what huge secret of Maddy’s I was supposed to live with. “I have the bag of pills.”

“Jesus, Maddy. Why didn’t you get rid of them? Why are you hanging on to them?” Alex shook his head, his tone softening. “You slipped a pill into her beer on Saturday night. It’s not like you had any idea that they were going to test the entire team at Sunday’s practice. It’s not like you would’ve done it had you known.”

I held my hand up for him to stop. I knew what had happened to her next. I’d read it five thousand times in Maddy’s little collection of facts. Molly had tested positive and got kicked off the team. The colleges that were scouting her were no longer interested, and she found herself in rehab for a drug problem she didn’t have. And when she came back, none of her friends wanted anything to do with her.

Maddy wasn’t stupid. She had to believe, on some level, that this was completely her fault. And now she was trapped, living with guilt about what had happened. Not unlike me. But she had had Alex to get her through it, to tell her to let it go. I didn’t have anybody anymore. Not even Josh.

“I don’t understand why I did it in the first place, why I cared. She was our friend, Alex. Why would I want to screw over my friend like that?”

He looked at me as if I were crazy. “It was the beginning of our junior year, Maddy. We were finally upperclassmen. You were elected homecoming queen, and I had been given a starting position on the soccer team. You … we had everything you ever wanted, except—”

“Except what? Being co-captain of the field hockey team?” It seemed like such a selfish reason. My emotions shifted. I didn’t feel bad for Maddy anymore. I was angry, disgusted that my sister had been so catty and concerned with her own popularity that she would treat someone like that.

“Yeah. That is exactly what you wanted, what I assumed you still wanted. Jenna was a shoo-in; it was between you and Molly. You know how it goes, captain spots go to the team members who clock the most playing time, the best players. You and Molly … you were both goalies. If she had missed Sunday practice or played crappy because she was sick, the second captain spot would have gone to you. You weren’t trying to ruin her life, Maddy, just eliminate her chances of becoming co-captain.”

“Of course Jenna was a shoo-in.” The mere mention of Jenna’s name had my blood boiling. The more I learned about Maddy’s life, about her friends, the less I liked Jenna. She had her hands in everything, and none of it was good.

“Don’t blame this on her, Maddy. She may have given you the idea, but you are the one who actually did it.”

“Wait. What?”

“You and I talked about this for days. I told you to let it go. It didn’t matter to me whether you were captain or not. I doubt it mattered to your parents or the colleges you wanted to apply to. You were good, that was enough.”

“Molly was good, too,” I mumbled, remembering the one game of my sister’s I went to. Molly played that day, and she was as good as, if not better than, Maddy.

“She was. But remember, it wasn’t about Molly. It was about Jenna. You were the one who didn’t want to be one-upped by Jenna.”

I already knew the answer to the question I was about to ask. Jenna had made it pretty clear earlier today, but I asked anyway, wanting to see exactly whose side Alex was on. “So she knows. This whole time she’s known that I drugged Molly and she hasn’t said a word? Hasn’t tried to use it against me? Don’t you find that the least bit odd?”


Alex flinched, as if what I said had caught him off guard. “Of course she knows. Her older brother got the pills for you. And no, she would never use it against you. She can be conniving sometimes, I’ll give you that, but she is not that cold.”

I thought about selling her out to Alex, clueing him in to her little ultimatum in the bathroom. It took me less than a second to decide not to. That’d make me no better than Jenna.

But I wasn’t going to let that comment go unanswered either. “I don’t think you know Jenna as well as you think you do, Alex.”

“Maybe it’s you I don’t know as well as I used to.”

He was spot-on there. “Probably.”

Neither of us said anything after that. I’d gotten what I’d come for. I had the answers I had been seeking, but somehow that knowledge didn’t help. Having to carry the weight of my sister’s secret was something I wasn’t prepared to do. I hadn’t signed on for this. I could play Barbie doll, pretend I wasn’t smart, and fake interest in things I hated, but this … I didn’t know what to do with this.