The Truth About Keeping Secrets(22)

‘Well, don’t worry. I – don’t want you to do anything you’re not comfortable with. Seriously.’

‘No. That’d be nice.’

‘Really?’

‘Yeah.’

‘OK. I’ll … see you tomorrow.’

I remembered the time. ‘Today.’

She smiled. ‘I’ll see you today. Pick you up at seven?’

‘Sounds good.’

Later, at the end of the school year, after everything had happened, I hated myself for never questioning the small things. But when she said it was her mom on the phone that night, I had no reason to believe she was lying.





Chapter 7


Why did I say yes?

I woke up after a sumptuous two-and-a-half hours of sleep, pulsing with the knowledge that June would be there soon – alongside the recognition that I had made a terrible mistake.

I was rarely so easily swayed. Maybe it was the night-time or the exhaustion or the intrigue but something about her had forced me to make a decision I wouldn’t normally have made, and even though it was only mere hours later, I wanted nothing less than to sit beside the helm of a metal death-trap, no matter how compelling the captain.

June. None of it had seemed real. None of it had made sense. I wasn’t the sort of person girls like her visited in the middle of the night; that sort of thing didn’t happen to me.

But I’d said that when Dad died too. Clearly these things did happen to me, over and over and over. I decided I’d have to re-evaluate my self-image.

What had she even been doing there?

I found her account unconvincing. Not because I didn’t believe her, necessarily; she really might have been having a bad night. Fine. But why did she think I could help? What made her think she could trust me?

I should have been happy about this. There shouldn’t have been anything upsetting about a pretty girl who liked books and hipster music and robots driving me to school in the morning. But it was upsetting, because it wasn’t right, and the trades the universe required for us to even have arrived there were unfair; this wouldn’t have been happening had there not been a cemetery containing the putrefying corpse of my dad for us to meet at, or had there not been something the matter with her in the first place, bad enough that she had to seek out Dad, and then me. Our relationship was born from misfortune. Not the best start.

We both had our issues, clearly. But I stood on top of mine like a parade float, and hers – I imagined she kept them somewhere else. In a safe. Underground.

And then there was the more immediate issue that she would soon be on her way in a car that could kill me. Strike that. A car that could travel fast enough for a sudden stop to kill me.

But it’d be fine. It’d have to be fine.

Anything could kill me.

Just get in the damn car, Whitaker. Let her handle the rest. The idea of relinquishing any sense of control over the situation was comforting, maybe, somehow. She’ll be in the driver’s seat. If something happens, then it happens, and I won’t have anything at all to do with it. But I wasn’t sure I even had the capacity to relinquish control of anything; you can’t relinquish something you didn’t have in the first place.

I still had an hour until June was supposed to show up so I decided to do my makeup, something I’d hardly even thought about since the end of the world. Tinted moisturizer. Mascara. I tried to fill in my eyebrows but my hands were shaking and heavy and the pencil swipes ended up too thick and uneven, so I scrubbed them off. This wasn’t helping; mascara made the bags under my eyes darker, blush accentuated the ghoulish boniness of my cheeks, and lipstick settled in the downturned corners of my mouth. I didn’t feel pretty. I felt tired. I felt like death. This was an unproductive exercise, like putting glasses on a corpse, and anyway, none of this would even matter – it doesn’t matter if you’re pretty when you swerve, smash –

Ugh.

Stop.

I thought of Mom. Hated that she’d been in the office, maybe late at night or while I was at school, thumbing through Dad’s books for something, anything, that could help, that could help me. Highlighting. Dog-earing. Committing to memory.

I’d been too harsh.

And even worse – when I went downstairs that morning there were sheets of tri-folded paper strewn all about the kitchen island, and I couldn’t help but peek: bills. Crawford Funeral Homes. The hospital.

Holy shit. How the hell did it cost so much to die?

I overcooked some blueberry pancakes as a peace offering, then covered them in plastic wrap so they wouldn’t get cold and popped a green teabag into a mug. Left a note.

I’m sorry. Love you.

It struck me like a meteor to my chest that I wouldn’t have to specify who the note was for.

June was punctual and I was a mess.

I’d been waiting in the driveway since 6:45, hoping the cold would rouse some sort of strength within me, or at least freeze the panic, but I hadn’t had much luck either way. I was focused mostly on breathing, the air sharp and slicing the back of my throat, when June crunched up the driveway. At least, I assumed it was her; the headlights were so bright against the pitch-darkness that I couldn’t see anything except for the silhouette of the car and snowflakes drifting lazily in the glow. With the spotlight fixed on me, I felt a bit like I was being beamed up.