The Truth About Keeping Secrets(26)

‘Describe how you’re feeling right now in five words.’

‘Like, five words maximum?’

‘No, exactly five.’

‘OK.’ I held up my fingers to count. ‘I feel –’

‘I suggest not wasting your first two words on repeating the question.’

Put the two fingers back down. ‘Normally scared, but currently happy.’

‘Five words and your main one is happy? Boring.’

‘Delighted. I’m delighted. Fine. You go.’

‘Inside, looking out a window.’

The trees had gone completely bare by the time Dad’s voice wasn’t there any more.

I kept trying to summon up the sound, but it wouldn’t come; I could visualize him with his mouth moving, but nothing would come out besides a weird news-anchor voice that didn’t sound like his at all.

How could I forget? How could I forget?

I hated my brain for doing this to me. To him. How could it do this? How dare it?

But I was my brain and my brain was me so I had forgotten.

But maybe it wasn’t really something you actively forgot, and more something that just went away. A candle doesn’t forget its flame; eventually, it just doesn’t burn any more.

And despite all of June’s talk about fires and windows, I told her all this on that Wednesday morning, an abject sense of betrayal hammering away at my insides.

She was quiet for a long time, which I was grateful for at first; I knew if I’d told Olivia the same thing, she would have given me three separate pieces of unhelpful and slightly patronizing advice by now. But eventually the silence became so long that I’d worried I’d at last crashed through her outer limits and had irreparably freaked her out. Finally, at the red light on the corner of Main and Summit, June turned to me and said, ‘Did you know I can read palms?’

I looked at her, expecting her to crack, but she didn’t. ‘Seriously?’

‘Yeah, give me your hand.’

‘Palm-reading isn’t … real.’

‘Silence, naysayer. Hurry.’

I gave in, because I wanted her to touch me. I offered up my left hand because it was less sweaty than my right, and June took it, examined the lines, or whatever, and hummed quietly to herself while I tried to keep from shivering. After a moment, her face fell. ‘Oh no.’

She was dead serious. I didn’t think I’d ever seen her so serious. ‘What?’

‘It says …’ A pause. ‘You’re a dork.’ We looked at each other for a second, my hand in her hand, neither of us saying anything. And then she cracked into this goofy surprised expression, her mouth wide open and her eyes huge. ‘Oh no! What will we do!’ A honk came from behind us; the light on her face had gone green. ‘All right, all right,’ she said, switching her attention to the road.

‘That was nasty,’ I said, trying to suppress what I knew would be a dumb, toothy grin. My skin tingled where her fingers had been. ‘Nasty trick.’

This was when I realized why, exactly, I got along with June, and why it was so easy to trust her: she didn’t treat grief like a problem to be solved, but a constant to be endured. She created all the little moments of clarity that became the iceberg tips in an existence spent primarily dragging myself across the ocean floor.

Having a dead dad was part of my identity now. I knew that. No amount of self-care changes what you are, or what you can have, or the hand you’ve been dealt. June knew that too, I think, so she was just helping me learn how to ride the unbroken wave.

Pleasant Hills received another real dumping of snow two weeks later. Everyone had been hoping for a snow day, but given our diligent fleet of salting trucks, the roads were clear by five that morning. I know that because I watched it happen from my window. I didn’t mind class not being cancelled, really; it meant I got to see her.

On the ride to school, I mentioned to June how much I hated the snow.

‘You hate it?’

‘Whoa. I was not expecting that much opposition. I thought that was a normal opinion to have.’

‘Oh, is it? No. I think it’s amazing. It might just be the novelty of it. Like, you don’t really get this in So Cal. Don’t you at least think it’s pretty?’

‘Not really. I don’t know. It’s just … monochrome. I guess it’s kind of pretty when it first falls but by the next day the roads are all just covered in dirty grey sludge and everything’s just … wet. I don’t know. And there’s nothing to do in the winter.’

‘There’s this, like, famed sporting event held every four years that begs to differ.’

‘Right, yeah, sorry I don’t know how to freaking luge.’

June laughed at luge.

‘I don’t know. I just don’t like anything about it.’

‘There’s Christmas.’

I scoffed. ‘Yeah, really looking forward to that. I don’t know. Everything’s just …’ I blew a raspberry. ‘Dead.’ June didn’t speak so I kept talking. ‘Dad, uh, and me, every year as soon as it got warm, we’d start going to the River Styx every weekend. Just to go hiking. We did pretty much the same trail every time and, I don’t know, it never got boring, for some reason. That was our absolute favourite thing to do.’ The past tense strangled me. ‘And it’s just so depressing to think of it all frozen over now. I’d hate to … I don’t know. Honestly I’m not sure I’ll ever even go there again.’