The Truth About Keeping Secrets(28)

‘No, it’s not your fault. I shouldn’t be doing that here anyway. Uh. Yikes. That’s embarrassing.’

He got in close to me, which meant I needed to tilt my neck upwards to look at him. ‘Listen. This might be weird of me, but I …’ He pinched the bridge of his nose. Even now I was worried that this was some sort of confrontation. ‘So, I actually lost my mom too. A few years ago.’

I shuffled my feet, unsure how to react. Unsure how he wanted me to react. Why hadn’t I already known? That seemed like the sort of information that would’ve done the rounds. Why hadn’t June mentioned it? ‘Oh, um, man. Why didn’t you tell me before?’

‘I worry with these things there’s a fine line between sharing and it seeming like you’re trying to one-up the other person, or take away from their experience. We may have gone through a similar thing but nobody’s grief is the same.’

‘Yeah. I mean … yeah. For sure.’

‘Either way, just know I’ve been there, even if I haven’t been exactly there. And maybe that’s marginally better than being surrounded by people who haven’t. Who … can’t even point it out on a map.’ He chuckled at his own metaphor in a way I found endearing.

‘No, yeah. Definitely.’

Ugh. He had just as many pity points as me. I didn’t even have that going for me any more. And a part of me felt like he really had made that information known to make me feel guilty. That was the cynicism, but it couldn’t stay for long; he was too damn nice, and charismatic, and every encounter we’d had – though they were mostly brief – was pleasant.

But my affection for June, left unkindled, wasn’t really hurting anybody. Was it?

Maybe nobody except myself.

One long night, I came up with a special and horrible game. My mind felt like it was balancing on a tightrope and any misstep or slight breeze could send me tumbling into the void. The tightrope was always there; here, there was no ‘Don’t look down’. Every direction was down. But the game was foolproof. Entirely effective. Any time I found myself wavering – thinking about death or dying or ends or Dad or the ToD – I’d force myself to think about June instead.

This was creating troubling links in my head. I knew it was.

But it worked too well to stop. Think about June. Flip my mind overtop of itself, push everything else out until she’s all that’s left. June laughing at a joke I’d made, or June speaking, or June existing. This didn’t serve, exactly, to balance me on the tightrope; it disintegrated the tightrope. It made it so the tightrope had never existed at all. There was no gravity. I could float there, comfortable, and never worry about the fall ever again.

Whatever helps.

What’s the point of living if –

June.

We’re all going to die and the universe is indifferent and –

June. Her hands on me and her face close to mine but what does it matter if she, if Dad –

June. June smiling in the driver’s seat. Dad decomposing in the driver’s seat –

June. Heaven is June in the driver’s seat. Hell is June in the driver’s seat. There is only June in the driver’s seat.

And at night, my consciousness would slip away, repeating that smooth, delicious mantra in my head.

There is only June in the driver’s seat.





Chapter 8


The next text came during a phone call with June two weeks from Christmas break. Calls had become a regular occurrence; they’d begun when I’d left a notebook in her car and she’d called to tell me, and then just kept talking. I can neither confirm nor deny that I’d left the notebook there on purpose.

I had on her speaker while I played Bloodborne on the Xbox and she narrated an episode of Robot Wars to me; apparently, it was a good one.

‘Dude, Whitaker, you need to turn off Birthblood and get an eye of this absolute walloping.’

That was when my phone buzzed.

Them: Your dad would be so disappointed in you.

Seriously?

Did this have to happen now?

‘Uh, June?’ I said, making sure I didn’t stammer. ‘I gotta go.’

June didn’t say anything at first; I thought I heard someone else talking just out of earshot. ‘Oh, that’s OK. I have to go too.’

‘OK. Talk to you later.’

I hung up and tried to swipe the text away, but realized I should wait to see if there’d be anything else, any follow-up, or if this was all they had for me – and when it seemed like it was, I resolved to tell Mom.

This was no coincidence, now. She’d have to understand.

Mom was sitting at the kitchen table, the skin under her eyes bruised and thin, her hair clipped away from her face in a heap; in the three months since he died she’d gotten three different haircuts and still never wore it down.

I caught a glimpse of the papers she’d been reading; they had the same familiar headers: bank, hospital, insurance …

‘I wanna show you something,’ I said. ‘Well, I, I need to tell you something, but I need you not to freak out.’

She abandoned the papers and moved towards me, slowly, like I was a sleeping animal who’d attack if wakened. ‘What is it?’

I handed her my phone. Explained the texts. That I’d been getting them since the funeral. Whenever they mentioned Dad she recoiled, but just subtly enough that maybe she thought I wouldn’t notice. ‘I think maybe this might be to do with Dad, OK, and I think we should go to the police and tell them about what’s been happening and then maybe they can do something –’