The Truth About Keeping Secrets(31)

But here we all were, popcorning in and out of our seats, some desperate dance to convince ourselves that yes, there were others and yes, they understood. Even if they didn’t.

The game started with statements like, ‘I prefer hamburgers over hot dogs’, but the statements slowly got more and more real, and – I’m not kidding you – Leo and I moved on the exact same ones. Every single time. To the point where I thought maybe he was just doing it to get a rise out of me, but I looked at him and I could tell by the furrow in his brow that he was thinking the same thing. Everyone who plays video games. Everyone who likes horror movies. Obviously, none of the things were particularly uncommon. Then it became: everyone who struggles to talk about feelings. Everyone who feels it’s difficult to talk to your parents. Everyone who thinks life is unfair.

By the end of it, I couldn’t help but laugh. I looked at him from the opposite end of the circle, really looked at him, and his lower eyelids twitched the slightest bit – enough to let me know he thought the same. I think that was when we made peace.

And that was it, pretty much. Painless, if slightly infantilizing. Only seven more to go, I thought as Gerry gave us all a handout titled Physical Effects of Grief.

‘Sometimes our bodies can react to our emotional state in ways we’re not expecting,’ she explained. She went down the list. All your standard fare. Loss of pleasure. Decreased energy, motivation, initiative. Weight loss. Hypersexuality.

I shifted in my seat. It felt like everyone was looking at me even though none of them actually were.

Gerry gave us two more handouts but then it was eight o’clock, and she said it was time to go, and to my complete and utter surprise, something about the energy in the room shifted, crackled, and on the way out, Leo spoke.

‘I like your shirt,’ he said after five excruciatingly long seconds of me pretending I didn’t notice he was staring.

Not entirely sure what I was wearing, I glanced down: it was my Summerisle Tourism Board shirt, subtle enough to mean nothing if you didn’t know what it was referencing. ‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘You’ve seen The Wicker Man?’

‘Yeah. One of my favourites. The original, obviously.’

‘Obviously.’ I decided to test his limits. ‘Are you just being nice now because I like the same niche shit as you?’

He smiled faintly. ‘I’m sorry for being a … grump. This is the second group I’ve been to, and I’m just … I’m kinda burnt out, man. You know? I was pissed off that I even had to be here again.’

‘Yikes. Your second?’

He nodded solemnly. ‘My mom is convinced – I don’t know. That if I spend the rest of my life doing support groups, maybe I’ll get better. Picture, if you will, some eighty-year-old man in a teen bereavement group. “Yes, I’m spiritually here,” ’ he said in a croaky voice.

I laughed. Fine. Leo had grown on me, and I wanted to talk to him more, but Mom was in the lobby, and I didn’t want her to think I’d made any friends. I gave him a half-smile – ‘See you in two weeks, I guess.’ Then I turned on my heel and left.

I looked him up afterwards.

It might seem a bit excessive. Whatever. Not like I had anything better to do.

After we found out I’d been accepted into the group, Mom had forwarded me the email from Gerry, which had been sent to all the other parents too – and luckily, Gerry’s counselling training seemed to have excluded how to bcc an email, which meant I had a list of neat and tidy parent email addresses, complete with last names. One of those last names had to belong to Leo. Just a quick search on Facebook, and bam. I’d find him.

There was a Leo Townsend, but he lived in California, and a few Leo Smiths. But Leo’s last name was Anderson, and I almost missed him, because his first name wasn’t actually Leo.

I’d be pissed off all the time too if my fucking name was Galileo.

Flipping through his profile pictures, I found it hard to believe that this was the same grumpy bastard I’d met. But the most recent picture was from two years ago, anyway. It showed him smiling with another guy, and they were pressed against each other in a way that suggested it wasn’t platonic. I pieced it together – ha! Another gay! In the wild! His listed relationship status confirmed this.

But the picture after that was him and a different guy, who looked a lot like him, weirdly.

And the commenters were saying things like I’m so sorry and he loved you so much and it isn’t your fault.

The picture was tagged as ‘Alexander Anderson’; I clicked on the resulting link which took me to his profile. His profile had become an ‘in memoriam’ page.

Twins. They were twins.

All right, Galileo. I get it.

Christmas sucked – but not really for the reasons I’d expected.

Uncharacteristically, I had been dreading the break; break meant no school, and no school meant no June, which meant no tethers, no soft, cushiony landing, no reason not to spend entire days staring at the wall or scrolling through the ToD. Foolishly, on the drive back from the last day of classes for the year, I had thought maybe she’d invite me over or give me something or insist that she found the thought of two weeks without me criminal, just as I thought of two weeks without her. But I didn’t get any of that. Just a promise to text and an awkwardly diagonal hug over cup holders.