The Truth About Keeping Secrets(47)

I went to pull up the texts to read them closely.

My phone buzzed before I could.

I wasn’t sure who I expected it to be. Maybe Olivia asking what had happened. Better yet, June asking if I’d made it back OK.

Neither.

Them: Happy New Year, dyke.

Come on. Now they weren’t even trying.

Me: Is that seriously it

Them: Looks like you had a good time at the party.

And then a picture. Dark, blurry, taken from far away and from an odd angle, but the subject was apparent.

June and me. Huddled up together on Heath Alderman’s roof.

That’s when the glass shattered.

A faint, distorted clink from downstairs.

Maybe Mom was still awake. Maybe she had just dropped something. A mug. Right?

I rose from my bed, slowly, and crept out of my room, each step measured and deliberate.

Mom’s room was across the hall. I nudged open the door, and there she was, duvet rising and falling softly with her breath.

OK. This was fine.

I crept downstairs, turning lights on as I went, my footsteps nearly noiseless yet somehow still pounding against my eardrums.

Kitchen. Living room. Nothing seemed out of place.

Save for the periodic banging behind Dad’s office door.

Bang.

Two seconds.

Bang.

Three seconds.

Bang.

The door to the office grew a pair of eyes and stared.

I moved closer, the world absolutely silent save for the banging and my heartbeat echoing in my skull. The world had never been so quiet and so loud.

Bang.

Closer, and the air around me grew colder. Colder. Bang. Colder still.

I twisted the knob and pushed, everything in me tensing, expecting … I wasn’t even sure what.

Empty.

The office was empty. But the door that led outside was wide open, slamming against the wall with each successive gust of wind.

And on Dad’s desk was the picture of me and him at Niagara Falls.

The glass had been shattered and strewn around the frame, the fractured shards like birds flying away.

Mom called the police, who responded more slowly than they otherwise would have in Pleasant Hills. (‘New Year’s, you know how it is.’) One police officer – a shorter-than-average mustachioed guy with a neck as wide as his head – had a look around, as did we; nothing was stolen, it looked like, and there were no signs of breaking and entering, no open windows or picked locks.

‘I … must have forgotten to lock the door,’ I said when Mom looked at me in surprise. But I couldn’t have. I swore I remembered locking it.

‘Does anyone besides you folks have keys?’

I realized. ‘Just my friend, Olivia. She lives across the street.’

He grunted. ‘You might want to have a chat with your friend Olivia.’

Ha. As if.

‘Well, if the door was open, isn’t there a chance it was – I don’t know – the wind?’ Mom asked. I shot her a look.

‘Not sure the photo would’ve been smashed the way it is on account of the wind. If you want my opinion, I think more than likely it was some drunk kids messing around. Saw an open door, thought they’d be funny, split when they heard you coming. They’re running amok tonight, I’ll tell you that. We’ve already had an accident on Miller, no one hurt, thank God –’

‘Here.’ I thrust my phone into his face. ‘I think it might have something to do with this.’

He took it, squinted, moved the phone away from his face and back again to try to find a distance at which he could actually read it. I felt Mom look at me. The policeman read it for a moment, then narrowed his eyes at me. ‘You gettin’ bullied?’

I sighed. That felt like the understatement of the century. Stalked. I nodded. ‘Yeah. But I think it might not just be bullies, or whatever. This feels premeditated, and I think it might have something to do with my –’

He sighed. ‘You at the high school?’ I nodded again; he grunted again. ‘Tell ya what: I think this is a case of nasty kids getting a little too brave. Hm? Trying to scare ya, or something.’

This was enough. He was wrong, everyone was wrong, and they all needed to listen to me now, needed to understand that this was something bigger. ‘No. Sir, I’m sorry –’

‘I’ll have a chat with the principal there. Maybe he can keep an eye out, have an assembly, something –’

‘Sir, I think this might be something to do with my dad.’

Everybody froze. The officer straightened his back, and said awkwardly, ‘Oh, er – yes, we all heard, and I, I am sorry for your loss –’

‘Thank you for coming by,’ Mom said, and laid a hand on his arm to escort him outside. ‘We appreciate it. I’ll just, ah, maybe look into some security systems. Are there any you’d recommend?’ Click.

I stood there, unmoving and sort of embarrassed, until she emerged again.

‘Sydney Francis, I – what are you doing?’

‘Why are you mad at me? I –’

‘Do you realize how that makes me look?’

‘Yeah, sorry to embarrass you in front of that one police officer.’

She repeated my name, loudly.

‘What do you mean? Why won’t you listen to me? It’s all here. All of it. I can show you. I didn’t tell you on Christmas because I didn’t want to upset you, but that present in the mailbox –’ I tapped furiously on my phone screen – ‘it was from them. Whoever did this. It was some book about how being gay is a sin, with Dad’s obituary taped inside of it, Mom.’