The Truth About Keeping Secrets(56)

‘You don’t tell me anything. You never tell me anything. Everything is so vague and mysterious with you, like you’re doing it on purpose.’

‘Sydney, I promise you, you don’t want to –’

‘Hey,’ Heath interjected, facing me. ‘I think you should calm down.’

I was calm. ‘I am calm.’

‘You seem very antagonistic.’

‘What are you –’

‘We’re here!’ June said, too loud. ‘We’re here anyways, so. This conversation can end now.’

We turned on to the cul-de-sac, then into my driveway.

I didn’t move. None of us did.

And then I got out, said nothing and slammed the door behind me.

I was very aware of the existence of her folder when I got to my room.

I could just check it. Know everything. I could help, maybe. If I knew – maybe I could finish whatever Dad had started. I could do something. I was so sick of being left in the dark when I felt that June knew everything humanly possible to know about me. What could be in there that she was hiding? What was so important? What was so terrible?

And then something occurred to me.

First as a little almost-joke. A jab to my stomach. Something silly, horrible, pinching myself just to see if it would hurt.

Maybe it had been June.

Ha.

I had trusted her almost instantaneously, after all. I had never even considered it.

Ha, ha. Imagine that.

But then the thought morphed into something real. Bea had refused to acknowledge me. Because she felt guilty. And the messages had stopped. But June, growing cold … Maybe she felt guilty.

Something happened between her and my dad. Something happened. What happened? What did that mean?

What would it say?

So many times I’d envisioned Anonymous typing out the messages, leaving the book, breaking in; I’d watched their hands as they cut Dad’s brakes then I’d followed the arm up to the face but there was never anything there. A clean, flabby surface where the guilty party should have been.

And now the face was June’s.

No. That didn’t make any sense at all.

It might have been more innocent than that. Who was I kidding? It probably was. It had to be.

Suddenly, I wasn’t sure I wanted to open the folder any more.

I wasn’t sure I even wanted to remember it existed.

I tried to ground myself, but I had nothing to hold on to and the wave swept over my head and dragged me out into a sea of ink.

Dad. Dead Dad. Dead Dad for no reason, no point, no purpose. Fuck domino effects. Fuck everything happens for a reason. Fuck it, fuck it, absolutely fuck all of it to hell.

I sobbed quietly into my hands so Mom wouldn’t hear, and prayed for the first time since I was eight in Sunday school. That this could be solved. That this all could end. Dad. Mom. Olivia. Leo. June. Me. Let’s all melt. Let’s all liquefy. Let’s all forget any of this ever happened.





Chapter 13


I rode my bike to and from school for the rest of the week, sort of begrudgingly; it was only the end of March so it wasn’t even like it was that warm, and the vestiges of cold seemed to sting even worse than usual, because June had forced them upon me and I wasn’t sure what I’d done to deserve it. I was spoiled; this time the year before I would have happily ridden all the way through winter without complaint, but now I was rotten with the sense that I was owed something more than what I was receiving.

And that sense, even more so, was amplified when Olivia knocked on my door for the fourth time in two weeks; something this time compelled me to answer instead of getting Mom to say I wasn’t feeling well.

It was the Wednesday before Spring Fling and she was standing on my doorstep in her pyjamas. Seeing her here felt odd, like she was somewhere she wasn’t supposed to be.

We exchanged pleasantries.

‘So,’ she said, ‘how are things?’

Was this an interrogation? I felt the urge to flee, but I was tied down. ‘Yeah. Things are – they’re OK.’

‘How’s June?’

‘June’s … fine.’

‘Good.’ Olivia shuffled her slippered feet. ‘Would you like to ask what I’ve been up to?’

Ah. This was going well. I could practically hear the creak of my fingernails being pulled. ‘Sorry. What have you been up to?’

‘Well, opening night is in two weeks, so I’ve been pretty busy with that.’

I blinked.

‘For … the spring musical. Guys and Dolls. Did you not even know what –’

‘Liv, I’m sorry – what are you doing here?’

She scoffed. ‘Oh. OK. We’re just getting right into it, I guess.’

‘No, it’s just that it’s late, and –’

‘Sure. It’s late. Sorry to keep you from preparing to go to bed at, what, 4 a.m.?’ I went to speak, but she stopped me. ‘Come on. Your bedroom lights are always on.

I didn’t say anything.

‘I just wanted to know what you were doing for Spring Fling.’

‘I – I think I’m going in a group with June and Heath.’

‘You think?’

‘I’m going in a group with June and Heath.’