The Truth About Keeping Secrets(64)

I wasn’t going to wait until the morning. This needed to happen now.

Me: Please text me or call me or come over. Please. I know you don’t sleep either

Me: I need to know what’s going on.

Me: Please

Me: Please?

Nothing. Total radio silence.

I texted Leo to tell him what was going on, but he didn’t reply either; I assumed he had fallen asleep. And then I thought maybe June had just fallen asleep, too, as some last-ditch effort at optimism, but I knew almost for certain that that wouldn’t be true. She saw my texts. She saw my calls. And she wasn’t responding – but why?

I didn’t know what to do. What was I supposed to do?

The swarm of fears grew and pulsated, completely untameable; if they could just stop, stand up straight, I could get a good look at them, but the only thing that made any sense was the thing maybe I should have known from the beginning, that June and Dad …

June. Dad.

In a gut-punch, I knew what I’d been facing this entire time but had refused to really see: that this was all the same thing. The mysteries weren’t separate entities at all. They’d been the same this whole time, this incestuous amalgam of all my monsters, a rubber band ball but instead of rubber bands, they were limbs and flesh and hair, and all of it could be traced back to either Dad or June. Why hadn’t I seen?

I looked outside and in the small hours the world looked sinister, like it was dark out and it’d never be light again.

I even contemplated waking up Mom, but what would she do? Chastise me for looking for the folder at all, probably. She wouldn’t understand. Even if she did, what would she do? There was nothing to do until June decided there was. This was all up to her now. Before, I’d felt a sick sort of pleasure at relinquishing the control of my entire existence to her but now the thought enraged me.

I floated uselessly around in a half-dazed state through the night and into early morning, mind ticking, spinning – until my phone rang at 3:42.

June. It was June.

I answered, hands shaking, and I needed to get the words out, I needed to –

‘June, I don’t know what’s going on but God, I really –’

‘I can’t see you any more.’ She blurted it out so loudly, so fast, that I thought she might have been saying it over and over to herself before she called. Like the words didn’t actually mean anything. Like she didn’t understand what that actually meant. ‘I can’t see you. We can’t talk. We can’t be friends. Whatever. Anything. Nothing.’

She didn’t mean that. She couldn’t. ‘June. OK. Slow – slow down …’

‘I’m sorry. That’s all I had to say.’

I sensed her phone shift – she was going to hang up. ‘June! I think I know what’s happening,’ I said, a final bluff to keep her there. It worked; the line didn’t go dead. I kept talking. ‘Just – please go off script. OK? I – after the dance I wasn’t sure, and, uh, I was talking to Leo – sorry, basically, your folder. There was a folder in my dad’s desk. Yours. And I went to look for it a few hours ago and it was gone, June.’

She was quiet for a moment. I’d have thought she had actually hung up were it not for her breathing. ‘What happened to it?’ she spat. She was interrogating me. Like this was all my fault, somehow.

I thought about lying. ‘I thought maybe you would know.’

‘I don’t. Why would I know?’

‘Because – because it’s your folder, June. Whoever broke in on New Year’s … they must have taken it. June, you can tell me – was it you? Or, like, you must know if someone would …’

A pause. ‘What are you saying?’

‘I have no idea! I don’t know. But those texts or whatever I’ve been getting – it has to do with this. Right? Just tell me that much.’

‘Listen to me. I promise, you don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘Then tell me! Tell me what I’m talking about. You’re right, I don’t know, but I feel like I’m at least owed – I don’t know, June. I care about you so much,’ I said. It felt like an admission. ‘I do. OK? And I’ve been scared about this for … for months. Really fucking scared. About everything. I’ve been scared for me, and for you, and for what it could’ve meant about Dad, if something happened …’

I sensed June stiffen.

‘June?’

‘I have to go.’

‘Oh my God, please. Please. I’m begging you not to go right now. Please.’

Silence.

She was gone.

I debated calling again, texting again, but I knew that was it. That was my chance and I’d completely spoiled it. Now she was gone for certain.

Her and everyone else.

My trick no longer worked, the floodgates were completely, disgustingly open, and I had no other choice but to feel, feel, feel.

Sunday came and went in a blur and I felt myself rotting from the inside out. Leo didn’t know how to help, which wasn’t his fault. It was like asking for help pushing tectonic plates back together after an earthquake. He did say he’d ‘look into things’ but I couldn’t imagine that actually consisted of much.

I didn’t want to show my face at Olivia’s after our argument. I didn’t even have the ritual of school to distract me from anything. It was crushing, all-encompassing, and I felt myself petrifying in my bed, like the first week, when all I could think about was dying.