The Truth About Keeping Secrets(66)

I sobbed into her chest. ‘Mom,’ I said, ‘I’m freaking out, Mom. I’m really, really freaking out.’

‘I love you,’ she said, over, over, over.

‘I get why you were trying to … move on. I don’t want to do this any more. I don’t want to think about this any more. I hate it. I hate it. I want it to stop.’

Mom pulled away with glazed eyes, and fluffed up my hair. I didn’t think she knew what else to do. Her wedding ring clanked against my head but I didn’t flinch. ‘I’ll be back,’ she said. She kissed me on the head. ‘How about you just go and lie down, huh? Don’t go anywhere, baby. Stay here.’

Then she was gone and I was alone.

What do you do? Where do you go? I was being apprehended on all sides by something less than a ghost; there was nothing to fight. I considered just standing in that same spot motionless until Mom came back. Nailing myself to the wall. Or maybe if I lay flat enough against the floor I could mould into it.

I went back to my room, the adrenaline fading and a new terrible emptiness taking its place. What do you do? I couldn’t even try to get the video taken down; the police would need to see it. It’d be evidence.

Evidence. Evidence that I was right. That something had happened to him. It couldn’t have just been random. It couldn’t.

How would someone even have access to the footage?

Leo. I was too wired but Leo would know what to do.

I FaceTimed him; he answered on the fifth ring. ‘Hey man,’ I said, mainly in an unconvincing attempt to sound like I had my shit together, but my voice cracked on the ‘man’.

‘Hey, hey, I’ve been meaning to talk to you – Wait, what’s the matter?’

I wiped my nose with my sleeve. ‘I need to show you something. OK? But only if you’re OK with watching it. It – the person sent it to me. Anonymous. Whatever. It’s a video of my dad. OK?’

‘A video … of your dad? Of your dad doing what?’ The urgency in his voice stoked up my adrenaline again. From this point there’d be no stopping it.

‘It’s the crash,’ I said quickly. ‘OK? The actual crash. And you can’t see anything, like, anything bad, but I just need you to know that’s what it is before you watch it.’

‘Oh my God, Sydney. Oh my fucking God. How …?’

‘I’m sort of, I don’t know. Um. I think I need your help.’

‘OK. OK. Anything. Did you call the police?’

I ran a trembling hand through my hair. ‘We tried. They’re not really understanding the situation. Mom’s on her way to the station, and she said she’s gonna actually show them or talk to them or whatever but I honestly don’t think they’ll do shit. But, OK, wait. I’m gonna text you the link now, OK?’ I tapped off the chat for a moment and sent it.

‘OK, I just got it. But what do you want me to do?’

‘Do you remember that picture of me and June? And you looked at it, or whatever? All the information you got about it, somehow. Can you do that with videos?’

Leo exhaled. ‘I don’t know, babe. That’s tricky. Especially this – what’s the ToD? Man, what the fuck is this place? It seems, uh, bootleg. I don’t know if … I mean, yeah. I’ll try. I can try.’

We were quiet for a moment. I watched Leo click, watch, pause. He tried to hide the distress on his face, but I saw it. He glanced back up to me. ‘OK,’ he said, not really to me; I think he was calming himself down. ‘I’m gonna – man. Man. I’ll try – I’m gonna look. I mean, it’s surveillance footage, obviously. So firstly, this person needs to have access to surveillance footage – but it’s a video of the surveillance footage, that, you know, they filmed on a phone, or something. So they got access but they were too scared to download it, or weren’t able to download it. Which …’

Who the hell would have access to surveillance footage? ‘I … don’t know anyone that could …’ The pieces were there now but I couldn’t join them.

‘OK, no, babe, wait. I was looking into this yesterday, after Spring Fling – there were a couple of things that didn’t make sense and I think I need to tell you – like, I think I might know –’

An engine rumbling below. A car had pulled into the driveway.

Leo heard it too. ‘What’s happening?’

I pushed myself off the bed, flicked open the blinds. ‘That’s Heath’s car.’ What was he doing here? Either way, the timing was perfect: I had to talk to him. I had to tell him that June’s folder was gone – maybe he’d know. He’d have to know. If there was anyone on the planet June actually talked to, it was him. ‘Leo, I gotta go.’

‘No! Shit, Sydney, wait, I think –’ But the connection was bad and Leo was pixelly and I couldn’t understand him anyway so I hung up and rushed downstairs.

Don’t go anywhere, baby. Stay here.

I took the stairs two at a time, then left through the front door and shut it behind me.

It was raining that night, though it didn’t register at first; the blur in my vision and the chill shooting down my spine seemed more internal than external. Leaves chattered in the wind and broke into fits of applause whenever a gust hurtled past. Drops plopped against the concrete and the roof and my brain, quick enough to be indistinguishable from one another, fuzzy and constant, like TV static.