The Truth About Keeping Secrets(78)

‘There has to be something we can do. Mess up his Yale admission? Send out – I don’t know, letters?’

June shrugged.

‘I don’t know. Just something. Anything.’

She shook her head. ‘Like I said, he’s leaving for Connecticut right after the school year is finished. Some pre-semester class or something. So I – we – only have to worry about him until then. Actually, the last thing I want to do is mess up his admission. That’s the only thing that guarantees he’ll be away from me.’

‘But what about in the meantime? Are you sure he won’t try anything?’

‘I don’t think he will. He’ll get off the hook for this – for everything – but just barely. Barely. His dad’s gonna be pissed off because this is the worst he’s been, and even if he’s messed up right now, he’s too smart to try anything else. I’m not sure he’s convinced he can pull this shit any more.’ She paused. ‘Because of you, I guess.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘He knew he had me. That I wouldn’t do anything about it. But now that he knows you know everything, that you saw what he’s like … He’s too smart. He won’t. I’d be surprised if he even looked at me over the next month.’

It broke my heart to think that Dad knew. Dad knew all this was happening, and knowing him, I bet it ate him up there was nothing he could do. I wondered if he’d ever imagined this happening. ‘I just don’t understand how somebody could do this to you in the first place.’

‘I don’t think that boy has ever seen a happy, loving relationship in his whole entire life. His dad was horrible to his mom, and is still horrible to him.’

‘Heath told me his mom died.’

She scoffed. ‘No. They had a messy divorce when he was in middle school. Heath … he gets off on control. I won’t even give you that “I don’t even think he realizes it” line because he totally realizes it. He knows exactly what he’s done. And, like, looking back now, I know he liked me because of that – that I was lost and vulnerable and would have been alone had it not been for him. He always tried to make me feel like I was still that scared little girl in the stairwell.’

‘I hate him, June,’ I said. One of the understatements of the century. ‘I fucking hate him.’

‘Honestly, I don’t want to think about him right now.’

‘What do you want to think about instead?’

‘I don’t know. Something happier,’ June said, a new tenderness to her voice. ‘That it’s over. But also this. And you. And what we’re going to do about all of that.’

What was she saying? For the first time, it felt like this door I’d been imagining for months had been opened and the universe was just asking me if I’d like to step through it – and for some reason, that was harder than I’d imagined. As if I feared taking one step towards it would force it shut. But maybe I had an obligation to force it shut, so I said aloud the one thing that scared me most.

I’d envisioned this conversation happening so many times, but there was one thing that could ruin it all: ‘I’m worried that I’ve made you out in my head to be something that you’re not.’

June was silent for a moment, then said, in a small voice, ‘I’m worried I did the same thing for you.’ I think she could tell, based on the way my body tensed, that her words surprised me. ‘Like looking out of a window of a house I was locked inside.’

My breath hitched in my chest. If that was what I was for her, then what was she for me? Like the last thing you see before falling into a black hole. This was the first moment – the first beautiful, unrestrained moment – where I thought about June and myself as ‘us’ without any trepidation. June and Sydney. Now it wasn’t trying to cover up something else. Now it just was. I wanted to touch her, hold her, put my forehead against hers and leave it there. ‘So what do we do?’ I asked.

‘I don’t really know.’

‘You’re going to college.’

June nodded. ‘Even if I wasn’t, I still wouldn’t know. I think this is … I think we just need to be careful.’ She craned her head to look at me. ‘Are we damaged goods?’ she asked. Even with the mischievous grin, and the way she was squinting at me, I was pretty sure there was a part of her that was genuinely asking.

‘No,’ I said, confident. ‘I think … I don’t know. I think we’ve just felt a pain that most people don’t have to feel until later.’

‘Yeah. So, actually, it’s kind of like a club.’

‘Right. Very exclusive.’

June squirmed upwards and sat, cross-legged, facing me. ‘I don’t know if this is OK,’ she said, ‘but I care about you a lot, and even if we’re not sure what that means right now … I’m happy to spend the summer learning.’

I didn’t know what to say to any of this. It was a lifetime’s worth of thoughts and feelings and fantasies and they were all here, all now, and I didn’t know what to do with any of them, didn’t know what to say to this beautiful girl, this beautiful girl who found me while I was busy burying myself alive and dug me out.

I thought I should touch her.