Текст книги "The Secrets We Keep"

Автор книги: Trisha Leaver

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Текущая страница: 7 (всего у книги 16 страниц)

16

Alex was in my first period class. I didn’t know if I was relieved or irritated about that. He’d remind people not to stare and make sure nobody said anything to me. But that also meant I had to play along, continue to be Maddy when what I truly wanted was five minutes alone to clear my head and regroup.

Hoping to avoid as many people as possible, I went in through the back door. Didn’t work. Everybody’s eyes, including Mr. Peterson’s, swung in my direction.

Mr. Peterson smiled, the first genuine smile I’d seen this morning. “It’s good to see you, Madison.”

I managed a weak thank-you and let go of Alex’s hand so I could take a seat in the corner. Mr. Peterson wasn’t one of my teachers. He taught American Lit, not AP English like I was in, or even Honors English. This was general, run-of-the-mill American Lit.

The seat next to me was already taken, and I gave the kid occupying it credit. He didn’t raise his head when I sat down. He ignored me and kept studying the etchings on his desk. I didn’t know his name. I’d seen him wandering the halls and in the parking lot, but that was it.

“There’s a seat in the front row,” Alex said as he dropped his bag to the floor and waited for the kid to move.

The kid glanced up at Alex and then to me as if waiting for approval. “What’s your name?” I asked.

Alex looked curious as to why I suddenly cared who this kid was. I didn’t care so much as I was jealous. Nobody knew him. Nobody bothered with him. He was a lot like me before I decided to become Maddy.

“Ryan,” he said.

“It’s fine, Alex. I’m fine. Ryan can stay,” I said.

I didn’t hear what Alex mumbled under his breath as he walked away and took a seat in the front row next to Jenna. But to be honest, I wasn’t paying much attention. I was more interested in fading into the background like the boy sitting next to me.

I shuffled through my bag and pulled out a notebook labeled Lit. Save for a few versions of Alex’s name covering the first pages, it was completely empty, not a single note on any page. Grumbling, I looked over at Ryan’s desk. He didn’t have a pen out, never mind a notebook.

“This is American Lit, right?” I said, trying to confirm what I already knew.

Ryan raised his head and stared at me, no pity, no curiosity, absolutely nothing in his eyes. “Yeah, why?”

I shrugged, not knowing how to respond. Because it was three months into school and I already had a binder full of notes for AP English. Because I’d read four books, dissected each one, and written a seven-page essay on each. Because I had no idea what was going on in this class, and from the lack of notes Maddy had, it appeared she didn’t either.

Someone kicked my shoe, and I turned to my right. I remembered her. She was the girl from the party, the one sitting on the couch crying. I stared at her for a moment, finally recognizing who she was. Without the noise of the party and the makeup streaming down her face, I actually recognized her. Molly.

She used to be one of Maddy’s friends. Something happened to her last year, though, something to do with a field hockey game and testing positive for drugs. I’d learned some of the details from listening to Maddy. Molly had lost her spot on the field hockey team and the scholarship she was nearly guaranteed to get from Northwestern. On top of that, the incident took her from being more popular than Maddy to being barely one rung above me on the social ladder. She still sat with Maddy’s group at lunch and was invited to the same parties, but to say she operated on the fringe of their circle was being generous at best.

“Hey, Molly—” I started to say something more, but she waved me off and tilted her head toward the front of the class.

I had a brief moment of panic, wondering if Mr. Peterson was angry with me for talking in class. But Mr. Peterson wasn’t trying to get my attention, Alex was. He tossed his hands out in a what-are-you-doing gesture, then motioned to Ryan. He didn’t need words to convey his message; I got it loud and clear. In Maddy’s world, Alex took center stage. Whatever he wanted, whatever he needed, Maddy gave it to him. If I wanted to pull this off, then I needed to stop talking to the nameless kids in the back of the room and start focusing on him.

Nodding my apology, I took up Ryan’s favorite pastime and started reading the etchings on the desk. I’d finished counting the number of times the f-word could be used as a descriptor and was hazarding a guess at whose initials were in the heart when a piece of paper covered my desk.

“Try your best,” Mr. Peterson whispered. “I won’t grade it.”

I wrote my name and date on the paper. I missed nearly a month of school, and on my first day back, I had to take a test.

The book’s title was in bold letters across the top, two questions posed in italics below. East of Eden. I read it freshman year; it was on the summer reading list for those of us who had tested into the advanced track. Had I known there was a test today, I would’ve dug it out and reread a few chapters so I’d have quotes to support my answers.

I glanced at the first question and started writing my answer, worrying that I would forget something important. I remembered enough of the book to formulate a decent response. It wouldn’t be an A, but it wouldn’t be a C either.

Mr. Peterson had given us nearly the entire fifty minutes of class time to take the test, and according to the clock on the wall, I had twelve minutes left. I looked over my answers twice before I put my pen down. Writing those two responses had felt great, like a little part of the old me was safe to come out. An old part of me that was still useful.

I took a quick peek at Ryan’s test. He had three sentences down for the first answer and was struggling his way through the first paragraph of the second. A quick look at Molly’s proved that she was no better off. There was less than ten minutes left of class, and she hadn’t even started on the second question. I’d been to one class, had spent less than an hour in school as Maddy, and already I’d screwed up. I’d read the book for American Lit and actually answered the questions.

Frustrated, I balled up my test and pushed it aside. That sound, the crumpling of paper in my hand, echoed through the room, every head swinging in my direction. Alex, Jenna, Molly, even Ryan stared at me.

“I can’t do this,” I said, and stood up.

“Nobody expects your best work on your first day back.” Mr. Peterson approached me, his eyes wary, his tone a little too gentle to be comforting. He stopped a few feet from me, his attention turning to the balled-up test on my desk. When I made no motion to pick it up myself, he reached for it, smoothed it out between his hands, and began to read.

His lips moved silently with the words, and he flipped the paper over as the arrow I’d drawn on the bottom of the page indicated him to do. I knew what he was doing, knew the instant he turned it over for a second read that he was trying to figure out how Maddy had pulled this off. How some girl, fresh out of the hospital and still stricken with grief—the same girl who’d barely managed to pull a C in his class—had written this.

His eyes widened. A look of pure astonishment crossed his face, and I stumbled backward, knocking my chair over. Alex stood up, motioning to Jenna to stay seated when she started to follow him.

“Maddy?” Mr. Peterson laid his hand on my arm, tried to drag my attention back to him. “Maddy, this is good.”

“I know,” I whispered as I scrambled toward the door. “That’s the problem. It’s too good.”

I heard Alex behind me, saying something about taking care of it. I didn’t wait for him to catch up. I ran as fast as I could down the hall to the one place I knew Alex wouldn’t follow me, the one place in this entire building I knew of that had doors with locks.

17

The bathroom was completely empty. My only company was the sound of the old radiator struggling to pump heat. I walked to the last stall and locked myself in. Alex was at the main door, knocking and calling out my name. I half-expected him to come in. Part of me wanted him to so I could wrap myself in his arms and selfishly believe it when he promised me it’d be okay.

I chased away my thoughts of Maddy, of the accident, of Josh. My mother’s tears, the whispers that threatened to suffocate me, and the burrowing eyes of the entire school. I needed them gone.

My mind cleared slowly and the dingy tiles of the bathroom floor blurred together in a clutter of gray. I was perfectly content to sit there forever, but the bell rang, the shrill sound filtering in, growing louder as the door opened and closed in rapid sequence. Not wanting to be noticed, I pulled my feet up onto the seat and stayed silent.

I heard bits and pieces of the gossip I’d missed over the past few weeks. Jenna was vying for the title of Snow Ball queen, but I figured that. She may have been Maddy’s best friend, but I’d caught the spark of jealousy hidden behind those blue eyes.

“I gotta say, when it comes to campaigning though, Jenna’s got one amazing platform. I mean, what guy wouldn’t vote for her—”

I don’t know which of Maddy’s idiotic friends came out with that line, but she was absolutely right about Jenna using her assets to get ahead. As far as I could tell, her personality was about as deadly as the plague, so using her figure was probably her best option for gaining votes.

“She won’t win. Alex will make sure of that. Plus, Maddy’s got the pity vote. That’s gotta count for something.”

I cringed at her words, remembering a conversation I’d overheard last month. Maddy had been in the bathroom at home, her phone on speaker so she could talk and put her makeup on at the same time. She and Alex were strategizing, going over who they thought would vote for who. At last check, Maddy and Jenna were tied. I didn’t hear Alex’s plan to fix that—whatever he was saying was garbled by the sound of running water. All I heard was Maddy arguing with him, something about her last plan having gone horribly wrong.

I let it go, didn’t bother to stay and listen to what that meant. Maddy had a way of being theatrical and was probably flying off the handle about something as unimportant as a chipped nail.

I shook off the memory and stopped listening to the girls in the bathroom, more concerned about what I was going to do if Maddy … if I actually won the title of Snow Ball queen. That would mean wearing a dress and heels, having my hair and nails done, dancing with Alex, and a crapload of smiling and kissing up to people I didn’t like. None of which I had any desire to do. All of which Maddy would have done without a second thought.

Someone tried to yank open the stall door, then knocked and bent down to peer underneath. I inched farther back on the seat and tried to make myself invisible, but she saw me anyway—it’s not like there was a huge amount of space for hiding in a three-by-three-foot cage. Molly’s face came into view, and I waved my hands frantically at her. I wordlessly begged her not to say anything, not to reveal to the few girls still in the bathroom that I was camped out in the last stall, hiding.

She nodded, her small, sad smile reminding me that she’d been here herself not long ago.

“You okay?” she mouthed.

“Yes,” I whispered back.

“The door is broken again,” she said to some random girls as she straightened up. “Go use the one next to it.”

The bathroom cleared, and the noise in the hall quieted down. The next class had started, the entire school going on with their day without me. Slowly I dropped my feet to the floor and opened the stall door. I half-expected somebody to be waiting for me. Maybe Molly. Maybe Jenna. But the bathroom was empty, not even the radiator was making noise anymore.

A long, scratched-up mirror covered the entire wall, making it impossible not to catch a glimpse of myself. I looked hollow and pathetic. Maddy wouldn’t look like this. Maddy wouldn’t hide in a bathroom stall afraid of what people were thinking or saying about her. She’d listen, then twist their words so that she came out on top. I’d seen her do it enough times. I’d even ended up on the twisted side myself more than once.

I fixed my hair, did what I’d seen Maddy do a thousand times—flipped my head upside down and shook it. I didn’t stop until my world spun, which, incidentally, was three shakes in. One last look in the mirror and I opened the door.

18

Alex pushed off from the wall across from the bathroom when he saw me come out. He must have been standing there waiting for me for at least ten minutes. He had my backpack in one hand, his cell phone in the other. He looked up at me briefly, then back to his phone to finish whatever he was texting.

“Hey,” I said as I took my backpack from his outstretched hand.

I don’t know what I expected. Perhaps that he’d hold me or offer to skip his next class and sit with me. Maybe make an attempt to talk me down off the crazy ledge I was teetering on, but what I got was a confusing glare and a nod.

“I saw Molly come out of the bathroom before you,” Alex said as he shoved his phone into his pocket. “She looked … I don’t know, better.”

I wasn’t aware she looked like crap to begin with. “Better than what?”

“Better than she has since she came back. You say something to her?”

I winced, unable to hide the surprise in my face. I’d said hi to her in class and silently begged her not to tell the other girls in the bathroom that I was crouched up on a toilet hiding out, but that was it. Nothing earth-shattering, nothing remotely helpful or sympathetic.

“No, I didn’t say anything to her, but why would it matter if I did?”

“We talked about this at the party, Maddy. It’s safer if we keep her on the outside.”

Alex took a step forward, his body suddenly within inches of mine. I could smell his cologne, see the smooth lines of his jaw and the tiny spot he’d missed when shaving this morning. “You have to trust me on this. You need to keep your distance from her, at least until things settle down and you’re feeling more like yourself.”

The pain in his voice stabbed at my heart and I shook my head. There was a fear behind his words, a fear that I would change my mind and reveal a secret I didn’t even know. My reply was easy, I wouldn’t tell Molly anything—not because I was trying to protect him or my sister, but because I had no clue what he was talking about.

“I wasn’t planning on telling Molly anything,” I said.

I felt his relief and offered him my hand. He took it and laced his fingers through mine. “What happened with Molly is in the past, Maddy, and it needs to stay there.”

Every part of me was begging to ask him what he was talking about. I searched his expression for a clue as to what was going on between Alex and Maddy, and what Molly had to do with it. I got nothing.

I tried to think of a time when something seemed off between them. I remembered the muffled conversation in the bathroom the week before Maddy died—the one about some plan of Maddy’s going wrong—and I remembered the tears streaming down Maddy’s face at the party. But other than that, everything between Maddy and Alex had seemed fine. Perfect, actually.

Alex took my silence for indecision and reached out to tuck a stray lock of hair behind my ear. “I made sure everything went away. Made certain you got to be co-captain of the field hockey team, prom queen in junior year, the girl everybody wants to be, didn’t I?”

I nodded because agreeing with him seemed like the logical thing to do.

“Seven more months and we’re out of here. We can start over and forget everything that happened. I can keep things together for you until then, but you’ve gotta stop trying to make amends with Molly and remember who you are, how you got here, and what you’ve been willing to do to make sure nobody, including Molly, stands in your way.”

Whatever this was, whatever lie my sister and Alex were covering up, I hadn’t agreed to it. I thought I could put on her clothes, sit in her classes, talk to her friends, and make everybody so happy she was alive that they’d overlook tiny mistakes I made here and there. But this was different. Complicated. Too complicated.

I stared at Alex, unable to speak, unable to wipe the look of sheer confusion from my face. I would have been more than happy to hand the crown of popularity over to Jenna and sink into the background. But what I wanted didn’t matter. The most important thing was keeping Maddy’s life intact, every piece of it, including this.

Alex caught the frustration on my face, his tone purposefully gentling as he pulled out his phone and started to dial my dad’s number. “Maybe your parents were right. Maybe it was too soon for you to come back to school. Maybe you should go and talk to the therapist with your parents, give yourself some more time before—”

“I don’t need to talk to anybody.” I reached for the phone and hit the Off button before the call connected to my father’s office. “I’m fine, Alex, honest. People are acting weird around me, and it makes me … I don’t know, edgy.” The words tumbled out as I desperately tried to bluff my way through the rest of the conversation. Until I figured out what I’d walked into, I needed to keep my cards close. Watch more and say less.

“Probably because you’re acting weird around them,” he said. The concern and confusion that had dampened his features for the past month were suddenly gone, the confident Alex I was used to seeing with Maddy back in place. “Plus, edgy is good. That’s what they’re used to. It’s freaking out in class and hiding in the bathroom that is going to get you in trouble.”

“I know,” I said, trying to sound convincing.

“Molly is where she is today because she didn’t have the strength that you do. And, she didn’t have me. There are plenty of people here willing to take your place. One wrong move and you’ll be exactly where she is now—at the bottom, staring up at where you used to be. I can help you, cover for you and keep you safe, make sure that doesn’t happen, but you gotta let me. You gotta stop shutting me out and talk to me before you lose it.”

I nodded. He wasn’t telling me anything I didn’t already know.

“Listen, Maddy. You can fall apart at home with me if you have to, but I need you to hold it together while we’re here. If you can’t do that, then let me take you home, because trust me, it’s not worth undoing everything we’ve worked so hard to get.”

“I’m fine,” I said again as I hitched my backpack farther up on my shoulder. A chill raced along my spine as I considered my limited options—play the popular sister or go home. The choice was easy. For the foreseeable future, I’d keep my mouth shut, not talk to anybody but Alex, and, if I was smart, start paying better attention to the conversations going on around me. Clearly I’d missed something … a lot of things. And if I was going to survive this mess, I needed to learn about Maddy’s past, fast.

Until that epiphany hit, I’d focus on the small stuff. I’d avoid passing any American Lit tests by more than the bare minimum. I’d feign interest in choosing the color scheme for the Snow Ball, fake interest when Jenna went on about her dress, and come up with something catty to say about the ten pounds her sister had gained. I’d start treating everybody else the way I was used to Maddy treating me—with indifference.

“You have study hall next,” he reminded me.

“Umm hmm.” I knew Maddy’s schedule, made sure I had it memorized before I set foot in school.

“Try to say something nice to Jenna. She’s still bent out of shape that you have been avoiding her. But don’t mention her parents losing the house or her brother having to drop out of college and work at their uncle’s garage. She doesn’t want anybody to know, especially you. If she finds out I told you, she’ll never forgive me … or you.”

They could find another house, but Jenna’s brother—he was the pride and joy of the family. He’d graduated when we were freshmen and he’d gotten a scholarship to Notre Dame, the same school his father and grandfather graduated from. I’d met him once when he came to pick up Jenna at our house. He had seemed nice enough … nice enough that I actually felt bad for him.

“Ask her about what happened between her and Keith while you were out of school,” Alex added, and I stopped thinking about Jenna’s brother stocking parts at the garage to help with bills and focused on Alex’s words. “That will keep her talking for a while so you don’t have to.”

Alex spun me around and headed me in the opposite direction from him, a silent message to not screw up barely hidden in his voice: “I know it sucks, Maddy, but remember, the sooner things get back to normal, the better off we’ll both be.”