Please Don't Tell (15 page)

“When do I get my official sidekick outfit?” he asks. “Can we color coordinate? Blue's my color. It'll match your eyes.”

Unbelievable.

He squints at me and brushes the corner of my mouth with his pinkie, just the top layer of my skin molecules. “I don't think I've seen you smile before.”

The girls in the hallway are gone, but I'd've tumbled out even if they weren't. Levi's framed in the shadows,
one foot in a bucket, a guilty look on his face.

“Let's just go to the auditorium,” I say, panting, trying to kill the feeling in my stomach.

“I'm just going to run to the bathroom real quick and make sure my face isn't as red as I think it is,” he says before bolting toward the opposite end of the hallway.

It's dangerous, the way he makes me smile when I have nothing to smile about.

The auditorium's always felt safe to me. It's dark, cozy, rustling all around you while you sit safe between your people. I used to sit with Grace, the two of us tucked into each other, or between Preston and November. But Nov's not here. I crane my neck to look behind me, accidentally hitting Preston with my elbow.

“I can't see Cassius. He did find a way to stop Nov from coming,” I tell him.

He nods once.

“How are you doing?”

He just nods again, his jaw set.

The stage is empty, but the projector's set up and waiting with the blackmailer's DVD hidden inside like
a bomb. Usually Officer Roseby's auditorium presentations are a lot of bullshit about sex or drugs, because clearly the only useful information about either of those things is
Don't do them
. Even Grace, who used to be the queen of
Don't do them
, would roll her eyes.

“He'll be fired after this,” I say even though I have no
idea what's going to happen after that DVD plays.

Another jerky nod from Preston. I want to swamp him in a huge hug that both of us would hate.

Someone slides into the empty seat beside me. Levi's back from the bathroom. His wrist brushes mine and my arm tingles all the way to my fingertips. He leans in, but before he can say anything, the lights dim, the shadows swallow his face, and Officer Roseby swaggers onstage. Anger leaps up in me like a stove flame, higher and higher, canceling out some of the fear. I know Preston feels it, too.

“I know many of you are still shocked by the recent tragedy.” Officer Roseby glances smugly out at the school. He thinks his uniform means he's a good person. “But that's not what I'll be speaking about today. Today we are going to talk about the women and girls at this school.”

It's a lecture on women's safety. Incredible.

“Many of you are likely still concerned about the incident with Principal Eastman. So I organized this presentation to discuss appropriate conduct between members of the opposite sex at this school. It should go without saying that no girl at this school, or any school, should distribute nude photos of herself to anyone.”

“She didn't send them.” Levi simmers with outrage. “The principal took them. He was
in
them. And why is this directed only at girls?”

“With that obvious thing out of the way,” Officer Roseby says, hammering in the final nail of Savannah's
coffin, “I'd like to show a video with some samples of appropriate and inappropriate behavior.”

He starts fiddling with the projector. Everything inside me contracts. This is happening because of me. Whatever happens next is my responsibility.

“Where are you going?” Levi whispers as I stand. “Is everything okay?”

“Everything's fine. Stay with Preston.”

I edge past him, past the rows of people, and as I slip away into the hallway, I hear the video start.

JOY STARTS GETTING UP AT NOON. THEN
two. Then three. She eats only Saltines. She lifts weights in the exercise room until four a.m., straining every muscle in her body. Her room turns into a garbage can. She leaves the house only once to buy us both Plan B.

Mom and Dad have always whispered about her. Now they whisper more.
She's going through a phase.
They dissolve their own worry for their own sakes. Nobody whispers about me. Which is good, because I don't need to be whispered about.

One day Joy walks back from Preston's house in the rain. Her orange shirt's dark with water, a rust color, like dried blood. Her socks are sponges on my floor. Her hair tangling around her neck in wet ropes, like a noose, she asks: “Are you mad at me?”

I put my arms around her. I feel like a machine.

She wants to go to the police. She wants to go back to his house and kill him.

“I know you're mad at me,” she repeats. “I can tell you're mad at me.”

I'd never be mad at her. I'm not avoiding her because I'm mad at her. She just makes me tired.

She pulls me into the bathroom while Mom and Dad talk about colleges downstairs. She's full of thunder. “We need to tell somebody. I can't do this silence. You can't.”

Why do I have to be the one to make her feel better? Nothing even happened to her.

Did anything even happen to me?

Five hours of sleep. Four hours of studying. Two hours of exercise. Three hours of self-improvement reading. If I don't go over six hundred calories a day, I won't have bad dreams. If I can do my makeup in under two hours, she'll stop asking if I'm mad at her.

I build little pyres out of my emotions and burn them. I am clean.

She comes to my room at night and whispers, even though I pretend I'm asleep: “Just let me do something. Let me go to his house. I'll . . . I'll . . . You're not being normal about this.”

I'm not normal. I'm stronger than normal people. It's my head. I'm in control of it.

She's not in control of anything. Why did I ever want to be like her?

She comes to me outside, when I'm sitting on the porch,
tying and untying one shoe.

“Are you sure you're not mad at me?”

“Yes,” I tell her. But my voice is different now. I can't tell if she's not listening or if I didn't speak.

Time slips in and out, like it did when I was drunk, but I'm not drunk now. Whole days pass without me noticing. Everything is dry and clear and flat. And far away. Joy feels very far away.

She comes to me in the exercise room when I'm sweating off breakfast. “We can't just pretend like it didn't happen.”

“Yes we can.” If I don't call it anything, it isn't anything. “Nothing even happened.”

“That's not what you said the night it—”

“I don't know what I said. Leave it alone, Joy.”

She whispers to me in the bathroom, when I'm flossing too hard, cutting my gums. “Mom and Dad ask me to do the dishes and I'm screaming the truth at them in my head. We need to tell.”

“Please don't tell,” I say, my mouth full of blood. “Promise me you won't tell. If you tell, I'll hate you forever.”

After that, she stops asking if I'm mad at her.

That night, I dream I'm in a crowd and everyone's wearing Adam's face. I'm called into Principal Eastman's office, and Eastman is wearing Adam's face. I walk into Joy's room in the middle of the night and she's wearing his face.

He's astral projecting into my head. This dark-haired,
guitar-playing person . . .

All my old fantasies transform. It's me who finds his body at the bottom of the quarry. He comes to me with his problems and I bash his brains in with a rock. I'm in a crowd of people wearing his face, and I set off a bomb, blowing them all apart.

Dream: I stick a knife between his ribs. I feel it go in.

I don't want to be someone who dreams about this.

It's fine. It will go away. I'm stronger than this. I'm better than normal people.

AS KIDS, GRACE AND I SPENT A LOT OF TIME
at the elementary school playground, on the wooden ship with the fake wheel. I'd steer us over oceans, away from pirates. I'd climb to the top of the jungle gym and she'd wait below me, face screwed up in fear, arms out to catch me if I fell, even though she wasn't big enough. Even though she knew I'd bring her down with me.

“Sorry I didn't reply to your texts.” November's sitting on the swing next to me. School's been out for an hour now. The sky's cloudy, rain threatening. The wind scatters dead leaves underneath the jungle gym.

I'm the one to say it for once: “Are you okay?”

“I hate him, I hate him, I hate him.” She says it like she's tearing off chunks of something inside her chest and
throwing them into a fire. “The department's put him on unpaid leave. He was already in trouble, the way he went around asking unauthorized questions about Adam dying. He punched a hole in the basement wall.”

“Are you okay, though?”

“That woman in the video sued my dad, back in NYC. But the security video from the street camera disappeared. That's why the chief suggested he apply for jobs in upstate New York instead of straight-out firing him.” The swing chain's pinching her fingers. “I just don't understand who found it.”

I twist my swing and then I let go, spinning. The playground blurs. “Are people giving you shit at school?”

“Most of the time, people forget he's my dad. We're not exactly color matched,” she says sarcastically. “Besides, I am known for not caring and that means people tend to return the favor.”

“But you're okay?”

“Whoever it was who did it, however they found the recording, I'm grateful to them. My dad's a bad person.”

I'm quiet.

“Next month I'm eighteen, then I'll be in full control of my inheritance from my mom. Gonna sublet an apartment, graduate at Stanwick. I applied to NYU. So did Cassius, I guess.”

“He moved out yesterday,” I say. “I watched the U-Haul pull down the end of our street. Will you miss him?”

“We were temporary friends. Sometimes you gotta be
friends with somebody because they need someone, not because the two of you have anything in common.”

My head hurts. “I'm here if you ever need someone.”

“You don't wanna hear my garbage. I want you to keep looking up to me.” She grins briefly.

There's something special about being liked by someone who hates almost everyone else.

“It's easier than you think, not looking up to someone anymore. All it takes is you seeing their cracks. I used to look up to my dad.” She pushes off the ground, swings high. Her voice whooshes past me. “My mom was smart, rich, pretty. I know my grandpa's mind was blown when she picked him. All the people in the world, and she goes for a white cop? Jesus.”

“Jesus,” I echo, thinking about people we're not supposed to like, thinking of Levi.

“Mom saw the best in everybody. She looked at people like they were better versions of themselves, and it made them want to be better. She was like you.” She smiles at me for a second. “Maybe he used to be different. You get trained to see other people as screwups, rule breakers, and you forget how to treat them like they're human. Sometimes I'm glad my mom died before she could see what he turned into.”

I shut my eyes. “I'm so sorry, Nov.”

“It's one thing to
say
you hate your dad. Everyone's dad is an asshole sometimes. But it's different to realize you're never going to wake up one morning and have a dad who
isn't an asshole, and that you're going to be one of those people who never talks to their dad as an adult, and when he dies someday, you'll only find out because the hospital digs up your name in some phone book. . . .”

I jump off my swing, hug her. She's got bird bones. The feel of human skin on mine starts to bring back far-off fireworks of that night with Cassius. My nerve endings reroute straight to it now.

“I'm sorry,” November says. Her forehead's on my collarbone. “I don't want to be this way to you.”

“You're not any bad thing to me,” I say, but she's already gathering the calm back on her face like she's tying up her hair.

“When you're a kid, the people you're stuck living with, it's a lottery. If they're assholes, too bad. There's nothing you can do until you turn eighteen.”

“Parenthood is weird,” I agree. “It's like, here, have this small person, do whatever you want to it until it's a bigger person, we don't care.”

“I think that's why we end up being each other's parents. We're the only ones who know what it's like.” She hops off the swing, lightly punches my shoulder. “That's why it's my job to look after you.”

I have to tell her about the blackmail. I can't spend my life not telling people things because I'm afraid they'll stop liking me.

But my phone buzzes first. It's Levi.

there is an absolutely terrible zombie movie playing
tonight. sounds like a great excuse to sit awkwardly next to each other for a couple hours and get blushy every time our arms touch. you in?

I completely forgot that we were going to see a movie.

But I can't go when all of this is happening. That would be insane.

November grabs my phone.

“Hey!”

“I reserve the right to know who's texting my friend and making her turn that shade of red.” She skims it. Her eyebrows fly up. “Levi? As in the new kid Levi? As in Adam Gordon's half brother?”

“He's tutoring me in American History. It's nothing.”

“Yeah, I'm sure your American History homework was to go watch a shitty movie and ‘get blushy.'” Her knuckles tighten on the phone. “What's he want with you?”

“He's nothing like Adam. At all. He didn't even know Adam.” I'm babbling. “He's just new. We're temporary friends, like you and Cassius. He'll make better friends soon.”

“Better friends?” November repeats, and starts laughing so hard she doubles over.

“What?”

“You're not good at much, you know that?” she splutters. “You're shit at grades, you're way too aggressive at sports—remember when you tried to join the soccer team and kicked the goalie in the face? You suck at art, your fashion sense blows. . . .”

“That's what I meant.” I stick out my tongue at her. “He'll find better friends.”

“That's why I'm
laughing
.” She flicks my hair affectionately. “You
are
the best friend. That's the one thing you're good at. I've never met anybody who obsesses over doing right by her friends as much as you.”

I tense. “Don't say that.”

“Why not?”

“Because I'm actually a selfish bitch,” I say lightly.

She bursts out laughing again. “You're cheering me up.”

I smile, but my heart is pounding. “Everything I do is selfish. I do nice things just to feel better about myself. I'd probably throw somebody in a shark tank so I could be the one to pull them out. Best friend ever.”

“I know you're kidding. But there's a good and a selfish reason for everything, and the fact that the selfish reason exists doesn't cancel out the good reason.” She rolls her eyes. “Senior wisdom from November Roseby. So are you gonna go hang with the new kid at the movie theater or what?”

“You'd let me?”

“What do you mean
let
you? I'm not your babysitter.” She snorts. “If I am, I'm a cool babysitter with a radical taste in music.”

“I just meant . . . you didn't like Adam.”

“I of all people understand that people aren't clones of their family members. In fact, I think people tend to swing the complete opposite way. So by that logic, Levi's a saint.”

“I won't hang out with him if it makes you uncomfortable.”

“You're ridiculous. I am not an asshole.” She hands my phone back. “Plus, you've been stressed, even if you won't talk to me about it. It's okay to take a break to do something that makes you happy.”

“I don't want to go off and see a movie when you're bummed.”

“I'll get over it. You can be happy. It's not cheating. Go to the movies or I'm going to be pissed at you.”

“But—”

“
Go.
Leave. I'm not saying another word to you.”

I open my mouth again, but she mimes zipping hers shut.

So I go. Just this once. Just so Levi has an excuse to get out of the house.

As I walk across the playground, I hear her mutter to herself, “
Better friends
.”

And she starts laughing all over again.

The movie's long, boring, a chance for me to doze off, shut down, not think. It's like being in the auditorium—a cool dark place with Levi next to me. It's probably why people go to the movies so much, even though they're expensive and you can watch them all online. It's an excuse to sit in the dark next to somebody nice without worrying about messing it up with words.

When Levi and I walk out, it's dark. He buys us two sodas
and we sit by the fountain outside the shopping center.

“I don't remember anything from that movie,” I confess.

“Guts everywhere and explosions. That's what I remember about Adam when he was nine, how he loved that shit, how our dad loved that he loved it. Like he was doing manhood right. I cried through those movies.” He laughs. “This is how I make girls like me. I tell them about all the times I cried.”

“That's the only time you told me about when you cried,” I point out.

“Are you asking about other times?”

I shrug, but I am.

“I'll tell you, because I want to pretend you're interested. Let's see. The last Harry Potter book, obviously.”

“There's got to be more than that.”

“You are interested.” He smirks. “I can't think of any. I told you about the movie thing—now you think I'm a crier. But I don't cry. I'm very manly.”

Talking to him is so easy. He doesn't expect anything back.

“People never think Asian guys are manly,” he says. “Obviously gender stereotyping is bullshit, and so is the gender binary, et cetera. But I'm manly as fuck. I've gotten into so many manly fights.”

“You get along with everybody.” Except Ben.

“I don't get along with people who say shit about my mom. And people at my old school liked to say shit about my mom.” He rubs his sneaker through a glob of
melted ice cream. “Man. Now I brought that up, and you're going to ask. But I don't really want to talk about it. Perils of being somebody who never thinks before he speaks.”

I desperately want to know about his mom, why he hasn't gone back to Indiana yet. “I won't ask,” I say anyway.

“Cool. I'll change the subject back to crying, then. You know I haven't cried about Adam yet? I thought I was going to at the funeral. I was like, shit yeah, Levi, you're almost there, but then this other girl started bawling and I went into Advice Levi mode.”

He digs a coin out of his pocket and flips it into the fountain.

“It's so cliché, isn't it? Me not crying shows how I haven't processed my feelings about Adam. Eventually I'll have a big cry fest and grow as a person, probably in the rain, et cetera.”

“It might rain. It's cloudy.”

“It's been like this all day. The sky and I are doing an excellent job of repressing our tears.” He grins.

I smile back, letting this happen.
Don't think about Grace, don't think about the blackmailer, don't think.

How long am I allowed to do this? November said it wasn't cheating.

It feels like cheating.

“That police officer, did you hear if he got fired or not?” he asks. “Where'd you find that video again? Online?”

I stop smiling. “Can we not talk about that?”

“Sorry. Anything you don't want to talk about, I am militantly against talking about.”

There's a brief silence.

“There,” I say.

“There what?”

“An awkward silence. I was wondering if you'd let one happen.”

“Normally I never let one of the bastards slip by me,” he says. “People are like, learn to be comfortable with silence. But fuck that. Silence is awful. Silence was all I got from Adam for years.”

“Do you ever think maybe he's not worth all this?”

“Worth has nothing to do with it. Maybe he was an asshole. But he was family, you know?”

I nod. I do know.

“I wanted to find out the stupid things. Like which of us would've been the smart one and the dumb one, or the cool one and the awkward one, or the talkative one and the quiet one. I think I would've been the talkative one, but maybe I'd've switched if he wanted to be. Like, who would I have been in the context of Adam?”

My throat's dry. “I like who you are in the context of you.”

“I wonder who I am in the context of you,” he says.

“Let's go back to talking about the weather.”

“That was too flirty,” he admits. “Tell me more about your sister. I like hearing you talk about your sister.”

“She's awesome.” My chest aches. “She's, like, a genius.
She's always on top of everything and nothing can touch her. She's perfect.”

“All right, I lied. I'm not that interested in your sister. I just like seeing you smile.”

I look away. “I can't tell if you're serious.”

“I like to leave open the possibility of it being a joke. That way I don't have to take responsibility for it.”

The old Joy would have loved him. Would the old Grace have loved him?

“Joy's Grace sounds pretty cool,” he says. “I hope I get to find out what Grace's Grace is like sometime.”