The Secrets We Keep (11 page)

“I can help you,” I said to Josh, hoping he wouldn't agree to my offer. I didn't want to spend time with him. I didn't want the constant reminder of who I once was, who I'd made the choice to never be again. What I wanted was for him to stop looking at me that way—with pain, anger, and hope rolled into one confused mess.

“I don't need your help,” Josh said.

The anger I'd seen at the burial was back in place, and I sighed in relief. His anger I could deal with.

“Fine, if that's the way you want it,” I said.

I turned to walk away, planning on leaving the discarded contents of my bag strewn across the hallway floor rather than spend one more second trapped in Josh's gaze. But his next, broken words stopped me, the truth he spoke echoing through my mind.

“That's not the way I want it. What I want is to see Ella again, but you can't help with that, can you?”

I tamped down the urge to respond, my good hand clutching Alex's so hard that I lost the feeling in my fingers. I couldn't do this here, not now. Not with Josh. Not with everybody, including Alex, watching.

“No. I can't,” I said, not bothering to turn around and look my best friend in the eyes as I confirmed his worst nightmare. “She's gone, and I can't change that.”

 

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.