The Secrets We Keep (15 page)

I heard the humor in his voice as he recalled the excuse I'd fed him. I
had
been crying. I was hurt and confused and lonely.

“I asked her what was wrong, and she said nothing. Eventually I got her to tell me.”

“What'd she say?” I asked, already knowing the answer.

“You. She didn't understand what she'd done, why you didn't want to hang out with her anymore,” Josh said.

I shrugged. He was right; back then I didn't know. Still didn't, I guess. I simply learned not to care about it so much.

“I told her not to let it bother her, that Alex was exactly the same way, but she never stopped caring about you or worrying what you thought of her. She was always doing things to make your life easier. Even the night of the accident … Ella came for you, dropped everything and came to pick you up when you called.”

“Whatever,” I said, and jumped down off the sill. Sitting here watching him slowly poke at me, unknowingly reminding me of who I was, wasn't going to help.

I'd made it down a few steps when he stopped me, his hand reaching out for my shoulder. I let it linger there, let myself soak up his familiar warmth before shrugging him off. I could feel myself shaking, the fine tremor of fear working its way through my body. I didn't turn around to meet his eyes. Not because I was scared or guilty, but because I knew he'd see straight through me.

“I have class.” It took an enormous amount of energy to get those three words out and even then my voice sounded weak … fragile.

“She was my best friend,” he said softly. “I knew her better than she probably knew herself.”

“What are you trying to say?”

He hesitated, and I could hear him sighing, as if he was carefully measuring his words. “Nothing. But if you ever want to talk about her … to remember
who
she was and what I loved about her, don't go to Alex. You come find me.”

I'd known it'd be hard—pretending to be someone else. I'd have to keep my guard up, watch what I said and how I dressed, and make sure I answered questions incorrectly so that I could maintain Maddy's
average
performance in school. But in the end, or so I'd convinced myself, it'd be worth it. I could spare Mom and Dad, even Alex, from losing Maddy. What I hadn't figured into the equation was Josh.

I'd known Josh for three years and had spent nearly every spare minute of each day with him. He knew the way I walked, the way my right eye would twitch when I was angry, and he even knew about the string bracelet I refused to take off regardless of how nasty it got.

He reached for my hand, pushed up the sleeve of my shirt, and ran his fingers across my wrist. I let him, stood there silently knowing the proof he was looking for wasn't there. The ER staff had cut off that ratty old string bracelet along with everything else I was wearing that night.

I'd spent hours those first few days at home trying to re-create it. But no matter how many times I tried, I couldn't get the colors to match up the way I wanted, the way I remembered. Even using brand-new thread the colors seemed duller, less vibrant. I kept the poor replica anyway. It was tucked in the back pocket of my jeans, a small reminder of what I was purposefully giving up.

His hand clenched around my wrist, my fingers going cold beneath his grip. He could stare at the spot for hours, could will that tiny bit of evidence into place, but it was never going to happen. I was Maddy Lawton now. The popular, cherished, and adored Maddy Lawton.

I'd never lied to Josh, never had a reason to. And I wasn't planning on starting today. “I know everything I need to know about Ella,” I said as I yanked my wrist free and walked away. “Everything.”

 

23

The tight rein I had on my emotions fell away the instant the door closed behind me. I could feel myself trembling, and I was torn between wanting to scream with rage and cry with hopelessness. I didn't know what to do, who I was, or where I was going, and I had to figure it out in front of a school full of gossiping peers.

“Maddy?” Her name fluttered across my mind, the familiarity of it crushingly present and distant at the same time.

“Maddy?” Mom said again. Her hand grazed my chin as she lifted my face to look at her. I felt the sting of tears threatening to break free. I wanted nothing more than to run and hide. “What's wrong? Why are you home from school?”

What I came out with was a lie. “I got a headache and felt sick to my stomach.”

I don't know whether it was relief or fear I saw in my mother's eyes, but she kicked into action, cleared the table of the hospital bills she was studying, and motioned for me to sit down.

“Take one of these,” she said as she shook a pain pill out of the bottle and into my hand. “I'm going to fix you something to eat.”

I wasn't hungry, and no amount of painkillers was going to still the chaos that cluttered my mind. What I wanted was answers—clues—a road map for how to navigate my sister's life.

“I'm going to lie down,” I said, heading for the stairs.

“After you eat,” Mom insisted. She waved me back in and opened a can of soup. “Did you drive home? Does the school know you left early? Does Alex know you left early?”

I said yes, hoping my answer to the first question would carry over to the other two. I hadn't told anybody I was leaving. I climbed down off that windowsill and kept going until I found myself behind the wheel of my sister's new car, driving the same roads I had that night, my mind lost in an abyss of unanswered questions, until I found myself here, still pretending, but now at home.

Instinctively, I pulled out the chair I always used and sat down. If Mom noticed, she didn't say anything, but Bailey did. He came up to me and laid his head down on my lap, his tail wagging. He let out a low whine and started nosing my hand, practically climbing into my lap when I petted his head. I pushed him down, but he kept coming back, refusing to leave me alone.

Mom dumped the soup into a bowl, not bothering to measure the amount of water before she poured it in and placed the soup in the microwave. I counted the seconds, then heard her open and close the microwave door before she dropped an ice cube in and placed the bowl in front of me.

That was what I needed to do. In order to survive, I needed to focus on the ordinary stuff in Maddy's life. The color of her nail polish. The placement of pictures on her mirror. The way her shoes always matched her belt. If I concentrated on the little stuff, the pretty stuff, eventually things would get better, being Maddy would become easier.

I took two spoonfuls and then, ignoring my mother's pleas that I eat more, stood up and headed for the stairs. The headache I had lied about was quickly appearing, burrowing its way into my head, taking with it any sense of control I had left. I grabbed the tiny white pill Mom had given me and let it dissolve in my mouth, the bitter taste a stinging distraction before I swallowed. I'd give it ten minutes to work, then I'd add some NyQuil and sleep my way through this living nightmare.

The door to my room was open, the light on my nightstand casting an odd glow across the floor. My iPod was in the player, the random mix of songs each carrying with it a memory long buried. I pushed the door wider and walked in. I hadn't been in my old room this morning, yet my iPod … Ella's iPod was playing music.

My pillow was gone and the contents of the box of personal effects the police had given my parents was strewn across the bed. Next to everything lay dozens of my sketchpads, some going as far back as elementary school, when my artwork consisted of nothing more than a stick figure with a balloon for a head. I gathered them up in my arms, a few stray drawings falling to the floor. Circling the room, I looked for a place to hide them, to store them out of sight. The last thing I wanted was to look at them, to find myself absorbed in the sketches I'd poured my heart into as I replayed a past that was no longer mine.

The door at the end of the hall clicked shut, and I dropped my stuff on the bed, worried that Mom had been watching me. I knocked on her door and waited a half second to see if she would answer before I quietly turned the knob.

Mom didn't hear me come in. She was busy picking up stuff from her floor. My pillow was there and my favorite pair of jeans—the ones I wore so often that they were frayed at the bottom and had a hole in one knee. My most recent sketchbook was there, the one that had the drawings I'd been working on for RISD. She had one torn out, half-taped to black cardboard matting, a glass frame sitting next to it.

I watched her for a minute, her hands shaking as she struggled to tear a strip of tape off. Tissues littered her floor and five half-drunk cups of coffee ringed the area she was sitting in. Mom was exhausted—I could tell by looking at her—but fighting sleep.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

Mom looked up at me, her gaze distant, as if she were seeing something that wasn't there. The smile that eventually came to her face was sad and full of haunted hope. I knew that look, understood it more than she knew. Every morning when I woke up, for those first few seconds when my mind was still hazy with sleep, I would forget that Maddy was gone. Within minutes my mind would clear, reality setting back in, leaving me with the dark truth. Yet I lived for those precious few seconds, longed for them every time I closed my eyes.

“I'm sorry,” I choked out. I had no idea what to say, no idea how to wipe away the torture I could see flooding her eyes. “I'd do it differently if I could. You know that, right?”

That wasn't a lie. I didn't want to be Maddy. I wanted her back. I'd redo that entire night. I'd answer the phone the first time Maddy called. I'd refuse to go get her. I'd text Josh and make him bring her home. I'd do any of those “what ifs” were I given the chance.

“It's not your fault, Maddy.” Mom quickly dried her eyes, the stoic mask she'd worn for weeks sliding back into place. I couldn't help but wonder how long she'd been doing that, how many nights these past weeks she'd handed me a bowl of soup and promised me it was going to be okay, then retreated to her room to silently lose it.

She reached out to touch me, to wipe the tears I didn't know were falling from my cheeks. I backed away, deserving no part of her comfort. “I miss her and I don't know how to bring her back. I'm trying, I am, but it's not working. I'm constantly screwing up.”

“No, you're not.” I turned around at my father's voice. I watched as his eyes drifted past me to my mom, then to the stack of baby pictures she had balanced on one of my journals. His next words drifted out on a sigh, and I didn't know if they were meant for me or Mom. “You're doing fine, better than anyone expected.”

“Why are you here?” I asked.

His briefcase was still in his hand, his tie loosened but still on. He'd gone to work the Monday after the burial service and went in early and worked late each night.

“The school called and said you skipped most of your classes. I called Alex, he couldn't find you either. I tried your cell, but you didn't pick up.”

I pulled my phone from my pocket and stared at it. Nine missed calls. Four from Dad. Four from Alex. And one from Josh. I hadn't heard it ring. Ignoring the rest, I clicked on Josh's number. No message. No nothing.

Dad's hand wrapped around mine, squeezing gently to get my attention. “We need to talk about this, Maddy. The three of us need to work our way through this.”

I yanked my hand free and started to walk away. “Maddy, wait,” Dad called after me. “You can't keep doing this. You can't pretend everything is fine.”

“Do you ever wish Ella had lived?” It was an unfair question to ask, as there was no right answer. If they said yes, if they said they wished Ella was alive, it's not like I was going to come clean and reveal who I was. And if they said no, if they said they were happy it was Maddy who had survived—either way their answer would crush me, leave me feeling more guilty, more trapped than before. But I asked it anyway. “Do you ever wonder what it would've been like if I had died and not her?”

Mom paled, and Dad took a step back. Neither of them spoke. They stared at me as if calculating what the proper response was supposed to be. That silence, that pause in time and the look of dread on their faces had me wondering if they'd thought about it, if I'd asked the one question that they secretly agonized over.

“Never,” Dad replied. “I wouldn't trade you,
either
of you, for the other.”

“Maddy, please.” I heard the plea in Mom's voice, knew that if I looked up, I'd see tears to match. “I've lost your sister. I can't lose you, too.”

I don't know what possessed me to say it. Perhaps I was looking for a way to tell them the truth without having to admit it, without the risk of them actually understanding what I was saying. Without giving a second thought to my words, I raised my eyes to meet my mother's and said, “I'm already gone. I died that night on the side of that road with my sister.”

 

24

I walked the two miles to the cemetery. To my sister's grave. To my grave. It was cold and starting to rain. I'd left my coat at home on the kitchen chair, but none of that mattered. I didn't feel it—not the sting of the rain as it turned to ice or my hands shaking as they hung limply by my side. I kept walking, oblivious to everything.

I knew where the marker was. It was buried five rows deep amid a couple hundred other stones. They laid it yesterday. My parents asked if I wanted to go with them to see it last night, but I didn't. There was something about seeing my name carved into granite that I didn't think I was quite ready to handle.

But I hadn't come here today for visual proof of what I had done, of the finality of the lie I had spun. I'd come to talk to the sister whose life I was trying desperately to figure out.