The Secrets We Keep (4 page)

The first hailstones hit the hood of the car like a steel drum hammering through my head. I turned the wipers on, but one was broken, a quarter of the rubber hanging off the blade. It did little to get rid of the water, rather smoothed it into a giant smear across the glass. Craning my head to see through the one clear spot, I pulled out onto the road.

The familiar chime of an incoming text had me glancing Maddy's way. She whipped her phone out and started typing, pausing only long enough to angle the heat vents toward herself.

“Damage control going well over there?”

“What?” she asked, not bothering to look up from her phone.

“I asked if you had everything figured out over there. If you and Jenna got your stories straight.”

“What does Jenna have to do with anything?”

Jenna had everything to do with it. As far as I was concerned, she was the one who'd taken my sister away from me, introduced her to that crowd of popular people, and kept her there. If it wasn't for Jenna, I'd still have my sister … my best friend. The one who used to camp out with me every Fourth of July in the backyard. The one who always gave me the bottom part of her ice cream cone for my baby doll Sarah. The one who took away the book
Your Body and You
that Mom had given me in the sixth grade and gave me her own, unadulterated version of the truth. Jenna had taken
that
Maddy away from me without asking, and I wanted her back.

“Jenna has everything to do with it,” I yelled. “Everything!”

Apparently I'd hit a nerve because for the first time since we got in the car she put her phone down and looked at me. “You have no idea what Jenna's life is like. None whatsoever.”

Maybe not, but I didn't care either way. “Doesn't matter,” I said as I turned my eyes back to the road. “No matter how you slice it, she is still a mean, selfish cow.”

I didn't need to look at my sister to tell she was getting annoyed. I could feel it, the air around us so thick with tension it was suffocating. “What's your problem, Ella?”

I don't know if it was my irritation with the wipers, that I was now freezing without my coat or shoes while she sucked up the heat, or because I was simply exhausted, nervous about getting into RISD, and stressed about the Physics test I still had to study for, but I snapped.

“My problem?
My problem?
I don't know, how about the fact that I dropped everything to come and pick you up, yet you won't tell me why? But the people who wouldn't leave their beers long enough to drive you home … they get the whole story.”

She glanced at me, her mouth opening once to speak before she shut it and waved me off. “You wouldn't understand.”

“You're right, I don't. You worry so much about what they will think and say, but I'm the one who's always bailing you out. I'm the one who took your Spanish test last week so that you could pass and not get kicked off the field hockey team for failing a class. I'm the one who's tired and freezing my butt off over here so Mom and Dad won't find out that you snuck out. The least you could do is—”

“You want your coat back, here, take it.”

She took off the shoulder portion of her seat belt and tucked it under her arm, then tugged at the sleeves of my jacket. I held my hand up to stop her. I didn't want the coat; she could sleep in it for all I cared. “It's not about the coat, Maddy. It's about me always having to pick up your pieces.”

“I never asked you to—”

“You called me. You. Called. Me.
Me!”

“Maybe,” she said, and shrugged. “But you didn't have to come.”

I had to swallow hard to hold back my tears. I'd always done whatever she asked. But no matter what I did or how far I went for her, she'd kept me on the outside, five safe steps away from her and her inner circle.

When we were kids, I knew everything about her. We had one diary until the age of thirteen. One. Each day one of us would write in it, then hand it to the other to read and write her own entry. The embarrassment I felt on my first day of middle school when I tripped and fell in the cafeteria, my lunch going everywhere. The pain Maddy felt when she found out the boy she liked in seventh grade bet his friends he could get her to make out with him in the janitor's closet. And the fear and excitement that first time we went off to camp the summer before fifth grade, wondering if people would like us, but not really caring because we had each other. Back then we shared everything, including those things that were too embarrassing to say out loud. Now, I was lucky if I got a nod of acknowledgment as I passed her in the hall.

“I'm not doing this anymore, Maddy. You're on your own with school, with Mom and Dad, with everything.”

“Wait … What? Why?” She anxiously rattled the questions off, not giving me time to answer before continuing. “You can't do that. If they find out, I'm screwed. They'll ground me for weeks. I can't. Alex's birthday is next week, and the Snow Ball is coming up, plus Jenna's having a—you can't. You're my sister, you can't.”

“Not my problem.”

“Why, Ella? Why are you doing this to me?”

“I'm not doing anything. That's the point, Maddy. I'm not doing anything for you anymore. Like I said, you're on your own. I do all the work and you get—”

“You're jealous. You're doing this because you're jealous.”

I didn't bother to respond to that. It was a ridiculous thing for her to say and completely untrue. The last thing I wanted was to be her, constantly worrying about what I looked like, who I was dating, and watching what I said. She was always on, always pretending to be perfect. Too much work for me.

“Do you know what I'd give to be like you?” she asked. “How much easier it is for that nameless person in the back of the class who doesn't have to worry about what people think or how they…”

I didn't hear what she said next, I was still trying to process the nameless-person-who-no-one-gave-a-damn-about comment. I mean, I wasn't an idiot. I knew what people thought of her versus what they thought of me. The countless pictures of her on my parents' bureau, the massive number of people who seemed to gravitate toward her at school, and the fifty thousand text messages she got each day compared to my ten were evidence enough. Hearing her say it though—my own sister admitting that nobody in school cared much about who I was—somehow made it real.

“That's who you think I am?” I asked, unable to hide the small quiver in my voice. “That's what you and everybody else think?”

“What do you care?” she fired back, obviously still angry. “According to you, who cares what people think?”

People … yeah. But she wasn't some random kid at school. She was my sister.

I wanted out of that car, away from her. Forget the rain, I'd walk home. It'd take me over three hours to walk those ten miles, but I didn't care. Let Maddy scramble to come up with an excuse as to why I wasn't there when Dad got up to walk Bailey and found my room empty. Knowing her, she'd shrug and claim she'd been asleep and had no clue where I was. But I'd fix that. As soon as I walked in that door, as soon as Dad let the first question fly, I'd fix that.

“Picking me up is the least you can do for me,” she continued, her voice rising to a deafening pitch. “After everything I've done for you, the people I've—”

“You've never done anything for me!” I fired back. “Since the day you set foot in Cranston High, you haven't done anything for me. It's as if I'm not your sister anymore, as if you are too embarrassed to be seen with me.”

“You have no idea what they say about you, Ella,” she griped. “How many times I've had to make up excuses for the way you act and dress.”

“Oh, I've heard it. Jenna made sure—”

“You think Jenna is the worst of it? You have no clue. You think
you
cover for
me
? You should hear the things
I
have to say to my friends to explain your lack of social skills.
Ella is shy. Ella is quiet. Ella gets nervous around people.
”

She stopped yelling at me long enough to catch her breath, to let her irritation morph into pure anger. “You sit there with your one friend and look at the rest of us like we're idiots. Well, you know what? You're the selfish one, and I'm sick of your crap! I'm sick of you always acting like you're better than me when we both know you're not!”

I slammed on the brakes and yanked the wheel hard to the right. The sooner I was away from her the better. She grabbed the armrest, the sudden jerk of the car taking her off guard. Good. About time. I wanted her off guard.

For a brief second, I felt the tires catch the road, the tremor in the wheel as I forced the car to turn when it didn't want to. The friction eased, and the wheel stopped shaking. The car slid in every direction. I felt a sharp tug on the wheel, and I wrenched it back, trying to make the car go straight. I pressed the brake to the floor, demanding that the car stop, but it kept floating along.

I saw the side of the road, the three-inch concrete curb that separated us from the trees. There was no ear-piercing shriek, no grabbing for the door to brace myself. Nothing but complete and utter silence.

The car teetered when it hit the curb but didn't stop. It spun sideways and continued on its path. I turned and saw the same horrified gaze on Maddy's face that I knew was on mine. Her eyes widened and her lips parted on a silent scream as the trees grew bigger, grew closer.

I heard, saw, and felt it in slow-motion. Branches scraped across the top of the roof, each grinding sound showering the windshield with dead leaves. The car shook, bounced to the left, skimming the trunk of a tree. I watched it happen, saw the bark peeling away, a pale blue streak of paint left in its place.

Maddy's cry shattered my own. Through the windshield, I could see the trees flying by. The car was still moving, picking up speed as it lurched to the right, balancing on the outer edges of its tires before tumbling over.

The thin tip of a branch snapped and fell on the hood of the car. I had a second of relief before I heard the windshield crack. My eyes fixed on the glass as I saw the crack spread, the circles widening and creeping out until the windshield finally shattered and coated me with shards of glass.

Somehow I had the presence of mind to brace myself, to grasp on to the steering wheel and lock my arms. I looked over at Maddy. She was screaming, her eyes closed and her hands flailing around for something to hold on to. Her hand brushed mine, and I grabbed it, clutching it with every ounce of strength I had.

There was no blinding light when we finally hit the tree, only burning pain followed by darkness. Total, desensitizing darkness.

 

5

Noise. That's what brought me out of the darkness I was trapped in. Voices, alarms, the screech of metal, the thud of running feet—all of it combined into one jumbled mess of noise. I fought through the black fog, tried to grab on to each faint sound, hoping it would pull me farther and farther away from the massive weight that seemed to settle upon me.

“No, not yet,” someone yelled, and the hands I could feel at my side vanished. I tried to move, to bring my fingers to my face and physically claw away the wet haze covering my eyes. But nothing would move. Not my arms, not my head, not even my legs. It was as if my entire body was crammed into a metal vise.

“Easy there.” The voice was back, unfamiliar and soothing at the same time. I felt my eyelids being pried open, the searing light burning into first my left eye, then the right. They fell closed and the light disappeared, the pain lingering behind.

“Can you tell me your name?”

“We have to move.” It was a woman now, her words sharp and curt.

Move? Move where? I wanted to sleep. Sleep? Wait. I couldn't sleep. I needed to go pick up Maddy. She'd called me from Alex's house, something about needing a ride home. Wait. No. I was at Alex's. She was crying out on the back lawn. That's why I was wet. Her tears were falling on me. Nope, that wasn't right. It was the rain.

I shook my head, tried to piece together the flashes of information. None of them made sense. She'd said I was the nameless girl. A nobody. That, I remembered, and a bubble of anger resurfaced—anger laced with pain.

Pain? Wait … what? My head hurt. I mean, it freaking killed. Like somebody had taken a pickax to my eyes. And why was I wet? I concentrated on my fingers, got them to obey me enough to brush against each other. They were soaked but warm. Why was the rain warm?

“Stay with me.” There was the man's voice again, but this time it wasn't soothing. It sounded urgent, demanding.

My feet were cold. Shoes. I'd left them at Alex's house. No, Maddy had left
hers
at Alex's house. She had mine. She had my sweatshirt and coat, too; that was why I was so cold. At least I thought she did. I tried to look down, but my head wouldn't move. It was plastered in place.

It hurt to breathe. I pried my eyes open and saw the flashing lights. What had happened to my windshield? Was that a tree branch on my dashboard, and what was with the red paint coating the jagged pieces on the passenger-side window?

“Hurts,” I choked out.

“I know.” I turned toward the man but couldn't make out his face. It was blurred … hazy. “I'm going to give you something for the pain, but first, can you tell me your name?”

My name. My name? God, it hurt to think. I shook my head, the idea of having to formulate one single word was too much to bear. I saw a flash of metal to my right and tried to turn my head. They were cutting something; the sound of the metal blades hitting each other tore through my mind. Maddy's side of the car was dented in, dirt and leaves ground into the thousands of spiderweb cracks that laced the window.