Please Don't Tell Part 12

If I can curl and uncurl my fist thirteen times before anyone stands up, I won't screw up the next thing I say, either.

"I'm having these a.s.sorted losers over my house at the end of the month," he says. "You should come. Raise the average IQ. There's not enough smart people in my life."

My stomach leaps. It takes me a second to recognize it: happiness.

"I'll show you my bed. It cost, like, two thousand dollars. Tempur-Pedic." He pushes his shoulder into mine and winks. "You'd look good in it."

It's so hard to tell when he's joking. Would a normal girl be annoyed or flattered? What would Joy do?

"I wanted to tell you, um," I start. Bad transition. "You . . . you should never feel like you have to live up to your grandfather. That's a lot of pressure-"

"What are you talking about?" He laughs, but it's mean. "What do I care what music some old dude made a billion years ago? He's dead and irrelevant."

His warmth is gone. I ruined it.

He looks around restlessly, glances at Joy's goofy smile. He mean-laughs again. "Is this her first time?"

"It's mine, too," I say defensively.

"Don't get all November on me. I like you sweet." He looks at me more closely. "Lemme pack another bowl."

This time, when he lights it, I suck in hard, determined to do it right. His face, so close: "Don't breathe out yet." I don't. A fire builds in my chest. My eyes water. I cough loudly. Can't stop. He pays no attention, takes a long hit, holds the pipe out to me again. I don't want it. I take it anyway.

My thoughts are tangled. I'm wearing too much makeup. Gross. I'm gross.

"Quit hiding your face." He pulls at me. No. Don't look. Even if someone saw what's inside me, they wouldn't want to help.

Adam disappears at the end of a long tunnel. Then Joy's with me. In the gra.s.s. "Grace?" She's the sky. I'm underground. She's so tall. My eighteen-minute-older sister. Protecting me from monsters. But the real monster's in me, and while she's waving her sword, it's eating me.

I'm vanis.h.i.+ng. She presses her forehead to mine, giggling, and I'm still vanis.h.i.+ng.

Then, suddenly: bright, bright lights.

"Oh s.h.i.+t!"

Noises. Everyone getting up. Joy's yanking at me. "Grace. Graaaace. Come on." Adam's running. I watch him, sideways. His guitar bouncing on his back. Write a song about me. Shouting. Flashlight beams. Crackling voices. Joy, panicking. "We gotta run, come on!"

I'm in a cage, Joy. I can run in as many circles as I want. I'm still not going anywhere.

"I can't believe this," Mom keeps saying. "I just can't believe this."

She drives fast, jerking around each corner. Stanwick shuts down after ten p.m. Everyone else in the world might as well be dead.

Joy's balled up in her seat, shoeless. It's been-two hours? Three? Everything's still furry-edged.

Officer Roseby's chin jutted out when he spoke to Mom and Dad, like he'd done something honorable for the world by putting us in the back of his police car. It was his daughter who got us high in the first place.

"Teenage girls. I'm telling you," he said, but he didn't explain what he was telling us. I've never heard someone say teenage girls without disdain. What's wrong with us, that everyone hates us so much?

Mom and Dad are murderously quiet. Guess what! I'm not perfect after all! I got high! I broke a rule! I snort. Joy shoots me a terrified look.

"You're both grounded for the rest of the summer," Mom hisses.

But Adam invited me- Then she says, "I expected better from you, Grace Morris."

Joy freezes. I freeze.

"Both of you," Mom amends quickly. Dad rubs the back of his neck. "I expected better from both of you."

But it's already settled into us forever. Joy tucks herself against the window. A tear breaks down her cheek.

Rage fills me, hot and b.l.o.o.d.y. How dare anyone hurt her?

"You are so lucky Officer Roseby decided not to press charges," Mom continues. "It would have gone on your record. Your college applications, down the toilet. Your futures . . ."

I'm not listening to her anymore. I don't belong to her. I belong to my sister and she wants me out of my sh.e.l.l.

So I'm coming out.

NINE.

October 13 Joy THE SENIORS SQUEEZE FIVE TO A COUCH IN the counseling room. Kennedy-Ben-Sarah, a few others. People who were at the birthday party, but n.o.body talks about that.

"Princ.i.p.al Eastman's going to trial."

"That girl, Savannah Somerset, her mom pulled her out for the semester."

Guilt and nausea are almost the same thing. They both overwhelm me.

"Remember, people," says Ms. Bell, "we're here to talk about what happened."

I stare at the faces around me. n.o.body stares back. I thought I'd feel the blackmailer's presence, like an alarm going off.

Ben's hollow eyed; Kennedy looks like she hasn't showered in days; Sarah's usual eyeliner is gone. They're like this because they loved their dead friend, not because any of them are blackmailing me.

They should have known Adam better. They should have warned Grace.

"Officer Roseby interviewed me yesterday." Kennedy hugs her knees. "I guess Mr. Gordon'd wanted him to find out about, like, alcohol."

So I wasn't the only one interviewed. Maybe the blackmailer didn't send Roseby to my house as a threat after all. But finding that note right afterward-it's too much of a coincidence. He's threatening me. Telling me he's not afraid to get the police involved.

"Adam lived next to that quarry his whole life." Grief has turned Ben hard. "He wouldn't fall in, drunk or not."

My head is full of a thick fog. When was the last time I ate? How long I can keep doing this?

"It feels like everyone forgot about Adam." Sarah's eyes are blank. "Because of Princ.i.p.al Eastman and Savannah. n.o.body cares anymore."

"Adam's half brother does," says Kennedy quickly. "The new kid. He asked me all these things about Adam. I told him about that thing he always did with his car, and how he brought doughnuts to math cla.s.s twice. . . ."

Levi's sweats.h.i.+rt and the baseball cap are in my backpack. I almost threw the cap in the trash.

Sarah starts, "If this thing with Savannah hadn't-"

The door opens, and Ca.s.sius walks in as his sister's name is dissolving in the air. It's the first time I've seen him all week. His black eye's mostly faded, but there're bags under both eyes now. Grief or guilt?

I'm not scared, I'm a fighter- His steps stutter when he sees me, but he doesn't leave. He sits on the last free couch. It groans beneath him despite the weight he's lost. A tree branch would snap.

But if it's not him . . . it's somebody else, faceless, scarier, someone capable of murder.

Then November follows him in. What's she doing here? I tap the spot next to me, but for some reason she sits beside Ca.s.sius. All the rubber bands on her wrist are gone.

"Let's go around the room, share our memories of that night." Ms. Bell faces November, who's closest to the door.

"I was only there for a second. So I don't have much to talk about." She doesn't look at me.

A little fire kindles in me. I pull out my phone and text her.

u went to adams birthday party?

She reads my message with her brow furrowed, and starts typing.

It was a bad idea.

That doesn't explain anything. Then something occurs to me.

did u see me there?

No you must have gone early and left early. I showed up late.

how come u didnt tell me u went?

Are you kidding? Don't act like you're ent.i.tled to information about my life when you've completely shut me out lately.

The fire in my stomach zips out, leaving me cold.

I hesitantly shut my phone off. "My biggest memory of that night is how Ca.s.sius punched Adam in the face," Ben says suddenly.

The silence is acidic.

November stands up. "What are you trying to say?"

"All I'm pointing out," growls Ben, "is that Ca.s.sius a.s.saulted Adam, and that same night he ended up dead."

"Rumors and accusations are not welcome here," Ms. Bell says sharply, no trace of her usual lilting tone.

Even Sarah quits wiping her eyes long enough to glower at Ca.s.sius. I guess Preston's not the only one who suspects him. I try to be afraid of Ca.s.sius but I can't. There's no way he's capable of murder when he can't even sit up straight.

"When they arrest you, I hope you resist." Tears bud in Ben's eyes. "I hope they have to shoot-"

November launches across the room and slaps him in the face.

"November!" cries Ms. Bell.

Ca.s.sius's expression contorts. He rushes out of the room and Nov follows him out. Ben bark laughs, clasps his cheek. "I mean, come on! After what he said about Adam at the funeral? You're all thinking it. Mysterious guy, never talks-fits the profile, right?"

n.o.body pays attention to me leaving.

The halls are deserted. Everyone's in cla.s.s or in the cafeteria for lunch. I don't realize I'm running until the echo of my footsteps bounces back at me. I slow down near Grace's old locker, where I used to slip her notes and drawings.

I don't see November immediately. I hear the splas.h.i.+ng first. I stop and look up. She's scouring the outside of a locker with wads of wet paper towels, her shoulders trembling with effort.

"Nov?" I say.

She jumps, knocks over her water bottle. The word on the locker in black paint is blurry but readable. KILLER.

"Don't you dare tell me you think it was him, too," she says fiercely.

"That's Ca.s.sius's locker?" I whisper. "Where is he?"

"He left school. Saw this and ran. Not sure where he went." She squeezes the paper towels. "Help me get this off before the bell rings. I don't want anyone else to see it."

We get more soap and water from the bathroom. With our arms moving up and down in silence, the letters vanish fast.

I inhale. "I didn't mean to shut you out-"

She pauses, then hugs me unexpectedly, a November hug, tight and calm. "Everyone blames him because he called Adam a p.r.i.c.k at the funeral. But calling a spade a spade doesn't make him a murderer. He's a scapegoat-he only moved here a couple years ago, he stands out. And he's a big black guy-that doesn't help," she adds bitterly. "Meanwhile he's f.u.c.ked up over his sister. He doesn't have anyone else right now."

"You don't suspect him at all?"

"I suspect everyone of everything, except for him. All you have to do is look at him."

"You're right," I breathe. "There's no way."

"My a.s.shole father thinks it was him. I swear that's why he's interviewing people. Investigating alcohol, yeah right. Mr. Gordon knows there was booze. He probably enlisted my dad to hide the fact that he bought it. It's the first chance my dad's had in this town to play real cop again and he's going to find a murderer if he has to make one out of Play-Doh."

"I thought there wasn't a formal investigation happening?"

"There isn't. Everyone else at the police department thinks it was an accident."

Even if it wasn't Ca.s.sius, it wasn't an accident. It's someone else. Someone watching me who knows where I live.