All Your Twisted Secrets

by Diana Urban

  “So what did you say?”

  “The truth. That your grandmother was trying to set you up with every eligible Indian boy in town.”

  Priya stretched across the table and shoved my shoulder. “Shut up, no you didn’t.”

  I laughed again. “What? If anything, it made him jealous.”

  “No way—”

  “Hello, ladies.” Scott appeared at our booth, wearing a white apron over his usual all-black attire, and set down two huge cappuccino mugs. “On the house.”

  “Aw, that’s so nice! Thanks,” said Priya, grinning up at him.

  I glanced around the quiet diner—only two other customers occupied the booths next to the windows. “Are you allowed to give this to us?”

  He shrugged. “Whatever. I’m bored out of my skull. There are only so many times you can wipe down an espresso machine.” He picked up our empty mugs from earlier. “See? I’m so bored I’m cleaning up your shit.”

  “That’s kind of your job, isn’t it?” I teased.

  Before he could reply, Sasha burst into the diner and, spotting us, squealed. “Hey, lady!” She rushed over, and I stood for a hug. After cheerleading camp, she’d gone straight to Paris with her parents for a week, so I hadn’t seen her all summer. She kissed the air on either side of my face, and then gave Priya a hug.

  Scott still hovered, as though waiting for his greeting. “’Sup.”

  Sasha lifted her sunglasses, perching them atop her head. “Ugh! Why are you always everywhere?”

  “Why are you never nowhere?” he retorted. He returned to the bar, shaking his head.

  “Oh my God,” she muttered. What was Sasha’s problem with Scott, anyway? This wasn’t the first time I’d seen her snap at him. “Listen.” She nudged Priya’s shoulder. “Can you scram? I’ve got to talk to Amber about Romeo and Juliet stuff.”

  Priya glanced at her fresh cappuccino. “But we’re still catching up.”

  “Yeah, well, this is important.” Sasha put a hand on her hip. “And time sensitive.”

  “But I haven’t seen Amber all summer.”

  “You can catch up later. I mean, you could stay, but you’ll be bored out of your mind. We’re just going to be talking about the play.”

  Priya glanced at me. “Did you know she was coming?”

  I bit my lip. I’d forgotten to tell Priya, but I didn’t think Sasha would boot her like this. “Yeah, I invited her. But I’ll text you when we’re done, and you can come over.”

  “Ugh, fine.” She grabbed her purse and slid from the booth, and Sasha took her place.

  “So.” Sasha leaned forward, placing her elbows on the table. “I have some updates about Romeo and Juliet.”

  “My summer was fantastic, how was yours?”

  Sasha clucked her tongue. “Hardy har har. No seriously, you’ll want to hear this ASAP.” Her brow furrowed, like whatever she had to say wasn’t good news. My stomach lurched. Oh no. “I just came from a drama club meeting.” I never went to those meetings. “Amber, you have so much on your plate,” Sasha had said last spring when I’d asked if I should attend. “You handle the orchestra, and I’ll handle drama club. It’s the least I can do.”

  “Oh, God.” Panic flooded my veins. They hadn’t decided against Romeo and Juliet, had they? I’d just sent Sasha the finished score two weeks ago, and I was so proud of it. But what if all that hard work was for nothing? “They don’t hate the music, do they?”

  “No, no!” Sasha said. “The music is fantastic . . . it’s just that, well, people think doing a straight-up Shakespeare play is kinda boring.”

  Oh, God. No, no, no. Did they think my composition was boring? I’d worked so hard on it; I’d put every ounce of my soul and energy into it. How was it not enough? “What do you mean?” My voice shook. “I thought everyone was on board. And we’re doing a modern rendition. It’s more like a retelling, anyway. And you’ve already written the script—”

  “Amber.” Sasha reached across the table and grabbed my hand. “Calm down. We can still do the play if we add a few singing numbers.”

  I snatched my hand back. “Wait, what?”

  She scrolled through her phone and pulled up her notepad app. “We’ve decided on a few scenes that we think would be great as songs.” She glanced up at my startled expression. “Just a few! The balcony scene, the beginning of act four where Juliet threatens to kill herself, and Juliet’s suicide scene.”

  “But . . . but . . .” My mind raced. This was completely out of left field. The majority of the work was done. The orchestra was supposed to start learning the music next week when school started, and we’d only have to adjust for tweaks to the script or stage direction. “Adding just a few random singing parts will sound ridiculous. Besides, I’m no Lin Manuel. I’ve never scored a song to lyrics before.”

  “Well, then this will be a fun challenge,” Sasha said enthusiastically.

  “No! It won’t!” I said so loudly that the three other people in the diner turned to stare. Scott raised his eyebrows.

  Oh, God. This was a disaster. I wanted to send a recording of a gorgeous, haunting, ethereal score off to colleges, not some hacked-together score smattered with random singing numbers.

  Sasha picked up Priya’s full cappuccino, her pinkies extended. She took a sip as she stared at me over the lip of the mug. “Listen, I tried arguing against this, but I was very much in the minority. The thing is, if you don’t agree, I’m afraid everyone’s going to insist on doing Grease instead.”

  I felt my face drain of blood. She must have seen me go pale.

  “I didn’t want to have to tell you this,” she went on. “But they already wanted to switch.”

  “What?” I felt like I was going to puke.

  “But I convinced them we could make Romeo and Juliet more fun . . . more vibrant . . . if we add these few singing numbers, and some more jokes to the dialogue.” She rubbed her eyes and let out a great sigh. “I would feel horrible if you lost this chance. You already did so much work. I’d hate for it to be for nothing. But, I mean, if you really are against this, I’ll let everyone know—”

  “No. Don’t.” I took a deep breath. “I’ll do it.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah.” My stomach churned. This was going to be so much extra work—and I wasn’t even sure I’d be able to pull it off. But I had to try. “Thank you, Sasha. Seriously. Thank you for fighting for this.”

  “Of course.” A smile crept across her lips. “We’re in this together. I’m not going to let some drama geeks ruin this for us.”

  36 Minutes Left

  I stared at Sasha, unsure how to answer her. Did I think she was a bitch? After everything she’d done over the past year, absolutely. But her total lack of self-awareness shocked me to my core.

  Unless she knew, and she was faking.

  “Guys,” said Diego, stepping between us. “Let’s focus here. Does Becky have a reason to hate you?” he asked Sasha, who vehemently shook her head.

  “Sasha,” said Robbie, “you know I love you, but you’ve been mean to Becky, too. I mean, come on.” He shoved his fingers in his pockets. “We all have.”

  I took a wary step forward. “Just think about all the things you’ve said about her behind her back. About her outfits, her glasses . . . does any of that ring a bell?”

  Sasha glared at me, poking her tongue into her cheek. “Alright. Fine. So what about you?” she asked Priya. “Does Becky have a reason to hate you?”

  Priya shook her head, dumbfounded. Sweat dampened her hairline. Then she tilted her head. “Well, we used to be friends with her,” she said, looking at me. “But then . . .”

  I nodded. “Yeah. We both kinda ditched her. But I don’t think she hated us—or hated me at least—until we started hanging out with Sasha.”

  Sasha crossed her arms. “Oh, please. You can’t think she hates me enough to hate you by association. At least, not enough to kill you.”

  “I wouldn’t put it past tha
t freak show,” Robbie muttered.

  “Okay, so let’s say she does. That just leaves you.” Sasha spun on Scott. “What does Becky have against you?”

  Scott shrugged, a small smile playing on his lips, his head lolling back against the wall. “Don’t know. Can’t think of anything.”

  “Nothing?” said Sasha. “You can’t think of a single time you might’ve pissed her off?”

  “Nope.”

  “Then why the hell are you here?” asked Robbie.

  Scott’s grin widened, and what he said next sent a chill running down my spine. “I dunno. Maybe Becky thought I’d be the one psycho enough to kill one of you.”

  4 Months, 1 Week Ago

  SEPTEMBER OF SENIOR YEAR

  The warning bell shrieked, jolting everyone from their blissful five-minute reprieve from boredom. I edged open the girls’ bathroom door and peeked into the hall. Except for a few stragglers racing toward their fifth-period class, the coast was clear.

  I slinked out of the bathroom toward the nearest stairwell. But before I could reach my destination, Priya rounded the corner down the hall, coming from the junior wing. I dodged into the next doorway. Crap, crap, crap. If she spotted me, she’d want to have lunch together.

  Guilt coiled around my heart. I hated avoiding my best friend like this. But I needed this hour to write a new song. With only three months left until opening night of Romeo and Juliet, I had to finish those new singing numbers.

  In the biggest upset of drama club history, Sasha had secured the lead role over Maria. Since there were only a few singing numbers, she finally had her shot. She was bursting at the seams when she told me the news.

  I could only cringe. I hadn’t made much progress on the new songs, since I was so busy. Between leading orchestra practices (under Mr. Torrente’s supervision), going to Robbie’s baseball games, doing homework, and studying—not to mention juggling Sasha’s and Priya’s demands to hang out—I was lucky to get five hours of sleep a night. Plus, I wasn’t exactly eager to write these songs. I still thought they were a ridiculous idea.

  “You can still back out if you want,” Sasha had said. “But everyone might decide to switch to Grease instead. They’ve all got the words memorized anyway. I mean, we all do. It’s Grease! But Maria would definitely get to play the lead . . .” I couldn’t let her down. I couldn’t let myself down. I’d already put so much work into this play.

  So now I was in a race against the clock, and this was my only free hour all day thanks to orchestra practice and a date with Robbie tonight. Should I break my plans with him?

  After our carnival date, Robbie came over whenever he didn’t have practice or games at his summer baseball camp. Mom was thrilled she could keep an eye on us since she worked from home, but Dad would grunt, “You can’t date until you’re forty-seven,” whenever Robbie showed up with his swim trunks or laptop and gamer headset. But after a few weeks, Dad fired up the grill next to the pool each night and asked Robbie to stay for dinner. They even threw around a baseball a few times, and Dad installed Fortnite on his own laptop. It was kind of adorable.

  But once school started again, our packed schedules meant squishing impromptu dates between other commitments. We didn’t both have another night free until the week after next, so I didn’t want to cancel on him tonight. Priya had to be the one I ditched this time.

  With my back pressed to the side of a locker, I peeked around its metal frame, waiting for her to turn right toward the cafeteria. If she saw me, she’d guilt-trip me—

  “Can I help you?” Mr. Baskin asked from the doorway. I whipped around. His entire class had been watching my little performance.

  Someone snickered, and heat crept up my neck. “Uh . . . no.”

  “Great. I suggest you get going then.” He bristled his mustache. “Unless, of course, you’d like another rehashing of the French and Indian War, hmm?” He motioned for me to enter the room.

  “Er . . . that’s okay. I got the gist this morning.” Becky giggled from the first row. I shot her a scathing look. Her smile collapsed, and she started erasing the corner of her blank notebook page. Remorse immediately flooded my veins, but I stepped out of the way, letting Mr. Baskin shut the door. I peered down the hall. No sign of Priya.

  I hurtled into the stairwell and collapsed in the alcove behind the stairs. Muted daylight filtered through the tiny window in the back door, dimly lighting the space. It was pouring, so hopefully nobody would pass through here to go outside.

  Heaving a sigh, I fished my earbuds from my messenger bag, cursing the limited number of hours in the day. Too bad I didn’t have any of that caffeinated gum Sasha carried around. Setting aside my exhaustion, I got to work on sequencing the double bass loop with violins, flutes, and percussion, creating soft, subdued harmonies. As the stanzas whizzed by on my screen, Scott’s face materialized next to my laptop.

  I jumped so hard my laptop slipped and fell. “Whoa. You scared me to death!” I yanked out my earbuds.

  “Back atcha’, Red.” Scott stuck a cigarette between his lips and dug through the pockets of his beat-up leather jacket. “Didn’t expect to see you here.”

  I paused the track and shut my laptop as a clap of thunder rattled the door. “Right. I’ll go.”

  “No worries.” Scott flicked on the light. “Hang out. I won’t tell if you won’t.” He wiggled his cigarette.

  I eyed him warily and opened my laptop again. “Okay. Deal.”

  He nodded toward the laptop as he lit the cigarette. “So, what’s shakin’?”

  “Bacon.”

  He smirked. “No, really. What’re you up to, hiding out here?”

  “Mind your own business,” I huffed, wanting to get back to work.

  He quirked an eyebrow. “Perusing illicit websites, huh? Didn’t think you were the type, Red.” He shook his head and took a drag.

  “What? No! I’m not . . . I’m . . .” I hesitated, considering whether to tell him the truth. If Priya found out I was hiding in stairwells to avoid her, she’d be crushed. She took everything way too personally.

  “Well, you’re clearly hiding some dirty little secret.” He held his breath for a few moments and finally blew out a puff of smoke, watching my expression. Suddenly, his face fell. “Oh, shit, Red. Are you hiding from Phil? They’d never let him into the building, you know.”

  My stomach plunged, remembering Phil’s stony expression as I spotted the gun in his bag, and when he told me the truth about his abusive father. He wouldn’t try to get revenge on me for turning him in, would he? I shuddered. “No, no. It’s not that. I’m . . . I’m working on something. I just needed somewhere to focus.”

  Scott’s face relaxed. “Oh.” He plopped down next to me, cross-legged, and eyed my laptop. “Wish I had one of those. I have to use my pop’s old PC from like the ’90s or something.”

  “Seriously?”

  He shrugged. “Nah, it can’t be that old. All I know is it crashes more often than it starts up. Figure that one out.” He took another drag. “So what’re you working so hard on?” Before I could answer, he hooted. “Ha! Hard on.”

  “Oh, geez.” But I had to bite back a grin. “I’m working on a composition, if you must know.”

  “I must indeed! A composition . . . as in, music? For the play?”

  “Way to connect the dots.”

  “Well, you could be composing an essay. Or literature.”

  I scoffed. “People don’t say that.”

  “So where are your instruments?”

  “I use a program to write music.” I tilted the laptop toward him so he could see the stanzas on the screen.

  “Ah, okay. So you write the music for each instrument, and it puts it all together, right?”

  I grinned, impressed. Most people were clueless about composition. “It’s more nuanced than that, but yeah, that’s the idea. Once you like what you’ve got, you can record the song with a keyboard modifier, or with real instruments, like we’ll do at the play.�
� I scrunched my nose. “Ugh. Whatever you’re smoking smells like skunk—” Oh, God. Was he smoking weed in here? I smacked the laptop shut and shoved it into my bag. “Dammit! Scott!” I lowered my voice to a whisper. “Are you trying to get me suspended? I didn’t realize you were smoking pot.”

  He laughed. “You’re hanging around Sasha’s crowd, and you’re still that naïve?”

  I eyed the joint and scanned the ceiling for smoke detectors. There was one in the far corner near the door to the hallway, its red battery light blinking like a threat. “They don’t do drugs. At least, not around me. They only drink.”

  “Not even Sasha?”

  “Nope.”

  He raised the joint to his lips. “This is a shocking development.”

  “Why?”

  He rested his elbows on his knees, flashing me a coy smile. “Just is.”

  What did he mean by that? Did he know something about Sasha that I didn’t? I smacked his arm. “Why’re you shocked? Tell me.”

  “Hey, you want me telling her your dirty little secret?” He nodded toward my laptop and took a long drag.

  “It’s not my dirty little secret. Sasha’s the one who asked me for these tracks. I’ve got nothing to hide.” I bit back the irony of that statement, being that I was literally hiding in a stairwell.

  He let out a puff of smoke. “And what Sasha wants, Sasha gets.” His voice came out bitter, which was weird for him. He was usually so blasé.

  I furrowed my brow. “What do you mean?”

  “Nothing. Forget it.”

  “You obviously mean something.”

  He slowly rolled his joint between two fingers, pondering something. “Well, let’s take you, for instance. I may or may not have overheard part of your conversation at the diner . . .”

  “Yeah, whatever, it’s fine.”

  “Okay. Well, think about how you caved to her in like two seconds. That didn’t seem weird to you?”

  “I didn’t cave to her. I caved to the drama club. Sasha was helping me. If I didn’t agree to those new tracks, they would have switched the play to Grease instead.”