Please Don't Tell

by Laura Tims

  “You know I’m not mad.” I nudge her back. “I’d never be mad at you.”

  “Remember when I buried all your Halloween candy in the yard and you didn’t get mad?”

  “Because I was crying about not getting that much, and you thought it’d grow into candy plants.”

  “You still should have been mad.”

  If I got mad at her, I wouldn’t have anyone else.

  “Change of topic. You’re in here now, we’re hanging out now. Let’s play the secrets game,” she says, like the last time we played it was yesterday and not five years ago. She sits up, grinning. I try not to want to run away. “Me first. You’re gonna die about this. I had a sex dream about Cassius Somerset last night.”

  The president of the Art Club, the quiet boy with the skin condition. Adam’s best friend. Since when does she have sex dreams? Should I be having sex dreams?

  “Your turn,” she says.

  She hates Adam because November hates Adam. They make fun of his guitar, his band T-shirts, his hair. She’d point out all his flaws. Ruin him. I’d never see him again in any way but hers.

  I don’t say anything.

  My real secrets now: I’m afraid of everything. I don’t ever want to get out of bed. I hate school. I’m fat. I’m not good enough. I want to be her.

  She thinks I never used to be like this, but I’ve always been like this.

  “Jeez, Grace. You gotta open up more. Like me!” She laughs. “But not too much like me.”

  FOUR

  October 3

  Joy

  To Joy Morris—

  I was at the party. I was at the quarry. I saw what you did.

  I saw you murder Adam Gordon.

  I want you to post the enclosed photos all over the school. Do it early in the morning before anyone can take them down. Slip them into lockers. Hide them in classroom desks. Don’t bring them to the police.

  Speaking of the police:

  If you don’t do what I say, I’ll tell the police what I saw.

  I’ll tell them what you did.

  This is impossible.

  Nobody saw anything; there was nothing to see. Preston said I left the party before Adam died.

  I crumple the letter and throw it into a corner of my room, not even looking at the photos in the envelope. I turn off the lights, crawl under my blanket. My own breathing echoes harshly back at me. I need Grace here with me, I need—

  It’s a dream, I try to convince myself. I’m going to go to sleep now. When I wake up, this will all disappear.

  Instead I tremble for long, dark hours. I pretend my breathing is Grace’s. When we were kids, she’d get nightmares, bad ones, and I’d climb into her bed and tell her nothing bad can happen to someone who’s under a blanket. I pull the covers over my head and pray that’s really true.

  When the sun rises, the letter and envelope are exactly where I left them. Okay. So it’s a fucked-up prank. I’ll take it to Principal Eastman. Or Ms. Bell. Somebody’ll recognize the handwriting.

  But when I get up to look at everything in the light of day, I realize the note’s typed, not printed.

  I saw you murder Adam Gordon.

  I didn’t, I didn’t. I wanted to, but I didn’t.

  I scatter the pictures on the carpet. There’s three, four. But they aren’t photographs of me shoving Adam into the quarry. They’re images of Principal Eastman, his thick hair, jutting chin, the ridge of his naked shoulder, the rest of him naked, too—

  Just like the girl he’s with.

  I’ve seen her in the halls. She’s a freshman. Young. Too young for his hands to be crossed pseudoartistically over her stomach, over—

  This is illegal. This is wrong. Principal Eastman papers his office walls with portraits of himself with students, but none like this. I think of all the hours Grace has spent in that office.

  I’m dizzy. I have to call the police.

  Don’t bring them to the police.

  I have to tell somebody.

  If you don’t do what I say, I’ll tell the police what I saw.

  But what did he see? My lips tingle, my blood slows in my veins. I try to put the photos back in the envelope and drop them twice.

  Could I tell Mom, Dad? Jesus, no. November—no, no, she has to think I’m okay. Grace? I can’t show her these pictures. What if they trigger—

  What if she believes what this person’s saying? That I murdered—

  I bend over and breathe with my head between my knees for a few seconds.

  Preston. Pres’ll remind me how I couldn’t’ve done it, how he looked for me, how I was gone before Adam died. I just need to hear him say it again. Then I’ll take the photos to the police and get Principal Eastman arrested.

  I get dressed, force myself to eat something. Mom’s on the phone with a client on the drive to school. It’s not until she pulls up to the curb, so early that only one bus is here, that she covers her phone with her hand and mouths, “Are you okay? You’re pale.”

  “I’m fine.”

  I’m fine. The envelope is in my backpack. Grace is still sleeping, probably. She sleeps later and later now.

  “Your father and I work today. I’m at the office until six and he’s training a new client. We can’t pick you up if you’re sick.”

  “I’m fine, Mom.”

  She stares for a minute, brow furrowed, while I rearrange my face. Finally she nods and lets me go.

  Pres always hangs out downstairs before the bell. I go past the gym and the double doors that lead to the auditorium, I turn in to the hallway that leads to the art room, and I stop. There he is, at the end of the hallway, walking toward me, not noticing me yet. He always slouches, which hides the fact that he’s one of the few here taller than me.

  Four freshmen trail him. Three are guys I’ve seen getting high in the relaxation garden after school, so proud about it. They’re tiny, loud, they throw stuff in the cafeteria. One, a girl, lags—

  The girl from the photos.

  Her name . . . Sahara, or Savannah. She’s shy. I get the sense she hangs out with the guys for the same reason I hung with Grace’s study group—because I wasn’t attached to anyone else.

  I don’t want her here at school. I don’t want her anywhere near Principal Eastman.

  Then one of the freshmen calls Preston the f-word.

  Pres looks up, sees me finally, his face red. The freshmen slow. In the back, Savannah bites her lip, ties her hair to the side, and unties it again. People do not normally bully Preston. This is because, in the second semester of our freshman year, I gave the captain of the lacrosse team a bloody nose for calling him a retard.

  “What the fuck do you want?” The freshman sniggers at me. I stare at him. Adam wore that exact Jim Morrison T-shirt.

  And then I punch him in the face.

  All the photos are still on Principal Eastman’s office walls. In the one next to the window, he’s with Savannah, his arm around her shoulders while she looks at the floor. In another one, he’s with Grace. I’m gonna throw up.

  “I know Adam Gordon’s death affected many of us strongly.” Eastman talks slowly, heavily. Is it him or is something wrong with my ears? Are his photos that blurry or are my eyes messed up? “But after this morning’s display of violence, I’m seriously considering suspension, Ms. Morris. And Mr. Fennis tells me you’re still failing American History. What’s going on with you, Joy?”

  Don’t talk to me, don’t look at me, I want my sister.

  I turn my hands over, like they’d’ve been stained if I’d pushed Adam. My mind spins. Was Preston wrong about me leaving the birthday party early? Or is someone using me to try and humiliate Principal Eastman? Someone who knows I blacked out that night, that I had a reason to want Adam dead? But the only people who know about that reason are me and Grace and Pres and a dead person.

  Eastman leans forward across his desk, puts his hand on my knee. I yank back so hard my chair nearly tips over—

  “Principal Eastman
?” someone says.

  Sunlight pours into the room. Levi’s in the doorway. Levi, Adam’s half brother, from the funeral.

  “You are?” Principal Eastman squints.

  “Levi Pham. I’m just starting today. You wanted to meet with me,” he says cheerfully. “Adam Gordon’s half brother, remember? I have my mom’s last name.”

  Go away, go away.

  Eastman winces. “I’m dealing with a situation. Please wait outside and I’ll call you in.”

  He stares at my leg, the one Eastman touched. “Actually, I thought you might want my input, since I saw what happened. I was in the hallway.”

  He’s lying. Why’s he lying?

  “Preston was getting bullied,” he continues. “Joy stuck up for him.”

  “Yes, thank you,” Eastman says irritably. “But that hardly excuses violence.”

  “Everything I heard about this school stressed the no-bullying environment. I thought it was impressive. Joy told me how important this school’s reputation is to her.”

  “She did?”

  The walls, my lungs, they’re shrinking.

  “She was the first Stanwick High student I talked to,” says Levi. “Told me all about how the principal makes it so nobody’s singled out.”

  Eastman’s nodding calmly and I have naked photos of him with a freshman in my bag and Levi’s chattering all eager in the doorway and someone says I pushed his half brother into the quarry. I’m losing my mind.

  “She stood up for the school’s principles,” Levi finishes. “So I think the school’s principal should stand up for her.”

  I wasn’t standing up for anything. I snapped. If that’s what I do when I snap—

  What if I snapped at the quarry?

  Eastman adjusts his mug that says PRINCI PAL. “I’m going to use that for the website. ‘Stand up for Stanwick High’s principles, and Stanwick High’s principal will stand up for you.’ You’re a smart young man. Just like your half brother.”

  Levi lights up.

  “You ought to meet Joy’s sister sometime. She’s working from home this semester on a special independent research project. We allow our students to spread their wings here, if they prove themselves.” Eastman quits smiling, turns to me. “Though we still need to address your American History grade, Joy. There will be a need for consequences if you can’t pull it up.”

  His words fizz in my ears.

  “I can tutor her,” Levi offers.

  My vision goes even weirder. There are two of him now. Twins, like me and Grace.

  “Excellent!” Eastman actually hits the table. “The more capable leading the less capable, that’s what Stanwick High stands for.”

  I’m not breathing normal, my body isn’t normal.

  “Joy, you’re in for detention this week, but you’re off the hook for suspension. On the condition that Levi does, in fact, tutor you in American History. And you raise your grade to at least a C.”

  I gasp out, “I have to go to the bathroom.”

  I run down the hall, ignoring everything and everyone around me. I find my way upstairs and into the girls’ bathroom. Everything I look at bounces slightly, like there’s an earthquake. The toilet water jumps in the bowl, shaking along with my hands and the walls and the air. I manage to unzip my backpack and pull out a tiny bottle, swallow twice, and cough, hard. This is the upstairs bathroom, people will hear these sounds.

  The bathroom door swings open. “Joy?” Levi’s voice.

  Go away, please, I’m dying.

  His shoes stop in front of my stall. “Are you okay?”

  “This. Is the. Girl’s bathroom,” I wheeze.

  “That didn’t stop you yesterday when it was the men’s room.”

  I didn’t lock the door, and he opens it, and then he’s crouching in front of me, holding something up. “Breathe with this.You’ll be okay.”

  There’s a GIF on his phone, a trapezoid unfolding, inflating, collapsing again. I squeeze carbon dioxide out of my lungs as it shrinks, suck oxygen back in as it expands. My fingertips quit tingling. It’s my head and I’m in control of it. They’re my lungs.

  “Am I dying,” I choke.

  “No.” The sunlight from the bathroom window glints off his earring. “Panic attacks suck.”

  I sit on the floor for a minute before I say, “Why’d you follow me?” I have enough air for words now.

  “You started hyperventilating halfway out the door. Your douche principal didn’t notice.”

  I need to talk to Preston, I need to figure out what to do about the note. Levi—Adam’s half brother—is the enemy. “You should be in class.”

  “Two seconds ago you asked if you were dying. I’m not leaving you here by yourself.”

  “I’ll go to the nurse’s later.”

  “Do you want me to get a friend for you? That redheaded guy? The girl you were at the funeral with?”

  “Pres’d freak, and Nov—” My stomach disintegrates. “Don’t tell November. Okay? Don’t say anything to her.”

  “I promise.” He reaches for my wrist, snatches his hand back. “Right. You don’t like that.”

  I’m shivering. He shucks his sweatshirt and drapes it over my shoulders.

  If he knew what the note said, he’d be calling the cops. I need to call the cops. Those photos are sick. It’s sick of me not to bring them to the police right now just because I’m scared that this person is telling the truth. That I killed—no, enough. I grab Levi’s phone and stare at the trapezoid again.

  “I know I’ve apparently inherited your hate for my half bro,” he’s saying, “and that’s fine, and you are within your constitutional rights to tell me to get the fuck out of the girl’s bathroom, but . . . what’s going on?”

  I can’t remember that night. I can’t prove anything.

  “Joy? You don’t look . . .” He falters. “Is someone at your house who could pick you up? Your parents? Your sister?”

  If the cops got involved, what Adam did would come out. And then Grace’d hate me forever. She said she’d hate me forever if I told.

  I make words. “I’m okay.”

  “I am very sorry this shit is happening to you.”

  I want him to know I’m a bad person so he’ll stop being so nice to me. “When I was eight years old I was mad at my sister, so I filled her ant farm with water. They all drowned. But she didn’t get mad at me.”

  “Okay,” he says like I’m not croaking nonsensically. He waves a hand. “I hereby absolve you of that.”

  “That’s what murderers do when they’re kids, right? Kill bugs and animals?”

  “Everyone does stuff when they’re little.” He doesn’t take his eyes off me. “I also think people generally believe they’re capable of a lot worse than they actually are.”

  Maybe he doesn’t have any Adam parts. “Why are you helping me?”

  “You gave me a ride home after a shitty couple of hours of my life.” He shrugs shyly. “And you helped me in a bathroom. Now it’s my turn.”

  “You lied to the principal for me.”

  “I didn’t lie. I was here early this morning, signing up for classes. I was on the stairs and I did see you. You looked exhausted, but the second that asshole opened his mouth, you were on him. Like sticking up for your friend was more important than whatever else.”

  My friend. Preston. I remind myself that Pres will know what to do about the note, once I tell him. The knot in my throat loosens slightly.

  Levi’s smiling at me again.

  “You can’t tutor me,” I say. “I’m not smart. I don’t understand things, you’d get frustrated. I’m just going to fail no matter what and I’ve accepted that.”

  “I’m—”

  “Thank you for helping me with Eastman. I know I’m being an asshole, but I can’t be—friends with you. I can’t tell you why. So you and me alone in a room, it wouldn’t work.”

  “I get it,” he says. “I’m not gonna tutor you.”

  Duh. He was l
ying and I gave him a speech.

  “I’m going to help you cheat. You can copy my homework, and I’ll sit next to you on quiz days so you can look at my answers.”

  He says it like I’d be doing him a favor by saying yes.

  “What?” He rotates his earring. “What’s the look for?”

  “I’m just surprised. You didn’t seem like the type to condone cheating.”

  “Seriously? The earring, the hair? The whole point is to look like the type. Girls love the type.”

  I start to smile, but the bell for second period rings out in the hall. In seconds, everyone’ll swarm the bathroom.

  “Sometimes there’s stuff going on that makes grades impossible. That doesn’t mean you should be screwed,” he says. “I would suck at tutoring anyway. I think your principal’s assuming I’m gonna be this straight-A Asian stereotype. Plus I owe you. I was weird to you at the funeral.”

  “You weren’t weird. I was weird.”

  “Look, I’m gonna go before I make my big first day impression as the guy who chills in the girl’s bathroom. But, real quick. My first day impression of you is that you’re a badass. You picked up my dad, you punched an asshole. Whatever’s going on, you got this.”

  He picks up my backpack, passes it to me. The side pocket’s all unzipped and my heart stops—the photos are half sticking out. For a millisecond, I swear he looks. I grab the bag, hold it close.

  But he doesn’t say anything else. Just gives a little wave and leaves.

  It’s not until he’s gone that I realize I’m still wearing his sweatshirt. I reach into the front pocket and there’s his old baseball cap, folded in on itself.

  Preston’s not at lunch. He has Chem Club meetings every day. And he’s not by his locker when school finishes.

  When I get home, there’s mac ’n’ cheese powder on the kitchen counter, a pot and two plates in the sink, cereal flecking a bowl by the toaster. Grace does this sometimes. Hits the kitchen and eats everything in sight and vanishes five minutes later. The beat of the treadmill pulses through the house. She’ll be on it all night.

  I reach for chips and know immediately that food’s not going to work out. So I go to my room. Nothing on my windowsill.