The Last Words We Said

by Leah Scheier

  “If you’re going to read that, I’m leaving,” he declares.

  I bow my head over the folder, slide away from him. He sighs loudly and then disappears as I start to read.

  THE SECRET KEEPER

  Emory Island was unlike any other land. Its people had long ago discovered the key to happiness. They had learned from countless conflicts and wars that the source of human suffering was falsehood. So, they decided that the only way to rid themselves of lies and deception was to remove all secrets from their society.

  They appointed a Secret Keeper, someone who would draw the poison out of their lives and store it away. Their Secret Keeper had an odd power; the moment someone deposited their story with him, the pain of the memory would vanish, and they could return to their families happy and unencumbered.

  The post was obviously a sacred one; the Keeper had to be trustworthy and wise. In many ways he was like the community priest, but unlike a priest he could not forgive their transgressions, because he wasn’t God. He simply stored the sin, so it wouldn’t hurt the rest of the world. The Keeper loved his job because he saw that he brought peace to his people. But their problems and hidden thoughts lay heavy on him, and before long he was bowed down by the burden. His hair turned white; his back was bent double from the weight of their cares; his breathing became labored and wheezy. And then one day he learned the worst secret of all, the one his wife was keeping from him, and his heart broke from the shock. They buried him in the back of the cemetery, hidden behind a row of rosebushes, so that no one would be reminded of the darkness that he had carried for them.

  The Keeper’s son was appointed to take his father’s place, but the boy was young and not ready for the gravity of his post. He had barely hit his growth spurt and was still trying to speak without cracking his voice.

  And yet, the people of the island rushed to bring him their latest pain, unloading decades of insults and betrayals in a single afternoon. The boy groaned under the strain but took it all in; he knelt at his father’s grave and swore to him that he would make him proud and bear whatever was laid at his doorstep.

  By the time he reached puberty the boy had learned the hidden guilt of everyone on that island. He managed to take all their secrets and store them faithfully, and never once did a disloyal whisper escape him. Even his mother’s confession was safe with him, though it tore through him whenever he thought of it.

  And then one day the boy fell in love. It happened in a moment, aboard a sinking ship. He spotted her, clinging to the railing, crying into the ocean. It was the worst moment in the world to fall in love, because he had to be brave for her, though he was ready to heave and smelled strongly of sweat. But somehow, the girl never noticed this. When he spoke to her, his voice became calm—almost like an adult’s. As he looked into her frightened gray eyes, he opened his mouth to tell her his name—and the world’s stories poured from his lips. He never once betrayed anyone’s secret, their tales twisted and intertwined until their owners became unrecognizable, but she was nevertheless mesmerized by his words. And he discovered that he could never get enough of her.

  For years they talked about the world around them and all of its stories, but he never told her how he felt about her, because that was his secret, and he was, after all, the Keeper of Secrets. Besides, it was a heavy thing to be the Keeper’s girlfriend, for he wasn’t sure he would be able to open his heart to her, while guarding his people’s cares. What if he should slip one day, and tell her everything? It was better not to take the chance.

  If he hadn’t kissed her, they might have remained happy friends forever. But he did kiss her, and then he kissed her again, and then suddenly his life became a race between kisses. He could never get to her fast enough, and when he was with her, it was a countdown until they were forced apart.

  Every love song spoke to him; none of the breakup songs made sense. How could love make you cry, as those lyrics claimed? Love made him jumpy and restless, and sometimes it made him breathe really heavily. After a couple of hours of steady making out, it made him pretty hungry. But there was never a reason to cry. Because after they were together all he wanted to do was tell the whole island that he’d just kissed the most beautiful girl in the world. And she’d actually kissed him back.

  But the people kept bringing him their secrets. Some of them were complicated and confusing. Some made him sick to his stomach. Some were whispered in shame, others shouted in anger. One was never even spoken, just given to him with a look. And he couldn’t tell his love a single one, because they didn’t belong to him.

  He was carrying them all, he was holding on to his own, and she was kissing him through all of it. But no matter how close he got to her, he never betrayed his people’s secrets.

  Instead, he betrayed her.

  There were no excuses.

  He didn’t have a reason.

  He just did it. He didn’t even realize what he’d done, until he saw the look on her face. And because there was no justice on that island, only peace and blindness, the people never stopped loving the boy, even after he betrayed her.

  But they spit at the girl and drowned her in their scorn.

  The boy wanted to give up his post immediately, to hide himself away and seal his lips forever. He’d never hear another secret because he should never have been the keeper of anything, much less her happiness.

  He promised he would never tell another story.

  None of them mattered now.

  Because she wasn’t listening anymore.

  I flip the page and encounter a blank sheet, with our teacher’s red scrawl at the bottom. “Nice beginning but incomplete,” Ms. Baker had written. “B-minus. Please finish the story.”

  The irony of her comment was probably only obvious to her after Danny had been gone awhile. I wonder if that’s why she’d hung on to the assignment as long as she had. She’d never had a chance to hand it back to him, and he’d never had a chance to finish it.

  When he wrote that story, he was still waiting for me to talk to him. And now, almost a year later, he was still waiting. Somewhere out there, Danny was counting the minutes until I found him, just as he’d counted the minutes huddled outside of my bedroom in the freezing cold.

  “Danny,” I whisper, and suddenly he’s there again. “I forgive you. I’ve forgiven you a thousand times, you know.”

  He doesn’t answer because he can’t. Nothing he says will make me feel better, and he knows it. So he just slips into my bed and buries his head deep into my pillow. I snuggle close to him and lay my face as near him as I can, without touching him.

  That night I dream that Danny’s hand is covering my eyes. For the first time in months, I can actually feel his skin against mine, and it’s the best dream in the world. I can’t see anything because he’s blocking the light, but I don’t care. He will tell me what I need to see. Honestly, I’d rather keep my eyes closed forever than wake up and find that he is gone.

  IF PILLOWS COULD TALK

  I didn’t want to get into it with my friends, but my shomer relationship wasn’t the happy little tea party that I’d been painting. Sure, Danny and I had awesome late-night conversations about everything from celebrity scandals to the meaning of life. He’d even commented once that our talks were what made us a great couple—the best couple in our high school, in his “unbiased” opinion.

  But after he hung out with Greg, our conversations sometimes took a different tone.

  “I’m crazy about you, Ellie,” he said in a voice that sounded more like an accusation than a declaration of love. “I’ve told you that a thousand times. And I’ve never kissed you once. How is that normal?”

  “But we’ve talked about this already,” I reasoned with him. “You don’t have to kiss me. I know you care about me as much as I care about you.”

  He stared stubbornly at his lap, refusing to meet my eyes. “Yeah, well, that’s nice to hear,” he muttered after a moment. “It’s just hard to believe sometimes.”


  And suddenly we didn’t feel like the best couple—anywhere.

  So, I came up with ways to show him how much I cared about him, while not breaking the rules—sort of.

  Some were sweet and made him smile. (I’d kiss a piece of white chocolate and then place it on his tongue. “Look at us—we’re shomer French-kissing!”)

  And some were freaking crazy.

  Once, we were discussing how weird the whole kissing thing was, if you truly thought about it. I figured that if we overanalyzed it, it would lose some of its appeal. (I was wrong.)

  “I mean, if aliens were watching us, they’d think we were insane,” I pointed out. “Two people basically mushing their lips together, for a few minutes. It’s weird, right?”

  He stared at me for a moment before answering. “Just a few minutes? That’s all you’d want?” His eyes had the bewildered hurt-puppy look he got when I teased him about his skinny legs. “After all this time, it would just be a few minutes?”

  I couldn’t handle it when he looked at me like that. “Not for us,” I assured him quickly. “For us, it would be hours.”

  He grinned. “Hours? Come on. You’re all talk. You wouldn’t last thirty minutes.”

  I crossed my arms. “Wanna bet? Just wait. When we finally do kiss, I’m not going to let you go. You’ll probably end up starving to death.”

  He inched a little closer to me. The puppy look was gone. He was staring at me like a hungry wolf, and the fire in his eyes made him so unexpectedly sexy that I had to look away.

  “Is that right?” His voice was hoarse and strained. I was trying to keep it together, but looking away wasn’t helping at all. I could literally feel the heat radiating off his body, just inches from mine. “Come on,” he teased. “You’ve never kissed anyone. You wouldn’t know what to do.”

  “I know better than you!” I retorted. “I’ve practiced. A lot.”

  “A lot, huh?” He sounded like he was choking back a laugh. I still couldn’t bring myself to look at him. “So you’re an expert, then?”

  “You don’t believe me?” I grabbed my pillow and held it between us, pushed him back against the wall. He made an “oh” noise that sounded like a cross between surprise and desire. I was panting with frustration, drunk with excitement. I’d never felt so wanted before, and I was scared that the feeling would break me. I wanted to be strong; I was the sensible, calm one who was supposed to guide us along the impossible path of virtue. But at that moment I dared to look up at him, and the expression on his face undid me. He wasn’t mocking me anymore. Danny was all desperation.

  I wanted to show him how I felt. I needed to kiss him, once, fiercely, perfectly, to banish all his doubts forever.

  But I couldn’t because it was forbidden.

  So instead I attacked the pillow between us with such fierce energy, it would have made a porn star blush. There were sounds, and tongue, and so much messy, misdirected passion that I think I shocked the breath out of him. When I finally came up for air, he was totally still, and bright red all the way to his hairline. The pillow was lying crushed between us, a battered testament of my love for him.

  “Are you going to—hurt me?” he gasped. He was staring at the jagged hole in the lace lining.

  I shrugged. “Only if you deserve it,” I whispered. I was trying to sound seductive, but it came out more psychopath than siren.

  He didn’t appear to notice. Maybe weirdness turned him on. Or maybe he was so frustrated that even a damp pillowcase seemed sexy at that moment.

  “God, Ellie, that was so—hot,” he growled.

  I pursed my sore lips at him. “Told you so.”

  And then he grabbed the pillow from my hand. “Oh, baby, you ain’t seen nothing yet.”

  Like I said, sometimes the shomer thing got freaking crazy.

  Chapter 16

  Danny is with me most of the time now. I rarely wake to my alarm because he whispers in my ears every morning until I throw a pillow at his face. He hides in the closet while I get dressed and pretends not to peek. Sometimes at breakfast he licks one of my pancakes when I turn my back and then dares me to figure out which one. He comes with me to school and hangs around my chair while I try to concentrate. And, of course, he snuggles with me as I fall asleep.

  I know we’re breaking every single one of Nina’s rules, but I don’t care. Her eventual goal was to wean me of my need for him, but I don’t want to be weaned. I like being with him. And I don’t see the harm. Danny’s my private joy. I know no one else can see him, so I’m not shouting at empty street corners. And it isn’t like my grades are falling, or I’m becoming a hermit. I still hang out with Deenie and Rae most afternoons, I play board games with my parents on Shabbat, I visit Mr. Edelstein after school, and I go on my morning runs. Danny helps me do all these things. He’s my rock, and I can’t imagine my life without him.

  Besides, he’s coming back soon. I’m not going to pretend I’m over him just to please my psychologist and my parents. And I’m not going to let him disappear like everyone else has.

  According to Nina, I’m making “progress.” The therapy is just a Band-Aid for my parents, some scheduled reassurance that I won’t scare them again, the way I did after Danny’s accident. Now my mother can say, Ellie’s seeing someone, to anyone who asked how I was coping. She’s doing so much better.

  And she’s right. I am. But it has nothing to do with Nina. I’m doing better in spite of her. And it’s a good thing I am, because the Jewish High Holidays are just around the corner, and I know I can’t get through them without Danny.

  The Jewish New Year, or Rosh Hashanah, falls in October this year. It’s a pretty long affair, a two-day holiday with a five-hour morning synagogue service. Rosh Hashanah is followed by Yom Kippur, Sukkot, and then Simchat Torah, all within a four-week period. Each holiday is celebrated with multiple feasts. My dad complains that he always gains ten pounds between September and October. I don’t mind the eating, but the hours in synagogue do get pretty boring. We repeat prayers. A lot.

  The previous year I hadn’t minded the interminable mornings. I could see Danny sitting in the men’s section next to his father. He was just on the other side of the crack in the curtain that separated the women from the men. That curtain was meant to prevent us from becoming distracted during prayer. I know I’m supposed to focus on God, repentance, and my soul. But God also put that crack in the curtain. So, the service had been a game of “What faces can I make at Danny without my mom noticing?” By the time our parents caught on, we were nearing the end, and the two of us had had the best five hours in synagogue ever.

  This Rosh Hashanah is different. It’s eerie how nothing else has changed since the previous year—every face is familiar, every prayer sung exactly the same. I sit in the same seat, my mother on my right, Deenie and her mom on the left. Someone has sealed the crack in the curtain, and anyway, there’s nothing to see on the other side. I spend a few moments studying the Memorial Wall beside me; it contains hundreds of names illuminated by little light bulbs; each name represents a departed soul looking down at us from heaven. I follow the names up toward the ceiling and gaze at the ornate arched windows. At that moment the sunlight breaks through and lights up the bima where the rabbi is standing. It’s breathtaking; as the Shema is chanted the hall is bathed in a Divine glow.

  I bow my head over my siddur and mouth the prayers with the congregation; I close my eyes and rock to the rhythm of the songs. I float, buoyed by the Hebrew melodies; I bow before the ark, pulled by the weight of worship. I believe God is here with me; I can hear Him in the murmured voices around me. So, I speak to Him with my own words, the ones I’ve said a thousand times. “Please, God, bring him back. I know it’s my fault that he’s gone. But I’m begging you. Please, forgive me and bring him back.”

  “Ellie! Come outside!” Danny’s whisper is so sudden and unexpected that I jump in my seat. I glance over my shoulder, and there he is, bouncing quietly on his toes behind me. He’s wearing j
eans and his favorite black polo, and his hair is way too wild for synagogue. I know I can’t speak to him here, but I shoot him a guarded smile. What are you doing in the women’s section? And where is your kippah? I ask him with my eyes. He whips his kippah out of his pocket and mashes it down on his head.

  “There. Now will you come outside?”

  I steal a glance at my mother and then back at Danny. Why shouldn’t I take a break? No one will notice if I’m gone for a few minutes.

  As I sneak out into the foyer, a gust of wind whips around me and slams the heavy door shut behind me. It’s blessedly quiet out here, the drone of the prayers just pleasant background noise in the empty corridor. “Where are you?” I whisper, and he’s there before I finish the question, teetering cross-legged on top of the radiator. “I’ve only got a few minutes,” I warn. “Then I have to get back.”

  “Or what?” He grins and cocks his head to the side. His kippah slides off his head onto the floor. “God won’t forgive you?”

  “I was trying to concentrate on the davening, for once.” I’m forcing myself to be serious because some part of me feels guilty for talking to him here in this holy place. It’s one thing to break Nina’s rules or my parents’, but how can I expect God to be on my side when I’m flirting with my boyfriend right in the middle of Rosh Hashanah services?

  Danny takes the cue, and the smile on his face fades. “What were you davening for?” he asks.

  “What do you think?”

  “Me?”

  I nod. “Of course. Always you.”

  He climbs off the radiator and walks up to me. “You were pretty intense back there,” he says quietly. “Like you really believed.”

  “I do.” I look up into his eyes. They’re darker than I remember, like the color of the ocean before a storm. “You know I’ve never lost faith.”