by Deb Loughead
“I already told you how. You have to go over there. You have to face them, share your best memories of Kit. Tell them how much you liked him.”
“I really did like him, so much.” Ellie’s face is soft and crumpled. “I loved it when we did that Circle of Friends thing with him, you know? It’s just that when we got to high school, Kit became more distant. Or maybe it was the rest of us who did. He sort of got lost in the crowd. He was only in one of my classes, instead of all of them, like in middle school. By the end of ninth grade I hardly ever saw him or talked to him.”
“You’re telling all this to the wrong person,” I remind her.
“Okay, Clems. I promise, I’ll consider visiting the Stitskis,” she offers me a shaky smile. “Even though the thought of it scares the crap out of me.”
“I know how you feel,” I say, reaching for my books.
“So, did you come up with any half-decent ideas for the revue?” Ellie asks, changing the subject.
“Yup. And, actually, I think we should do one about Kit.”
“Really? Hmmm.” Ellie frowns. Then her glum face morphs into a smiling one. She follows me toward the auditorium just as the bell rings over our heads.
We all gather on the stage as usual. I have no real game plan. I’m going to wing it. When it’s my turn to present, I’ll just make it up on the spot, tell Ms. Raven and the rest of the class my idea for the revue theme. I haven’t had a lot of time lately to make notes, and I didn’t even bring them along today. But they’re still scribbled in my head, and I can only hope that they’ll come out sounding cool instead of lame.
I let everyone else go ahead of me. The other four ideas are quirky, creative, and fun, which makes mine feel like a huge downer.
When Ms. Raven says, “Anyone else?” I don’t even move.
Until I hear Ellie’s voice. “I think Clem has a cool idea, Ms. Raven.”
When the drama teacher nods at me, I stand up. I look around at everyone, sprawled there on the stage, waiting for me to share my idea.
I take a deep breath, fill up my lungs …
“Okay, so everyone remembers Kit Stitski, right?” Everyone nods enthusiastically. “Well I think this could be a cool way of honouring him. In sketches and song and dance. Call it The Kit Stitski Revue. Cause he loved all that stuff, and being on stage, too. And we could invite Ms. Stitski and Kit’s brother Kevin as special guests. We could use a sort of ‘time’ theme. There’s tons of material out there related to time. Because Kit was obsessed with it. And as it turned out, we never did get to spend enough time with him. Did we?”
I take another deep breath then sit down. The ghost of an idea. That’s all I’ve got.
One person starts clapping. When I look over, Ellie is sitting there nodding her approval. When I glance at Ms. Raven, she’s beaming. Then she starts to clap.
And then, everyone else on the stage does, too.
I cannot wait to be alone with Jake. Sunday night behind the garage is stuck in my mind like gum on my shoe. I swear the time is ticking backwards all day long. I don’t even get to see him during lunch because he has to work on a group science project in the library. I even walk past the library door a few times, just to try to peek inside and catch a glimpse of him. Pathetic.
He’s waiting at my locker when I get there after school, though. Leaning against it, with a wide and lazy smile. Jake is waiting for me. I still want to pinch myself. Even more when he pulls me up close and kisses my forehead. I snuggle right into his arms like I belong there.
“I missed you,” he says close to my ear, and every goose bump on my body prickles.
“Me, too. So much.” I’m still not sure about all this. About where Jake and I are going, or about what we’re leaving behind.
And who knows? Maybe throughout our lives we’ll all have some secrets that we need to keep close. Not just to protect ourselves, but to protect the other people in our circle of family and friends who could be even more damaged by them than we are.
Jake told me a secret out by the garage last night, very close to my ear, something that nearly made my heart stop. And I’m never, ever telling. Because it was just for me.
Copyright © Deb Loughead, 2016
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All characters in this work are fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Cover image: © JanLeoKaak/iStock
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Loughead, Deb, 1955-, author
The secrets we keep / Deb Loughead.
Issued in print and electronic formats.
ISBN 978-1-4597-3729-7 (paperback).--ISBN 978-1-4597-3730-3 (pdf).--
ISBN 978-1-4597-3731-0 (epub)
I. Title.
PS8573.O8633S43 2016 jC813’.54 C2016-903882-3
C2016-903883-1
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