Secrets, Lies, and Scandals

by Amanda K. Morgan

  Besides, his mother had just gotten him a brand-new bike, right before he’d come here. One he’d barely ridden.

  One that was now gone. He’d looked everywhere. He’d combed the area behind the school. He’d even checked around his aunt’s block, in case someone had taken it by accident and dropped it off nearby. But no.

  Someone had stolen the bike. On the night of the accident, someone had taken the bike he had left there after they’d stashed Stratford.

  “Do you like it?” His aunt stood in the driveway, her chubby arms crossed over her chest. She was grinning a wide, cheesy grin of pure happiness. It was making her glad to give him something.

  “Is this . . . is this for . . .” Mattie trailed off.

  “I already have enough cars.” His aunt dug in her pocket and pulled out a key fob. It was black and smooth with silver buttons and a keychain attached that said Mattie in ornate lettering. “Take it.”

  He stared.

  She laughed, and then she crossed the driveway and placed the key fob in Mattie’s hand. He felt his fingers close around it.

  It was warm from being in her pocket.

  He couldn’t stop looking at the car.

  The gift would have made him uncomfortable on a normal day. Neither of his parents could afford more than a used Toyota, and now his aunt had unloaded a beautiful black car that his parents couldn’t afford in a million years. And it was for him.

  Of course, it wasn’t a normal day. It was infinitely worse. Because on a normal day, he might have just said he couldn’t accept such a valuable gift and felt guilty for declining.

  But today? All he could think today is that he didn’t deserve it. He’d helped cover up a murder. He was a criminal.

  (And lost his bike.)

  And so he got a fancy car. Sitting there in the driveway.

  A physical manifestation of his guilt.

  “I don’t deserve something so nice,” he said, voicing his thoughts. “I can’t accept it.”

  His aunt stepped closer and squeezed his shoulders. “Look, Mattie. I’ve been watching how hard you’ve been working at this class, okay? You’re killing yourself over it.”

  Or someone else. Mattie gritted his teeth. “Yeah,” he managed finally.

  “Plus, I noticed that your bike has disappeared. What happened, Mattie?”

  This was so hard. This was all so hard. “I don’t know. I forgot to chain it up at a convenience store the other night, and when I came back, it was gone.”

  It wasn’t true.

  It wasn’t.

  After class, when he’d gone to unchain the bike—he hadn’t forgotten to lock it up after all—the chain was lying broken on the ground where his bike had been.

  And he thought he was being messed with. Or punished. Or maybe someone had been watching them.

  Maybe they’d stolen his bike while he and the others were busy loading Dr. Stratford into Kinley’s trunk.

  He’d been turning over the possibilities in his mind ever since. They’d sunk in, deep, and probed harder and harder until every thought hurt, deep in his brain.

  His aunt put his hand over her heart. “Oh, you poor dear. Did you tell anyone?”

  Mattie shook his head. “It was embarrassing.”

  “Should I call the police?” his aunt asked. She pulled her cell phone from her pocket. “The police chief adores me, you know. I donated a large amount of money at a fund-raiser last year.”

  “No!” It burst out of Mattie. “Please, I don’t want the attention. Please.”

  She raised her hands. “Okay, okay. Then you’re taking the car. I know you walked to class today. Your parents would never forgive me if something happened to you in my care.”

  Mattie looked down at the key in his hand.

  It was too late for all of that.

  “Take it out for a spin,” his aunt urged, patting the hood like the car was a giant animal. “See what she can do.”

  Mattie nodded. At least it would get him away from her horrible, well-meaning questions. “Yeah.”

  He forced himself to hug her. And he found that once he was wrapped in her arms—someone really and truly grown-up, someone who loved him—he didn’t want to let her go.

  “Thank you,” he whispered.

  When she released him, her eyes were shiny with tears. “I know you appreciate it, Mattie. Now go have fun, okay?” She grinned at him and dabbed at her eyes.

  Mattie climbed into the car. But before he had even started it, his phone vibrated.

  Derrick had posted a photo.

  He clicked on it.

  It was Derrick, dancing with another guy. Derrick, in the shirt Mattie had given him for his birthday. Derrick, who was clearly forgetting all about Mattie.

  #Danceitup #Lovemylife

  Mattie put his phone into the cup holder and circled out of the driveway.

  He waved at his aunt, and the gate at the edge of the property opened slowly in front of him.

  Mattie turned out onto the road.

  And he wondered what it would be like to never, ever come back.

  Kinley

  Tuesday, June 16

  “The door is locked, right?”

  Tyler was lying on the bed, right next to Kinley. One of his hands was playing with her hair, and the other was draped across her.

  “It’s locked,” she promised. “Besides, my parents are at a fund-raiser. They have no idea you’re here, okay?”

  She’d made sure of that. She’d actually pretended to be a little sick earlier. Not that it was even necessary. It’s not like Kinley ever had anywhere to go. Any friends. Though her father had looked at her a little oddly the few days since the Tyler incident.

  “I think your dad might actually try to kill me if he sees me again. I used up one of my nine lives just trying to get away from him.”

  Kinley giggled and snuggled closer to him. “So you’re a cat?”

  Tyler meowed, and she laughed harder. She needed him. As long as he was here, she could be okay. She could go without thinking, without being. Everything would be fine.

  Just fine.

  And when she started thinking about that, thinking about Tyler was the only thing that could turn her mind off.

  She knew this was all too fast. But she didn’t want to stop. She didn’t want to give it up.

  “You’re fun,” he said into her ear. “I like you.”

  She turned on her side, so she was close to him. And her lips were close to his. “I like you too,” she said. “And I don’t say that to many people.”

  “Please. You love everyone. I bet you tell them, too. Your barista. Your mailman. The neighbors.”

  Kinley pretended to gag. “Please. I basically don’t like anyone. You’re a rare case.”

  Tyler raised an eyebrow. “Would you say I’m special?”

  “Maybe?” Kinley said. “Would you say I am?”

  “Maybe.” Tyler studied her. “You’re definitely pretty and smart, which is a lethal combination. And you’re a very good kisser.”

  Kinley wanted to bury her face in her pillow, but she forced herself to look into his eyes. “I don’t know. I think I could use more practice.” Her eyes strayed to his lips.

  “Oh?” he asked. “Need practice, do you?”

  “It’s very serious,” Kinley said. She touched his mouth with her fingertips. “We have hard work to do.”

  “Are you trying to get me to kiss you?” Tyler asked. His eyes studied her face, and her mouth hinted at a smile.

  Kinley squinted at him. “Is it working?”

  He touched his lips to hers, slowly, softly. “How was that?”

  She shrugged. “Try again.”

  He laughed this time, really laughed, so loud that if someone had been in the house they would have heard him. “Practice makes perfect, right?”

  “I like practice.”

  He slid a hand behind her head, and he kissed her.

  He kissed her right.

  Even
though she was lying on her bedspread, she felt the funny-knees feeling she’d read about in books, and her heart leaped in her chest.

  She wanted to do everything with him. She wanted all of him. She wanted to get into a car with him and disappear. She wanted new names and new lives. She liked this Tyler Green.

  But he drew away, and her body ached. She missed the way he felt against her, and suddenly all the bad flooded back in.

  “We need to be slow,” he whispered between kisses.

  “Why?” she asked, her voice small and whiney. “Don’t go.”

  “I won’t.” He pulled back and looked at her. “I’m here, okay?”

  Kinley wondered if he needed her for all the same reasons that she needed him.

  “Can I ask you something?” he asked. His hand moved down and cupped her hip.

  She smiled, anticipating his next sweet gesture. She didn’t understand why people tended to dislike or mistrust Tyler. He was so kind. “Sure.”

  “What’s with the stuff on your desk? The flash drive and the wires? And the earpiece? Are you some sort of secret agent?”

  He smiled, but she felt her insides curl in on themselves. “Um, why?”

  He moved his shoulders up. “I don’t know. I just thought it was sort of cool. It looks super high-tech.”

  “It’s not cool.” She jerked away from him. She’d spoken too quickly. Damn it. Why had she reacted like that?

  “Hey.” Tyler’s voice was soft, but he didn’t reach out for her. “What’s wrong?”

  Kinley didn’t look at him. She couldn’t look at him if she was going to tell him . . . this. She stared at the ceiling. At the little stars.

  At the little lies that had built up, year after year, into an entire solar system of falsehoods.

  Was she really going to tell him this?

  She’d repeated the story in her head for years. But she’d never actually said it. Not out loud.

  “Something happened to me,” she said. “A few years ago.” She paused.

  “You don’t have to tell me this, you know.”

  Kinley still didn’t look at him. When she spoke, her voice shook. “Um, do you remember the May Day parade? Five years ago? Well . . . there was an incident.”

  “What?” he asked gently.

  “I got to be on the float that year. You know the float at the front of the parade? Where the kids get to dance around the maypole? I was so excited. My dad told me I was old enough, and so I got to dance. My mother made me a crown of flowers—pink and white and yellow—and it itched like crazy when she pinned it into my hair, but it was so pretty I didn’t care.”

  Tyler shifted onto his side and propped himself up on an elbow. “I remember the float,” he said. “My dad used to take me to the parade.”

  “That year,” Kinley whispered, “it was raining. Not much. Just on and off. They’d thought about canceling the parade, but I actually prayed that they wouldn’t. I wanted my moment, you know?” A grim smile found its way to her lips.

  “We all had harnesses on. But mine wasn’t buckled right. There was a teacher there—Miss Heathers—but it wasn’t her fault. I was wiggling and jumping around. She kept trying to check my buckles, but I didn’t want her to. I hated the way the harness looked on my pink dress. I wiggled out of it when she wasn’t looking.

  “Then, about a third of the way through the parade, the float stopped short because a horse in front of us had reared up. And everyone was jolted. I fell off the float. I fell off and hit my head on the concrete. I don’t remember much—I think it knocked me out. But when I woke up in the hospital, I couldn’t hear right. Something happened. And”—she swallowed heavily—“I never could again. That stuff, that little earpiece, it’s a kind of hearing system, okay?”

  “And no one knows?” Tyler asked quietly.

  Kinley shook her head. “No. I don’t need it all the time. My hearing isn’t completely horrible. But I didn’t want anyone to know. I didn’t want to be accommodated or treated differently.”

  “And that’s why you work so hard.”

  Kinley chanced looking at him. He was still on his side, head resting on the heel of his hand, studying her. His face was unreadable.

  “I guess so. And, you know, my family . . .”

  “They put you under a lot of pressure. Yeah, I get that. Mine too.”

  Kinley frowned at him. “They do?”

  Tyler lifted a shoulder. “There are different kinds of pressure, Kin.”

  Kinley felt her heart swell a little bit. He got it. He got her. He touched her chin with his thumb.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.”

  He studied her. “It’s okay. I understand.”

  Her heart swelled. And she felt something a lot like relief that slowed her heart and made her feel, at least for a small second, happy.

  She kissed him for believing her.

  Tyler

  Tuesday, June 16

  Tyler lay in bed with Kinley. She smiled at him, her lips swollen from kissing. She was damn good at it. Especially for someone who’d done so little of it. Tyler was willing to bet all the cash he had that he was her first kiss. Girls like Kinley didn’t kiss much.

  Still, he couldn’t help but think that maybe she’d suddenly been all about the making out because she was trying to distract him from something. Maybe he didn’t have her grades, but he wasn’t a total dumbass.

  “Can I ask you a question?” he said finally. He studied her eyes. They were sweet and clear, but there was something in them. Something a little guarded. A little strange.

  “Sure.” She smiled, anticipating something sweet.

  “Have you heard anything?” Tyler asked. He rolled away from her and out of bed. “Is there—anything? Yet?”

  He felt like an asshole for asking. He didn’t want to know. But he had to.

  Kinley shook her head. “Honestly, no. But I haven’t looked for it. I leave the room when the television is on. I haven’t checked any social media since”—she paused, her hand motioning at something out of sight—“that night.”

  “So you think he hasn’t been found.” Tyler crossed the room and leaned up against her computer desk.

  Kinley sighed. “Probably not. Sometimes cops hold stuff back to see if anyone will come forward.”

  “Why would anyone?” Tyler asked.

  Kinley ducked her head, and very quickly, Tyler grabbed her hearing aid and flash drive off the desk and stuffed it in his back pocket.

  “I don’t want to think about this, Tyler.” She looked up at him. “What good will it do?”

  He rubbed the back of his neck. “I don’t know. I just thought it might be better to have the facts.”

  Kinley’s eyes turned hard. “If the cops come to question me, I don’t want to know anything about what’s happened. Anything at all. I want to be clueless.”

  Tyler squinted at her. “You? Didn’t you place, like, first in a regional current events quiz bowl or something?”

  Kinley shrugged. “So?”

  “So maybe you should know these things. Maybe it’s weird that you don’t know at all what’s happening in an area you’d be an expert on. Besides, if your professor randomly stopped coming to class, wouldn’t you be curious?”

  “I just don’t want to know, okay?” Kinley said. “Tyler, I just can’t think about it. I don’t want to think about it.”

  Tyler shook his head. “Just try to process what I said, all right? We can’t go quietly into the night on this.”

  “I’m not stupid.”

  “I didn’t say you were,” Tyler said. “I’m just saying it will look suspicious.” He shifted, and felt the weight of the flash drive in his jeans. It was practically nothing, but it was hers, and he was stealing it. He had to.

  “And you know this because, what, your many run-ins with the law?” Her voice was cutting.

  “That’s not fair.” Her words hurt more than they should have—they burrowed in, just under his skin. It wasn
’t that he hadn’t heard them before. Hell, he heard them all the time. But he’d hoped Kinley, of all people, had thought more of him than that.

  “Isn’t it?” she challenged.

  She wasn’t wrong. Damn, that stung. But she wasn’t.

  “I thought you were better than that, Kinley,” he said, his voice quiet.

  Kinley tilted her chin up, just slightly. “Are you saying I’m wrong?”

  Tyler glared at her. Anger started, hot and burning. He had been so stupid to believe that Kinley could ever understand. Did she even like him? Or was he just some asshole she was using to get her mind off the murder?

  After all, girls like Kinley didn’t like delinquent guys. They were meant for douche-canoe guys who wore thick sweater-vests and had glasses pushed up too far on their noses.

  “No. You’re right. I guess you already know this, but I have regular meetings with a probation officer. So I know the law. I know how cops work, okay?”

  Kinley stared at him, as if just remembering who he really was. “So maybe we should be acting more like ourselves.”

  “Which means I should be getting into trouble. Being risky. Right?”

  “And I should be toeing the line. Which does not actually involve this.” She motioned at Tyler and back at herself.

  “So I’m a problem?”

  “Are you?”

  And suddenly, she was close to him, and he wanted to kiss her. He wanted to kiss her hard, and he wanted her to remember him and forget that she wasn’t supposed to be with him.

  But his anger was hot and painful, and there was something else there. Something beneath it.

  He didn’t trust her.

  But he needed her. He needed someone who knew everything that had happened. He needed someone just to be there with him. In fact, he was pretty sure he’d never actually needed anyone or anything like he needed her.

  He leaned in and kissed her. She melted underneath him and kissed him back, her arms encircling his neck as he pulled her against him.

  “I need you,” he whispered in her ear. It was the kindest, and the most honest, thing he’d ever said to a girl.

  Kinley put her head on his chest. “I’m sorry, Tyler. I need you too.”