My Secret to Tell

by Natalie D. Richards

  “I’m so sorry,” I say, aching for him.

  “So am I. I had to shut down my practice. I lost everything. That’s how I ended up here.” His smile is sad when he looks back to me. “I love Dink, but that boy’s had a hard life. I hope he didn’t do this, but we’re all capable of bad things if we’re hurting enough.”

  “I still don’t think he’s capable of this,” I say. “He might come to the hospital today.”

  Joel perks up. “You don’t say? When?”

  I chew my lip, worried that I’ll have to talk him into it again. I don’t want Joel to give up if it takes longer than I planned. “I’m not sure, but he promised me he’d come. He will.”

  I feel the threat of tears coming on, so I tamp them down, swallow hard.

  Joel isn’t fooled. He chucks me gently on the shoulder. “Don’t be too grim, Eddie. Sheriff Perry thinks he’s closing in on answers, so we won’t be in the dark much longer.”

  I force a smile, but my heart pumps out an extra beat. And then another. Perry hates Deacon. If he gets it in his head that Deke did this, it’s going to be big trouble.

  “Well, I need coffee,” Joel says. “You need a ride home? I could run you by the Cru first. It’d be my treat.”

  My mind throbs with an image of Deacon’s phone upstairs, his bag still propped by Chelsea’s door. He needs that phone—at the very least.

  “If it’s okay, I was going to tidy Chelsea’s room a little. Thought I could make her bed and leave her a note or something.”

  “You and your cleaning. My office is spotless.”

  “Chelsea loves it when I clean. She always says she’ll return the favor when the frog grows hair, whatever that means.”

  Joel laughs. “It means it’ll never happen. Daffy says it too. I think their mother used to say that. Hey, I talked to the admissions dean at Duke last week. We’re trying to set up a round of golf, so we talked about you. He’s really looking forward to reviewing your application.”

  My application. To Duke. Mental images of the chapel and long stretches of velvety grass flip through my head. It’s been my dream to go to Duke since the campus tour with Landon. Back then, I wanted to be a marine biologist, but back then, Mom was fine with that.

  She had my brother.

  The legacy she gave up at eighteen—when she wound up pregnant with my very blue-collar father’s baby—was all turning right. I remember her slim arm tucked through my brother’s on that tour, her eyes bright as she said, “Mama thought there’d be no doctors and lawyers from my branch of the family tree, but she didn’t see you coming, Landon.”

  Probably a good thing Grandma didn’t see. She had a way of rubbing things in until they left a mark.

  “You look lost in space.” Joel chuckles. “Don’t let it scare you. It’s a good thing.”

  “It’s incredible. I just thought you were doing a reference letter. I never expected you to talk to the dean.”

  “Well, Emmie, I’ve known you long enough to know that you’re cut out to go all the way at Duke if that’s what you choose, though it’s not a bad idea to change schools either. We can talk about it later, but for now, you’ll have someone keeping an eye out for you.”

  Hope floats into my chest, bubble light. “Really? Joel, you’re amazing.”

  “Well, it’s no guarantee. You’ll still be in the application process, but greasing the wheel a little never hurt, right?”

  Joel picks up his keys and Chelsea’s bag. He tells me he’ll drop the bag by Ann Street Inn, but I can’t do anything but smile.

  “I’m going to head out. Don’t clean all day, you hear me?”

  “I do.”

  He lumbers to his feet but seems to hesitate before heading to the door. “Emmie?”

  “Yeah?”

  Joel looks down, knocking his knuckles softly into the doorframe like he’s not sure how to phrase this. When he looks up, his eyes are too bright. “If you see Dink, tell him I’m sorry. I said some things—” He trails off, shaking his head. “Just tell him I’m sorry. I do want to hear his side of this, and I’ll do whatever I can to help with this situation.”

  “I’ll tell him.”

  My smile is in place, but I’m cold all over again. If Joel thinks he needs to offer his help, then I might be wrong about things working out. Deacon might end up arrested.

  • • •

  He’s not by the Rum Baby. Tourists have descended on the cemetery. I have to step around a couple dressed in store-creased T-shirts from one of the beach shops across the bridge. Next, I smile at a pair of women with their hands full of papers from the Beaufort Historical Society. As much as I wish Deacon would show, the wait is probably a good thing. I feel like a pot that’s boiling too hard, so I probably need the time to settle.

  I also need answers in case he tries to weasel out of coming with me today. I can’t hide him forever, because no matter how much I believe him, I don’t know that he’s innocent. My shoulders tense. I want to do what’s right, but what does that mean? Going to the police sounds right. But standing by a friend in trouble sounds right too, doesn’t it? Especially when you know that friend has always, always stood by you.

  I close my eyes, flashing back to the animal shelter when Deacon got me in with Dr. Atwood. I was too young, and he stood right with me outside the office door. Three Labradors were bouncing and barking like the world loudest pinball machine, and my nerves were rattled.

  “Maybe I should wait,” I said. “The application says fifteen. And the hours won’t count for high school until senior year.”

  Deacon snorted. “That’s crap. You don’t care about the hours. You told me you want this more than anything.”

  “I do.”

  “No one’s going to be better at this job than you. Now get in there and fight for it.”

  He stood beside me at Dr. Atwood’s desk, singing my praises until she agreed to take me on. He was there for me. I’m trying to be there for him too, but he’s running out of chances.

  “Emmie.”

  Deacon’s voice startles a group of birds in one of the live oaks. They rise in a thunder of pale wings and birdsong, and we both look up to watch them fly away. Once they’re gone, he moves closer, but I lift up a hand to stop him.

  “Wait,” I say. “Did you have any part in what happened to your dad? Did you hurt him?”

  Pain flashes across his features. “Not like you think.”

  “That’s not an answer. I want to know everything. Joel wants me to tell you he’s sorry and that he’ll try to help, and I’m afraid he’s saying that because he thinks you’ll be arrested. Sheriff Perry is looking for someone. We both know that someone is probably you. Does Perry have a reason to be looking, Deke?”

  His laugh is sharp enough to use as a weapon. “When does Perry not have a reason to look for me?”

  “Don’t start with that. I’m asking you to tell me the truth.”

  “I told you what I know,” he says. “It’s a shit show. And I’m sorry you got mixed up in it. As for Perry, yeah, I’m sure he’s looking for me.”

  He turns away. Is he going to run forever? Would he do that to Chelsea, leaving her like Landon left me? And what will I do about it? Am I going to call the police? Maybe. Either way, I promised Chelsea I would bring him to the hospital, and that’s what I’m going to do first.

  But I need to make sure I still believe him.

  I walk closer. “Look me in the eyes and tell me if you put your dad in the hospital.”

  His gaze doesn’t waver. “I didn’t.”

  “Then we can fix it. We’ll fix this.”

  “Always the solutions girl.” His voice is light and easy, but his eyes are a tempest. “God, Emmie, there’s just so much you don’t know.”

  “Yeah, I got that memo. How about you fill in the blanks for me? Because you
look guilty as sin, and I feel like I should have called the police when you showed up in my bathroom and a dozen times since then, so level with me. You didn’t put him in the hospital, but you did something, didn’t you?”

  Something in his expression breaks. Underneath, he’s so raw. “I hit him.”

  My breath puffs out, and my cheeks go cold.

  “I can’t tell you everything,” he says. “But I promise you I hit him once. One time. Hard enough to hurt my hand, hard enough to hate myself for it, and definitely hard enough to make me look guilty, but that was it. I might have left a bruise, but I didn’t…” He trails off.

  I square my shoulders, willing myself to stay strong. To ask the hard questions. “Have you ever hit him before?”

  “No.” He squirms like something is hurting. “I need you to understand he gave me a hell of a reason, Emmie. I wish to God I could explain better, but Chelsea made me promise not to say anything to you about this.”

  That stops me cold. My best friend is keeping secrets from me? I mean, sure, we’ve all got skeletons in our closet, but Chels and I have been close forever. She knows all the dirt I’ve got. I know Chelsea doesn’t air dirty laundry, but I never dreamed she’d put on a show for me.

  Deacon must see the hurt on my face, because he sighs. “Please don’t be hurt, Emmie. It’s not really about her. It’s about Dad. She doesn’t want you to think badly of him.”

  “Because of his reputation?” I ask. “Because he fired my dad?”

  “He fired Tim?” Deke looks gobsmacked and then irritated. “Of course he did. Why not piss off every-damn-body.”

  “Look, it doesn’t matter right now. Let’s just go to the police. You can tell them everything you saw that day and all the people you think might have been behind this. What did you hear at the docks?”

  “Mostly that everybody’s pointing the finger at me.” He nudges a root with his foot. “No one’s heard a thing. I’m probably going to go down for this.”

  I don’t know what to say. With anyone else, I’d offer a hug, but we don’t do that. So I stand there looking like an idiot, arms crossing over my middle, while some small part of me wonders how I can save him.

  Another part of me can’t stop thinking how much Mom would want me to stay away from this. But who else does he have? Chelsea is lost. Joel is suspicious. His mom is…gone. I know what it’s like when the person you need isn’t there. When my parents decided they needed a break, my brother was a thousand miles away, with a string of disconnected phone numbers and bad email addresses. If I didn’t have Chelsea and Deacon then, I’d have lost my mind.

  I owe him this. I owe it to both of them.

  “I’m not okay with this secrets crap,” I say. “I deserve better. I deserve the truth.”

  “You do.”

  “But you said you’d go to the hospital and that you’d talk to Chelsea. You gave me your word about that.”

  “Would you come with me?”

  “To the hospital?”

  “We can take my bike.”

  My hands and feet tingle. He says bike, but he means motorcycle. I can already picture my mom’s lips going thin, her head shaking before the no is even out. Still, I don’t have a car. Don’t usually need one since the historic district is walkable and a bicycle will get you anywhere else. The hospital, however, is a town over.

  He shrugs. “It’s okay. Maybe it’s a bad idea.”

  No maybes about it—it’s a terrible idea. A motorcycle ride with Deacon? There will be leg-to-leg, arms-around-waist touching involved. On a vehicle that terrifies my mother.

  “Of course I’ll go.”

  Chapter Six

  I hand Deacon the keys I scooped up with his phone. He doesn’t say anything when we walk up his driveway, but I can tell he doesn’t want to go inside. He doesn’t even look at the house.

  He finds an extra helmet in the detached garage and hands it to me, mounting the bike while I stand there with my knees knocking and my teeth chattering from nerves.

  “Okay, do you see the silver thing here?” He’s pointing at small pegs on each side of the bike, and I just zone out. I’m about to get on a motorcycle. A motorcycle. I swipe my hands down the sides of my shorts. Check the strap on my helmet. Check it again.

  Three days ago, I would have killed for this opportunity. I could fill notebooks with a variety of daydreams that featured this motorcycle. But now that it’s here, scaring me… I check my strap again.

  “Hey.” His fingers brush my elbow.

  “Don’t go fast,” I say, feeling myself go crimson inside the helmet. And now I’m twelve. Maybe nine. A nine-year-old girl who’s terrified of the big, scary motorcycle.

  “I won’t,” he says.

  Three days ago, he would have teased me.

  But three days ago, Mr. Westfield wasn’t hurt. Deacon wasn’t a suspect. I wasn’t needed like this.

  Everything was different.

  Deacon puts on his helmet, settles into the seat, and looks up at me with his too-pretty eyes. I’m sliding, just like always. Like it’s gravity. This part is never going to change, is it?

  I check my strap again, and he bites back a smile.

  Deacon’s saying something, but I can’t make it out. I can’t really hear anything beyond the humming in my head and the engine. I still manage to nod and scrape together enough common sense to figure out that it’s time for me to get on.

  I hesitate because there’s no way around it. I’m going to have to touch him. Just planting one hand on his shoulder feels like crossing a line. Lots of lines actually. And when I’m settled in the seat, with about an nth of an inch between us, I’m thinking I’ve crossed continents.

  With the way my heart’s pounding now, I’ll probably go into cardiac arrest when I actually have to hold on. It’s ridiculous.

  He inches the bike forward, and I feel like I might get sick.

  “You’re going to need to hold on,” he says, voice strange and muffled through the helmet.

  “Okay.”

  “Before I take off here.”

  “Okay.”

  “I won’t scare you, Emmie.”

  “Okay,” I say because my entire vocabulary has been reduced to okay.

  I gingerly reach for his waist, but he says something I can’t hear. It might be “need to hold on tighter.” It must be something like that, because he takes my wrists and pulls my arms around him.

  Now we’re really close.

  I shut my eyes and sort of expect him to take off like a bat out of hell, laughing his ass off while I whisper endless prayers and hold on for dear life. It’s not like that at all though. He eases us out of the driveway and down the road. I feel every crack in the pavement, because I’m desperately focusing on the ride instead of the abs-of-steel guy in front of me.

  Deacon picks up speed on Highway 70 to keep up with traffic. All I can hear is wind and engine. The rest of it fades away, and it’s not exhilarating or scary like I thought. It’s like floating on a tube in Taylor’s Creek, all easy, mindless escape. I close my eyes and let the sensation take everything else away.

  Guilt swarms me at the first lane change, so swift and sharp it’s like choking on a knife. Chelsea’s dad is lying in that hospital half-dead. I’m here for my best friend. Not to float away in dreamland or to think about Deacon’s abs. I loosen my grip a smidge. The rest of the trip, I keep my eyes wide open.

  The hospital must have just gone through a shift change, because when I usher Deacon toward the elevators, half a dozen nurses head our way with limp hair and mascara-smudged eyes. A couple of them still offer us smiles as we pass them.

  We wind up on an elevator with a patient and two people I assume are visitors. They’re chatting and oblivious to both of us, so they don’t notice Deacon’s face going ashy, but I do. I edge a little closer, until my sh
oulder bumps his arm.

  I want to ask if he’s okay, but everyone would hear me. People might look. It’s the opposite of what he’d want, so I just stand there, willing strength into him.

  The doors open, and I expect him to pause, but he surprises me, walking straight into the waiting area. I follow, running a hand through the snags in my hair from the ride over. Chelsea is sitting at a table with a cup of coffee that looks untouched.

  She looks up and sees me first and then Deacon. The smile that breaks over her face makes it totally worth every ounce of hell I’ll receive if Mom catches wind of the motorcycle situation. Their embrace fills all the spaces their silence leaves.

  “She found you,” Chelsea finally says.

  I sit down and admire them together. They could be twins. Same thick hair and kaleidoscope eyes. Same sharp cheekbones and smiles that crook up just a little on the left.

  “You’re here,” she finally says.

  “I’m here.”

  “Joel’s on his way too. They’re trying to take Dad off the ventilator right now, so he’ll be able to talk soon.”

  “Then he’s awake,” Deacon says, looking relieved.

  Chelsea nods. “He’s in and out, but he can’t talk because of the ventilator. I haven’t said much because we’re not sure what he remembers.”

  Deacon frowns. “Is the ventilator because of the—”

  Chelsea inhales sharply, cutting him off with a glare. I can’t see the look that passes between them, but Deacon sighs. I’m pretty sure whatever he was going to ask has something to do with what Chelsea doesn’t want me to know.

  A nurse opens the door to the waiting room and sticks her head inside. She spots Chelsea and smiles. “He’s all ready for you.”

  “I think it’s time,” Chels says, and then she takes Deacon’s hand.