Rules for Secret Keeping (26 page)

“I want you to shut down your business,” I say.

She laughs. “Why would I do that?” she asks. “Everything's going so well.” She looks over my shoulder, dismissing me. “Hey, Emma!” she says. “Let's walk to homeroom together.”

Emma comes bounding over. Ugh. I should have known those two were friends now.

“Hey, Samantha,” Emma says. Her voice sounds fake-nice. “How are you doing?”

“Fine,” I say tightly.

“That's good.” She gives me a smile that matches her tone—fake, fake, fake. “I've been wanting to call you, but I thought I'd leave you alone until you got over your anger.” She waits for me to say something, but I don't. “So, ah, are you over it?”

“No,” I say. “I'm not over it. In fact, it's getting worse.”

“But, Samantha—”

“Look,” I say, turning my back on Emma. I look at Olivia. I had this whole big speech planned where I was going to get her to break down and admit what she did, but honestly, I'm a little thrown off. I thought she would be a little snarky, yeah, but I had no idea she'd be so downright mean. Not to mention that now that Emma's here, I really need to speed this up. I don't want to be around her, since who knows how long it's going to take before she brings up Jake. And I really do not want to hear about
that.

So finally I just pull out the picture Eric took and wave it in front of Olivia's face. She looks at it, and her smirk dies. “Where did you get this?” she demands. She grabs it out of my hand and then rips it in half. “Where did you get this?” she asks again.

“Don't worry about it,” I say. “And it doesn't matter that
you ripped it, I have tons of copies.” I'm not completely sure about that, but since the picture is saved on the newspaper computers, I'm pretty sure I'm right.

“Let me see that,” Emma says. She picks up the two halves of the picture, puts them together, and gasps.

“What do you want?” Olivia asks me. Her voice sounds shaky, and her face is bright red.

“I want you,” I say, “to shut down.”

“Shut
down
?” Emma gasps. “But we were just getting started!” I turn around and look at her. And then I get it. Emma's friends with Olivia now because
Olivia
is the one who has the successful secret-passing business. In fact, that's probably the only reason she wanted to be friends with me in the first place. And when I wouldn't read the secrets, she latched on to someone who would.

“Fine,” Olivia says quietly. She looks down at her shoes. “And you won't show this to anyone?”

“I won't show it to anyone,” I say. After she shuts down her business, what reason will there be? I turn and start to walk toward my homeroom.

“Wait, Samantha,” Emma calls from behind me. “Can we talk?”

“No,” I say. I keep walking.

At the end of the day, I'm at my locker getting my stuff
ready to go home. And that's when I see it. One secret. In the front of my locker. My heart does a little leap, and I get excited. There's no way that word could have gotten out about Olivia already, is there? I reach into my locker and pull out the folded-up note with the dollar on it.

As my hand wraps around the paper, I realize how much I miss having secrets to pass. It's fun, especially when the person you're passing to gets a really good one. I look at the name on the front. “Samantha Carmichael,” it says. I look around, thinking it might be a trick from Emma or Olivia. But they're nowhere to be found, and so I unfold the paper. All it says inside is “Meet me on the soccer field after school.”

I fold the note up and slide it into my bag.

“Hey,” Daphne says, coming up to me. “So I'll meet you at four o'clock?”

Daphne's going to her newspaper meeting, and I had planned to do my usual thing of hanging out at The Common and waiting for her so that we can catch up on all the news we missed from not talking for the past four days. Since I'm still grounded, hanging out at The Common is a perfect way for me and Daphne to be able to hang out.

“Look at this,” I say, showing her the note. “Do you think it's from Emma or Olivia?”

She reads it. “Probably from Eric,” she says, rolling her eyes. “He probably has some sort of big romantic candlelight picnic planned or something to celebrate what happened this morning. You should go and humor him; he was really nice to blow up that pic for you.”

“It's not his handwriting,” I say.

“He probably got someone else to write it for him.” Daphne shrugs. “You know how much he likes surprising you.”

“True,” I say, sighing. The last thing I want to do right now is have a picnic with Eric. But at this point, honestly, I need all the friends I can get, and Eric helped me sooo much this morning with that picture.

So when Daphne heads to newspaper, I head out to the soccer field. It rained last night, and so the field is a little muddy, and my shoes make squishing sounds as I walk across the grass. But when I get to the soccer field, no one's there. I decide I'll give Eric five minutes, and then I'm leaving. Hopefully if it
is
a picnic he didn't make the food himself, and just got it from Whole Foods or something. I have a feeling a homemade Eric picnic might not be all that edible.

I pop a Jolly Rancher into my mouth, pull my social studies book out of my bag, and start to read. A minute later, I hear the squeak of someone's shoes on the grass. I
look up. And almost choke on my Jolly Rancher.

It's Jake.

“Hey,” he says. He stands in front of me, his hands in his pockets, his shoulders slightly hunched, a sheepish look on his face.

I close my book. “Hi,” I say.

He pulls something out from behind his back. One flower. One pink carnation with a long stem.

“This is for you,” he says. I take the flower. I've never gotten a flower from a boy before. In fact, I've never gotten a
nything
from a boy before. Jake sits down next to me on the bench, our legs touching.

I swallow. “What about Emma?” I ask. “I mean, aren't you guys—”

“No,” he says. “I'm not with Emma. I never was.” He takes a deep breath. “Didn't you get all my texts and messages?”

“I don't have my phone,” I say. “I'm grounded.”

“For what?”

“Long story.”

“What about emails?” he asks. “I emailed your personal account.”

“Haven't checked it,” I say. “Only my school email, since I got my computer time taken away too.” He nods and we don't say anything for a second. Then he reaches
out and takes my hand. Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God. Jake. Is. Holding. My. Hand.

“Listen, I never liked Emma,” he says. “Not in that way. I always liked
you.
Over the summer, when I was at camp? I couldn't stop thinking about you. I don't know, it was like . . . something had changed between us.”

Yes! I knew it! Something did change between us that day! I knew he felt it too. But still. That doesn't change the fact that we almost kissed and then he blew me off. Or the fact that he was passing secrets with Emma. “But, you and Emma were passing all those secrets,” I say. “And you decided to go to the Fall Festival with her.” I'm looking down at the ground, halfway afraid to look at him. It's not that I don't believe what he's saying . . . it's just that it doesn't make sense. Plus, it's enough of a distraction that he's holding my hand. No way I'm going to be able to keep my wits about me if I look at him.

“The secrets were mostly about you,” he says. “About whether or not she thought maybe you liked me.”

“Why didn't you just ask Daphne if I liked you?” I finally look at him, and he looks at me, and it's just like that day with TSSI, only better.

“Because I knew Daphne would tell you,” he says. “And I didn't know if you liked me back.” He blushes. “And the only reason I told Emma we could hang out at the Fall
Festival was because she told me there was a chance you were going to meet up with her later.”

“But why didn't you just tell me that when I asked you about it that day we got into our fight?” He's sitting really close to me now, and I can smell the cologne he's wearing, and I can feel the softness of his fleece jacket against my arm.

“I was embarrassed,” he says. “I didn't know if I wanted you to know how much I really liked you. Emma said in her notes that you
didn't
like me, and then she asked me if I liked you, and I said yes. I figured she would tell you at some point, and then I'd be able to figure out how you really felt. It was all so confusing, especially after that day in my room when we were looking at Olivia's website. I just . . . I don't know, I freaked out.” He pulls his hat off and swings it around, so that the brim is facing backward. I remember that one note I read, the one that simply said “yes,” and my heart does a flip. Jake wasn't saying yes about liking Emma. He was saying yes about liking
me.

Jake grins. “Any more questions?”

“Two more,” I say. “One, why are you finally telling me this now?”

“Because when you wouldn't talk to me, I realized how much I really missed you.”

“Good answer,” I say.

Jake's grin gets bigger. “What's the second question?”

“So I didn't imagine it when . . .” I take a deep breath, “When, um, we almost kissed? You really did want to?”

“Yes,” he says. “I really did want to.” And then he's moving closer toward me, and his lips are right there, and they look soft and kissable and I don't have time to think before he brushes them against mine. And this time, it's definitely not my imagination.

Daphne and I spend an hour and a half in The Common talking about what just happened outside on the soccer field. (“Did you like it?” “Was he a good kisser?” “Are you guys, like, boyfriend/girlfriend now?” “Does this mean I'm a third wheel?” Yes, yes, yes, and no.)

We get so caught up in our conversation that we totally lose track of time and Daphne's poor mom is waiting outside for, like, twenty minutes before we get in her car and start heading home. When we pull onto my street ten minutes later, I'm still smiling.

“Any chance your mom might give you your cell back tonight?” Daphne asks hopefully.

“I think so,” I say. “My grounding's supposed to be over tomorrow, so she might give me a pass.”

“Cool,” Daphne says. “I'll call you so we can discuss.” She gives me a meaningful look, one of those
You know
what I'm talking about but I can't say it in front of my mom
kind of looks.

“Okay,” I say, throwing her a grin.

“We have a lot of
things
to talk about.” She raises her eyebrows up and down and we both collapse into giggles.

“What is going on with you two?” Daphne's mom asks, shaking her head. “Seriously, you guys have had the giggles the whole way home.”

“Nothing, we're just, you know,
giggly
,” Daphne says. Which makes no sense but for some reason makes us giggle even more.

Daphne's mom pulls up to my house, and suddenly, my smile disappears and my heart drops. Because my dad's car is in the driveway, and he's sitting on our front porch. Taylor and Tom are with him. Oh. My. God.

“Uh-oh,” Daph says, turning around in the front seat and looking at me. “You gonna be okay?”

“Yeah,” I say, even though I don't know if it's true. “I'll be fine.”

I thank Daphne's mom for the ride and then jump out of the car, my heart beating all crazy in my chest.

“Hey, Dad,” I say as I walk up the driveway.

“Hi, Samantha,” he says. He's wearing his suit, and he stands up and slides his hands into his pockets.

“Dad picked me up from cheerleading and, uh, I thought
maybe we could all talk,” Taylor says. “If that's okay with you?” She looks nervous, like I might go crazy on her for springing this on me with no notice. And honestly, normally I probably would. But I'm in too good of a mood. And besides, ignoring the problems with me and my dad and with my dad and Tom isn't going to make them go away.

“Come on,” I say, giving them all a smile. “Come inside and I'll make everyone a snack.”

I don't know why, but all of a sudden I just know that everything's going to be okay. I'm going to work things out with my dad. I'm going to figure out how to make my dad and Tom at least be able to be in the same room with each other. And if nothing else, I'm going to tell them how I feel. And then I'm going to bring Taylor upstairs and tell her about my very first kiss ever.

I push open the door and my family follows me inside.

“Now, who wants a Nutella sandwich?” I ask.

“Me!” Taylor says.

“Me!” Tom says.

My dad hesitates, then says, “Me.”

I pull down the jar of Nutella, the loaf of bread, and four paper plates. And then I sit down at the table and get ready to tell some secrets.