The Secrets We Keep (23 page)

“Do you think we will be okay?”

Dad tensed, his hands braced on the edges of the sink. I heard every tick of the clock on the wall, felt every beat of my heart hammering in my head as I waited for him to turn around and answer. When he finally did, I could see the worry etched on his face, the confident, it-will-all-be-okay attitude I'd come to depend on stripped away, replaced with an uncertainty that had me terrified.

“I will make sure
you
are okay, Maddy. I promise you that.”

“That's not what I asked.”

I watched as he weighed his next words, his mouth opening on a sigh before he finally spoke. “I don't know, Maddy. She's hurting, and there is nothing I can do to fix it. Nothing any of us can do.”

I got up to leave the kitchen, his last words thundering around my mind. Mom was in so much pain—pain I had caused and couldn't fix. And seeing Dad sitting there, worrying about everyone and everything, made things worse, made the guilt I was carrying around that much heavier.

“Maddy?” Dad whispered after me. I stopped, but didn't turn around. “I meant what I said the other day. I never once imagined what it would be like if your sister had lived instead of you. I loved …
love
you both more than my own life. Your mother does, too.”

 

37

Alex had soccer practice. I wasn't sure what time it ended or what field he was playing on, so I parked next to his car in the lot and waited. It wasn't like I had anything better to do. I was pretty sure Dad wanted time alone to talk with Mom, and Josh didn't want anything to do with me. It was either sit here and wait for Alex or drive around aimlessly for hours.

I flipped the light on in my car and pulled the newspaper clipping from my back pocket. The words hadn't changed since I'd read it last. No new clues hidden between the lines, no explanations waiting to be discovered. Same smudged ink hiding a secret.

The sound of voices broke into my thoughts. I looked up and saw the entire soccer team walking toward the lot. Some still had their practice uniforms on, but most had changed, their cleats dangling from their hands.

It took me a few minutes to spot Alex. He was near the center of the group, arguing with the kid walking next to him. Alex shifted his weight as if hoisting something farther up his back. It wasn't until he spun around that I realized what—no,
who
he was carrying. Jenna.

He dropped her the second he saw me. She stumbled to her feet cursing but kept her arms around his neck. Her head tilted as she whispered something in his ear. It wasn't until Alex pointed out my car that she backed away from him, that flirty grin of hers transforming to a pout. She didn't bother to say hello to me as she passed my car, rather gave me a thanks-a-lot glare.

Alex opened my car door and slid into the passenger seat, tossing his gear bag into the back. “Everything okay? What are you doing here?”

I waved my hand in Jenna's direction. “What is
she
doing here?”

“Field hockey practice, Maddy. The semifinals are tomorrow. You know that. You were supposed to be there.”

I looked out the windshield. Maddy's teammates were there, hanging on one soccer player or another, but that didn't make me feel better about Jenna plastering herself to Alex.

“The coach will give you a free pass this week. I had Jenna talk to him, tell him you were meeting with teachers each day after school to try to catch up. But next week, when they're practicing for the division championship, you need to be there,” Alex said.

I held up my left arm as if that was explanation enough. Plus, it was the last two games of the season, the two most important games, and I had absolutely no clue how to even play, never mind offer useful advice as I watched from the bench.

“Not being able to play doesn't mean you're not part of the team, Maddy. You need to be there. You're going to lose your co-captain spot if you're not careful. There's only so much I can do to keep that from happening, and you need that on your college applications if you want to play at that level.”

It was the “only so much” that had me worried.

“Jenna wants to be Snow Ball queen. She's after you as well,” I said, and Alex shrugged as if that was old news. “Are you sleeping with her?”

“No.” His answer was curt and quick, and at least he had the presence of mind to look offended. “We've been through this how many times, Maddy? Why do you keep asking?”

Because I'd overheard her talking in the hall. Because she'd clearly said that she was after Alex. Because I hadn't trusted her since the first day she came to my house freshman year, all makeup and fake smiles.

“She's made no secret about the fact that she wants you,” I said.

“Yeah, but she's not the one I love.”

He reached out to stroke my cheek, and I pulled away. “I don't believe you anymore.”

“Believe what, Maddy? That I am not sleeping with Jenna or that I love you?”

I had no doubt that Alex loved my sister. And I knew for a fact she loved him. But I couldn't shake what Jenna had said in the bathroom—that sympathy points were absolutely working in her favor when it came to Alex.

“You seem pretty friendly with her, more so lately.” I didn't know if that was true. For all I knew, Jenna was always fawning over Alex, but right now, for this conversation, I didn't think it mattered. “And I know she's been talking to you a lot about what's going on at home, looking to you to make things better for her.”

“She mentioned that you said something to her about her father and money. I asked you not to, Maddy, but you did it anyway.”

I had. I was pissed, and she had it coming. I wouldn't apologize; I wasn't sorry. “So you and Jenna—”

Alex shrugged, and my heart sank. “We spent a lot of time together in school when you were out recovering from the accident. You refused to talk to her, made me be the one to answer her calls and relay information. What did you expect?”

I resisted the urge to answer, to yell that his getting close to Jenna was in no way my fault. That I had expected him to give me some time, not run to Jenna for comfort. Instead, I shook my head and ground my nails deeper into my palms.

“I'm not sleeping with her,” Alex said.

I didn't know how to respond to that. Just because they hadn't had sex didn't mean something wasn't going on. It didn't make all the time he spent with her okay.

“You're different now, Maddy,” he continued. “Distant and quiet. I can't even get you to open up to me, never mind your friends.”

I thought about challenging him, asking him what he thought our conversation in the hall yesterday afternoon was about, but I didn't. I went on the defensive: “What does that have to do with anything?”

“Nothing, but it's nice to spend time with somebody who knew the old you.”

The old me? The original Maddy? Even Alex, the boy who ignored every indication that I wasn't Maddy, was beginning to doubt me. And without him, I couldn't navigate this lie … this life of Maddy's. I'd killed my sister, and then in some attempt to give her back her life, I'd completely destroyed the one good thing she had—Alex.

“If I try harder, if I start talking to you about what happened and going to parties and field hockey practice again, will you stop spending so much time with Jenna? Will you stop letting her come between us?”

He leaned his head back and closed his eyes, then sighed as he shook his head. “I don't know. I don't think you
can
go back to the way you used to be. I don't think anybody could after going through that.”

I knew what he was saying—it wasn't Jenna who had driven a wedge between Alex and me, it was me. Alex and my parents were the one constant in this whole mess, and they were starting to slip away.

I could feel the tears building behind my lashes and cursed them. Tears weren't going to help me and they couldn't bring my sister back. And at the end of the day, that was the only thing I wanted—my sister. Alive. The promise that they'd call her name right after mine at graduation. The knowledge that even if we went to separate colleges, she'd only be a phone call or a spring break away. I wanted to meet her future husband for the first time over dinner, and laugh as Dad grilled him with asinine questions. I wanted to help her pick out her wedding dress and complain about the short maid-of-honor dress she'd undoubtedly make me wear. And I wanted
our
kids to play hide-and-seek in Mom and Dad's house while Maddy and I did the dishes and served up dessert. That was what I wanted. That was what I needed, and it wasn't ever going to happen.

Alex reached for my hand, and I let him take it. “It's not that I don't love you, Maddy. God, I so do, but I am beginning to think I'm not the one to help you get past this.”

Nobody could help me get past this.

I yanked my hand away and shoved it underneath my legs. I didn't want to be touched, or consoled, or eased into being dumped. At this point, I wanted to be left alone.

I quickly swiped at the lone tear I could feel rolling down my cheek. Until a month ago, I didn't even like Alex Furey and couldn't figure out why my sister was so utterly fascinated with him. But he'd come to visit me every day in the hospital, stopped by each night while I was at home. He did everything he could think of to try to pull me out of the darkness in my mind. And when I'd come back to school, he protected me, shielded me from the questions and speculation. That was what Maddy saw in him. That was the Alex she knew and loved. And I'd destroyed that like I'd destroyed her.

“Go,” I told him. He started to argue with me, and I pushed him away. “I'm fine, Alex, go.”

He kissed my cheek before reaching into the backseat for his bag. “I love you, Maddy. That won't ever change.”

The cold air hit me as he opened the door, the few pieces of paper I had left on the floor taking flight. Alex caught a gum wrapper, balled it up, and shoved it into his coat pocket. The other piece of paper, the one I'd been carrying around in my back pocket, the one about Molly, managed to make it outside the car. He picked it up and stared at it, his face going white as he realized what it was.

Dropping his bag to the ground, he climbed back into my car and locked the door. Tossing the article onto the dashboard, he turned in his seat to face me. “Talk, Maddy. Now.”

 

38

“Why are you bringing this up?” Alex asked. “You put this behind you a long time ago, Maddy.
We
put it behind us. Leave it there.”

Maddy hadn't put it behind her. She'd buried it in a shoe box in her closet with a bag of pills. And judging from the most recent addition to her quasi scrapbook, which incidentally was a copy of the anime club's September newsletter, she had revisited the memory often.

I suspected Maddy's interest in Molly's drug tests was more than friendly concern. It wasn't like Maddy had kept shoe box files on her other friends. But judging from the panic I could see written across Alex's face, I'd have bet my life—if I still had mine to give—that Maddy felt guilty, that she'd done something she regretted and couldn't fix. Something that had been slowly, painfully eating her alive.

Now I needed to figure out how deep that connection went. “Why did you let me do it? If you love me so much, then why didn't you stop me?”

I held my breath as I waited for his response, hoping that I was wrong and Maddy had nothing to do with any of this.

“If you remember correctly, I tried. I told you it wasn't worth it, that I didn't care if you were captain of the field hockey team or a JV player who never made it off the bench,” Alex said.

“That's not true,” I said, baiting him so he'd tell me more. Alex loved being popular, he and Maddy both did.

“So you're guilty of what—giving her one too many beers last year at one of my parties? Let it go at that, Maddy. For both our sakes, please, let it go at that.”

“I didn't just give her a beer,” I fired back. I was walking a fine line now and risked exposing myself. But I needed the truth. I needed to know what huge secret of Maddy's I was supposed to live with. “I have the bag of pills.”

“Jesus, Maddy. Why didn't you get rid of them? Why are you hanging on to them?” Alex shook his head, his tone softening. “You slipped a pill into her beer on Saturday night. It's not like you had any idea that they were going to test the entire team at Sunday's practice. It's not like you would've done it had you known.”

I held my hand up for him to stop. I knew what had happened to her next. I'd read it five thousand times in Maddy's little collection of facts. Molly had tested positive and got kicked off the team. The colleges that were scouting her were no longer interested, and she found herself in rehab for a drug problem she didn't have. And when she came back, none of her friends wanted anything to do with her.

Maddy wasn't stupid. She had to believe, on some level, that this was completely her fault. And now she was trapped, living with guilt about what had happened. Not unlike me. But she had had Alex to get her through it, to tell her to let it go. I didn't have anybody anymore. Not even Josh.

“I don't understand why I did it in the first place, why I cared. She was our friend, Alex. Why would I want to screw over my friend like that?”

He looked at me as if I were crazy. “It was the beginning of our junior year, Maddy. We were finally upperclassmen. You were elected homecoming queen, and I had been given a starting position on the soccer team. You … we had everything you ever wanted, except—”

“Except what? Being co-captain of the field hockey team?” It seemed like such a selfish reason. My emotions shifted. I didn't feel bad for Maddy anymore. I was angry, disgusted that my sister had been so catty and concerned with her own popularity that she would treat someone like that.