BooksBarbecue
Back The truth about keeping secrets Save as PDF
Chapters (22)
  1. Chapter 1
  2. Chapter 2
  3. Chapter 3
  4. Chapter 4
  5. Chapter 5
  6. Chapter 6
  7. Chapter 7
  8. Chapter 8
  9. Chapter 9
  10. Chapter 10
  11. Chapter 11
  12. Chapter 12
  13. Chapter 13
  14. Chapter 14
  15. Chapter 15
  16. Chapter 16
  17. Chapter 17
  18. Chapter 18
  19. Chapter 19
  20. Author Interview
  21. Acknowledgements
  22. Follow Penguin

I was very aware of the existence of her folder when I got to my room.

I could just check it. Know everything. I could help, maybe. If I knew – maybe I could finish whatever Dad had started. I could do something. I was so sick of being left in the dark when I felt that June knew everything humanly possible to know about me. What could be in there that she was hiding? What was so important? What was so terrible?

And then something occurred to me.

First as a little almost-joke. A jab to my stomach. Something silly, horrible, pinching myself just to see if it would hurt.

Maybe it had been June.

Ha.

I had trusted her almost instantaneously, after all. I had never even considered it.

Ha, ha. Imagine that.

But then the thought morphed into something real. Bea had refused to acknowledge me. Because she felt guilty. And the messages had stopped. But June, growing cold … Maybe she felt guilty.

Something happened between her and my dad. Something happened. What happened? What did that mean?

What would it say?

So many times I’d envisioned Anonymous typing out the messages, leaving the book, breaking in; I’d watched their hands as they cut Dad’s brakes then I’d followed the arm up to the face but there was never anything there. A clean, flabby surface where the guilty party should have been.

And now the face was June’s.

No. That didn’t make any sense at all.

It might have been more innocent than that. Who was I kidding? It probably was. It had to be.

Suddenly, I wasn’t sure I wanted to open the folder any more.

I wasn’t sure I even wanted to remember it existed.

I tried to ground myself, but I had nothing to hold on to and the wave swept over my head and dragged me out into a sea of ink.

Dad. Dead Dad. Dead Dad for no reason, no point, no purpose. Fuck domino effects. Fuck everything happens for a reason. Fuck it, fuck it, absolutely fuck all of it to hell.

I sobbed quietly into my hands so Mom wouldn’t hear, and prayed for the first time since I was eight in Sunday school. That this could be solved. That this all could end. Dad. Mom. Olivia. Leo. June. Me. Let’s all melt. Let’s all liquefy. Let’s all forget any of this ever happened.

Chapter 13

Chapter 13