Please Don't Tell - Laura Tims Page 0,28

Joy doesn’t really have to keep answering your questions. And I’m afraid we’re late for work.” Mom’s a dragon. I want to hold on to her. The urge is so strong I’m amazed to discover how much of me is still a kid.

“Of course,” he says ironically. “Thank you for your time.”

The minute he leaves, Mom breathes fire.

“Really, Joy? I can’t believe you snuck out again after we picked you up from the police station this summer.”

My eyes sting. I mash my toe into the carpet.

“Especially to go to a party near that quarry,” Dad agrees. “What happened to the Gordon boy could’ve happened to you.”

“You’re grounded on weekends for the next three weeks.” Mom grits her teeth. “I thought you were trying.”

“I am trying.” Don’t cry.

“If you were, you wouldn’t be failing American History,” she says like she’s explaining basic math. “You wouldn’t have detention every other week and police wouldn’t be in our house.”

Go through my room, then. Find the notes. Tell me what to do.

“Do you ever consider the possibility that stuff is going on in my life that makes it hard to focus on school?” I say.

“It’s just homework, Joy.” Dad sighs. “It shouldn’t be that hard.”

I can’t explain how homework zaps me with a panic that gets bigger and bigger until it feels like I have to either put it away or stab myself.

“If anything’s going on, you can tell us. You know that,” says Mom.

“You’re just as smart as Grace,” Dad says quietly. “You ought to be able to do as well as her.”

I hate how furious I am. “I’m not as smart as Grace. We’re not good at the same shit, so quit holding us to the same standard.”

“Language,” Dad snaps. “Go to your room until it’s time for school.”

“Do you realize what a ridiculous punishment that is?” I’m barreling down the tracks. “I spend all my time in my room. What is the point of sending me there?”

“Just . . . go get dressed,” says Mom. “Perhaps tonight we can have a mature conversation about this.”

I storm upstairs, slam my door. Grace is probably awake and hiding. She hides from fights and that’s why I have to be the fighter.

I open the window, snatch my untouched note back from the mangled sill. I’ll burn all the notes tonight. Outside, the tree branch bobs infuriatingly in the morning sun. I unfold it, and my heart slices in half. Beneath what I wrote, you don’t have proof, there’s something printed in blocky, unrecognizable handwriting.

DON’T I?

EIGHT

July 16

Grace

THE FIELD BEHIND THE MIDDLE SCHOOL IS wet, but that doesn’t stop anybody from sitting on it. Kennedy, Ben, Sarah: three out of the five artsy seniors. Cassius isn’t here and neither is Adam. I’ve never talked to them before, and they don’t seem interested in starting. They’ve barely said a word to Joy or November either, even though November’s in their grade.

The middle school road is dark, except for the pool of yellow light from the streetlamp. It’s a bad idea to do this in the open.

“Quit checking the road. The cops won’t come,” Joy says confidently. Like she’s smoked weed (bud? pot?) under the stars with the seniors before. Like I’m the only one doing this for the first time. She’s wearing November’s too-small sweatshirt. She rocks back on her knees, watching the seniors poke grassy stuff into a little glass pipe (bowl? bong?) and pass it in a circle.

I miss the trick to what they’re doing. November exhales smoke, holds the pipe to me.

“No thank you,” I say like a kindergartner.

“No problem,” says November kindly. She turns to Joy. Moves her like a doll, adjusts her hands around the pipe (bowl?). Lights it for her. Murmurs instructions. Joy’s eyes cross. I blush for her, but Kennedy-Ben-Sarah aren’t watching. They’re on their backs, arms tangled up like they’re not conscious of their bodies. What’s it like to not be conscious of your body?

Joy coughs. Hard. Forever. November pats her back.

“Fuck middle school,” Kennedy says. “It’s like a crypt of bad memories.”

I wish I could say it: fuck middle school. Anything I don’t like, just: fuck it.

“Remember what a bitch you were, Ken?”

“Remember all the shitty anime I watched?”

“I was sooo depressed in eighth grade. . . .”

There’s no way they, too, were balls of silence and fear back then, or ever. Kennedy has pastel-pink hair. Ben’s wearing a tie. Sarah’s shirt quotes The Great Gatsby. They’re like teenagers in books, and movies made out of books, with