Please Don't Tell - Laura Tims Page 0,29
deep thoughts, quirky hobbies. They fall in love and it fixes them. They’re interesting.
I’m never going to be broken in a way that makes someone fall in love with me. My sadness will never be interesting. I’m not a girl who makes a good story.
Joy makes a good story.
“I don’t know if it’s working,” she keeps saying. She rolls around in the grass. Getting soaked. “Grace, remember our lunch table by the stairs in middle school? I wonder who sits there now. What do you think Cat and them are doing tonight? Making out with an SAT prep book?”
I haven’t seen my old friends since school ended last month. Maybe that means they’re not my friends anymore. Strange how it can happen, just like that.
“You know that Halloween-themed fair they have every year on this field?” she asks. “We didn’t go last year. We went every year before then. We should go this year.”
Everybody in our whole town goes to that fair. Teachers, doctors, they all make the twin comments wherever they run into us: how we look the same but they can tell us apart. Like we’re theirs because they can see the difference.
Joy faces November. “Did you like middle school, Nov?”
“The people who liked middle school are the reasons why everybody else hated middle school.” November’s got one earbud in again. She’s apart from everyone.
“How come you were gone our sophomore year?” Ben asks bluntly. There’s something aggressive in his expression. “I always wondered.”
She plays with the rubber bands on her wrists. There’s a long silence.
Finally Joy says, “Do you guys have any more weed? I don’t feel anything.”
Everyone reassures her: they didn’t feel it their first time either, don’t exhale right away. She nods, mimes taking notes. She’s always been able to turn herself into a project.
“Remember how you punched me in elementary school for making fun of your sister’s paintings?” Ben asks her, grinning. “I was a grade above you, too.”
“I did!” She’s delighted.
I lie on the grass. There’s peace in being forgotten. This would be a good moment to think some profound thoughts about the stars. But I’m too anxious. I want to go home.
I close my eyes. I hear the lighter flick on. Joy coughs again. Then the darkness glows behind my eyelids. Headlights. I shoot upright, but it’s not cop lights.
“I invited Adam,” Ben says. “Hope that’s cool.”
Oh no. I have to fix my shirt. Have to fix my hair. I’m wearing too much makeup. Maybe he won’t notice in the dark. Of course he’ll notice.
And then Joy’s arms fall over my shoulders. “Oh my God, this is your chance.” Her eyes are red.
By the road, Adam hops the little fence. His guitar case bounces against his back with each step.
“’Sup, all,” he says once he reaches us. Does he see me?
“Help us out with this.” Ben hands him the pipe. Adam lights it easily. He knows. I have to pretend I know. He inhales smoke and holds it out to me, ignoring everyone else.
He does see me!
“I didn’t know you knew Ben and them,” he says.
I shrug. Cringe. “I don’t. Not really.”
“Don’t make me smoke this alone.” He sits cross-legged. Next to me. “There’s a shit ton in here.”
I look at him. He looks back with his dark eyes, darker at night. He lights the bowl for me. Does he know this is my first time? His chest brushes my shoulders. I do what everyone told Joy to do: breathe in, take my thumb off the hole, don’t breathe out—
“Hey, you wouldn’t do it with me!” Joy’s next to me suddenly, upset. I breathe out the smoke too early.
“Can you two get a ride home?” November says to us. She’s glaring at Adam. “I feel like going to bed.”
“Oh, let me guess,” he groans. “In the last two seconds I’ve managed to do something that contributes to the worldwide oppression of women, gay people, and everyone else probably.”
“Or sometimes people just want to go to sleep,” she says coolly, but her eyes are knives.
“Fine.” He fake salutes. “Night. Miss ya already.”
“You are such an asshole.”
His eyes get darker. Kennedy-Ben-Sarah clump together, useless. Joy’s normally the first to join a fight, but her gaze is unfocused.
“Can you not?” I say to November.
Adam grins at me. My stomach swoops. November scowls hard. She whispers something to Joy, hugs her quickly, turns to go.
“What, I don’t get a hug?” Adam teases.
“Die.”
Her hate is so pure that I’m amazed Adam doesn’t bleed.
“Do you guys have any