Please Don't Tell - Laura Tims Page 0,45
tutoring me in American History,” I say tiredly.
“A boy? I could’ve tutored you in American History.” She tries to push her hair behind her ear again, forgetting she already did it. “What boy?”
“Just . . . some dude from class.”
“And you’re alone in his house.”
“His . . . his dad’s there. What’s with this third-degree questioning?”
“American History’s not that hard. You don’t need a tutor.” She scowls. “Also, stop spending all your time at Preston’s house. You’re always there now. Is he your boyfriend?”
“No.” I blink. “Pres isn’t like other guys.”
“Every guy is like other guys.”
“Grace, you know you can talk to me, right?” I say in a rush. “Should I ask how you feel, like, about him dying—”
“I told you, I don’t feel any way about it,” she snaps.
“That can’t be true.”
“Why are you always trying to force things out of me?” She locks her hands together behind her back. “Just let me be okay.”
“I know you’re okay, I just wanted you to know that you can talk—”
“There’s nothing to talk about! Do you want me to be messed up? So you don’t feel like you’re the only one?”
I wince.
“I’m sorry,” she says, squeezing her eyes shut. “I shouldn’t have said that.”
“No,” I say hopelessly. “You’re right. That’s exactly what I’m doing. Trying to get you to be the fucked-up one so I can be the one who’s not. I’m garbage.”
“No, no, Joy.” She does a motion like she’s gonna hug me, then lets her arms fall back. “You think you’re capable of all these bad things, but you’re not.”
“You’re not the one supposed to be comforting me.”
She sighs, exasperated. “We can’t both need comforting.”
“You’re the one who has a right to. And I’m taking it away. I wish I was like you.”
“Someone has to be me and someone has to be you,” she says strangely. Then she shakes her head. “You’re acting like it’s my crisis and it’s not. It’s yours.”
“Girls?”
We stiffen. Mom’s knocking.
“I just checked the mailbox and there was a letter for you, Joy,” she says excitedly through the door. “I think it’s a college recruitment newsletter.”
What would happen if Mom and Dad listened harder, walked in at the wrong moment, reached into the wrong pocket of my backpack? There’s a whole world they miss by inches every day.
A thick manila envelope zooms under my door. Grace has been getting them for months. It’s my first. They must collect student names by GPA.
“What are you talking about in here? Boys?” Mom only gets this girlish teasing voice when she finds Grace and me alone together. “Can I come in? I have a thing or two to say about boys.”
“Homework,” I manage.
“All righty then.” She’s not hurt. She’s always assumed that our world was whole and safe and she didn’t need to be a part of it. “Don’t stay up too late.”
Her footsteps disappear.
“College, huh,” Grace mumbles.
Safe topic. “You still getting all those emails from Brown?”
“I don’t think I’m going to go.”
“To Brown?”
“To college.”
I stop in the middle of opening my envelope. “Oh thank God, that’s the first joke you’ve made in ages.”
She shrugs. “Who’s joking?”
“College has been your main hobby since we were, like, five.” When I was thirteen, I had posters of boy bands. She had posters of Dartmouth.
“What’s in college? Guys? Parties? I don’t care about that stuff. I can learn on my own. I’m proving that now. And no college is going to want someone who took her junior year off.”
A new panic rises in me. “You can go back to school next semester.”
“There are still guys there. And all guys are like him.”
“No, Grace. You can’t throw away college—”
“You never cared about college, either.”
“So what? That’s me!”
“And it’s fine if you don’t have a future as long as I have one?”
Yes.
“Maybe this is your turn to be the good-grades twin. Is that why you got a tutor?” She chuckles. “Maybe I’ll turn my room into a mess so you’ll clean yours for once.”
“Nothing bothers you anymore,” I say.
“You get bothered for me.” She touches my nose, like I used to do to her when we were little. When we were little. I never knew a phrase could make me long for something so much.
“I was just worried about you drinking in school,” she says by the door, like the rest of our conversation didn’t happen. “Don’t do it again.”
And then she leaves.
I cry for a few minutes, mostly to get it out of the way. I used to cry loud, so Grace