Please Don't Tell - Laura Tims Page 0,67
thought if I could get Adam to go out with her, she’d love me like she used to,” I croak. “I didn’t know why we were growing apart. So it was my way of bringing us together. Of helping her.”
I’m chained to this truth, and I’m responsible for every single thing it destroys.
“No.” She grabs my wrist. “It wasn’t your fault.”
I pull back. “It wasn’t your fault.”
“It,” she says, and stops. “It’d be pretty hypocritical to argue with you, wouldn’t it?”
I don’t trust myself to say anything.
“I think that it was Adam’s fault,” she says. “And maybe if we keep reminding each other of that, eventually it’ll work its way down to a place we can believe it.”
I wipe my nose. “I still look up to you, Nov.”
“I don’t think I want you to anymore,” she says after a minute. “I think I’d rather just be your friend.”
I reach into my pocket for the blackmailer’s newest note, to show her. I’ll never do it, not this time. I don’t care what happens to me. But Nov deserves to know what’s been going on.
I’m about to hand it to her when I see it—the headline of her editorial.
“Why I Didn’t Tell When Adam Gordon Raped Me”
I lurch back.
“You know what I’ve learned?” She sounds so calm. “Secrets fester inside people. Things that stay in the dark rot. You can’t fix anything until you know what it looks like. And I’m not going to keep quiet anymore to keep life simple for other people.”
“You’re going to publish this?”
“Eastman was the one who always proofread the paper before it went to print. I can print whatever I want.”
I guess the blackmailer is going to get what he wants anyway.
I swallow. “Aren’t you scared people will be . . . ?”
“I’ve been planning on doing something like this ever since what happened to Grace.” She stares at the computer screen. “That’s why I went to his birthday party. I was going to confront him in front of all his friends. But I barely got through the front door before I ran.”
“You don’t have to. He’s gone.” I keep saying that, and every time it feels like a lie. “He’s not going to do anything to anyone ever again.”
“Maybe he already did. Maybe there’s another girl here who thinks she’s alone in this,” she says. “If so, I want to talk to her.”
How could I tell her about the blackmail now, when she’s in the middle of doing something so brave?
Maybe there’s a difference between keeping a secret for your own sake, and keeping a secret for someone else’s. I’ll tell her someday. When everything is calmer. In the meantime, I have Preston to help me through it.
And my sister.
“You don’t have to do this,” I repeat, just in case. “To get back at him, I mean. Revenge won’t help.”
Even Adam dying didn’t help Grace.
“He’s not important enough to me for that,” she says. “Yeah, I was angry. It’s impossible not to imagine doing really sick things when you’re angry, things that make you question who you are.”
I know about those things.
“Maybe if I did want revenge, it wouldn’t look so different from what I’m doing now. But reasons are important. And I’m not doing this because I want to ruin his reputation or whatever. I’m doing it because I feel like telling the fucking truth for once. Even if it hurts some people to hear it.”
Like Levi. A jolt runs through me. He’ll finally hear the truth about Adam. But will he believe it?
“It’s hard to find out somebody you loved isn’t who you thought.” She smiles at me sadly. “But it’s better than believing a lie forever.”
“I should be happy,” I murmur. “I wanted Levi to know.”
“He’ll be fine. He’s got you to sit next to in movie theaters now.”
I shake my head slowly. “I fucked up with him. Really badly.”
“Girl,” she says. “Repair shit. Don’t abandon ship.”
She turns back to the computer, saves the file to her desktop, and sends it to the printer.
Maybe it’s impossible to be honest without somebody getting hurt. But I think I’m getting better at figuring out when it’s not worth it, and when it is.
EIGHTEEN
August 24
Grace
“MAYBE HE’LL JUST LEAVE,” JOY WHISPERS. “Transfer schools or something, I don’t know.”
She opens my window to let the stale air out. The breeze blows my curtains so far into the room they almost brush my forehead. Now all she talks about are the ways Adam could disappear.
“Maybe he’ll move across