Please Don't Tell - Laura Tims Page 0,77

when I thought of you. I knew you’d been blackout drunk at Adam’s birthday party, that there was no way you remembered that night, and that you must have wanted him dead after what he did to Grace. I was too scared to put up the photos, but you’re brave. I knew youd be able to go through with it.

How rationally were you thinking after finding out something horrible had happened to your sister?

And maybe part of me thought you deserved to suffer for what happened this summer. It was supposed to end after that. But November invited me to her house one day, and while she was downstairs, I found that security video of Officer Roseby in his room. I went through his closet—I knew he’d had something to hide. I knew if everyone saw it, he’d have to stop harassing me.

And when November and I got closer, when she finally told me what Adam did to her, I knew the school needed to know the truth. November needed them to know, even if she couldn’t tell them herself.

I never meant to use you more than once. It just worked so well the first time. But you used me, didn’t you, this summer? So we’re even.

I don’t think you’ll show anyone this email. It would mean admitting you were the one who put up the photos and swapped the DVDs. Either way, I’m far away now. If you accuse me, I’ll lie. But I thought I at least owed it to you to tell you that it’s over.

We made our school a better place. A safer place.

Cassius Somerset

“It was him,” Preston’s face goes pale and then red. “I was right about him, all along. We’ll make him pay for this—”

“No. We won’t.”

“What?”

I lift my face toward the sky. It’s clear. The sun cuts around the edge of the building just enough to douse us completely with light. “I’m sick of revenge.”

“We can’t just let him get away with this,” he says, disbelieving.

I lift my hands, examine them. These hands never pushed anyone into the quarry. They’re normal hands. I’m a normal person.

There is no secret evil core in me.

“He’s gone, Preston,” I say. “Getting revenge will just stop this from being over.”

“He blackmailed you for something you didn’t do.”

I’m never going to get another one of those notes again.

I can sleep. I can eat. I can focus on Grace. I can make everything about Grace again. This time I’m going to do it better.

“How are you not angry? You’re . . . you.”

Maybe Grace’s Joy got angry. But this is my version. And I decide when it’s worth getting angry.

“I didn’t do it, Preston.”

He groans. “We always knew you didn’t do it.”

“I wasn’t sure,” I whisper. “I don’t think anybody knows themselves that well. The only way to find out is to be in the situation. I was . . . and I couldn’t remember what I did.”

I only cry for a few minutes. Preston fidgets miserably beside me. I wipe my eyes, because I know what it’s like to want to help and not know how.

I stand up, because I still need to be with November today, because I need to find Levi, even if I’m afraid to face him. But my head fills with light and I lose my balance. Preston catches me.

“You okay?”

“No.” I sound delirious. “But I will be.”

He sighs, but he doesn’t put me down. “You’re actually going to let this go.”

“I want to try letting something go,” I tell him.

When I get home that night, I steal into Grace’s room first.

“Joy,” she mumbles as I slip into bed beside her, like I used to. Like I always will.

“I have to show you something,” I whisper.

The invisible force field between us is weaker. Maybe it was only so strong because I needed it to be.

She wakes up, pulling the quilt over both our heads so that we’re in a tent. “Did you talk to November?” she says tentatively.

I show her the email. The cold light of the phone screen illuminates every detail of her face. Sometimes the fact that we’re identical seems ludicrous to me. She’s so different. Her pores are clogged with makeup I don’t wear. Her eyebrows are stubbly with plucked hairs that I let live. She’s decorated with choices that are hers alone.

There’s only the sound of our breathing and the heavy silence of somebody reading something very important.

Finally she looks up.

My phone light fades. I can’t see her at all