Please Don't Tell - Laura Tims Page 0,78

in the dark, but we’re so close that the vibrations of her voice shiver along my skin. “Cassius did this to you?” she chokes. “I can’t believe . . .”

“Don’t hate him,” I tell her.

“How can I not?” The whites of her eyes shine.

“You’re right,” I say. “Hate him until you don’t need to hate him anymore. But don’t do anything about it.”

“You can’t trust any guy. No matter how they act.” Her voice shakes. Her hair tickles my chin. It lies fine and straight on the pillow, any evidence of our curls burned out of it. “Once, I thought Cassius was . . .”

“It’s okay.”

“I was wrong about November.” In the dark, I can hear all her emotion. It’s only in the daylight that she hides it.

“The whole school knows that—they know what he did to her now,” I tell her. “She wrote about it in the school newspaper. I’ll bring you a copy. You can read it if you want.”

“Is she okay?” she says in a tiny voice.

“She’s okay.” And I believe it.

I want to believe it about Grace, too.

“I hoped you’d blame November,” she says, shivery. “I wanted you to hate her. I was scared you were leaving me behind for her. I’m always scared you’re leaving me behind.”

“I never will, I promise.” I can center my life around her again.

“I’m sorry I’ve been so distant,” she whispers. “I thought if I could push you away before you could do it to me, it wouldn’t hurt so much.”

Her body heat soaks the tiny space we share until beads of sweat pop on my cheeks. “Now it’ll be you and me again. Just us,” I say.

For some reason, I remember what Levi said, about how neither of us have had the chance to find out who we are without each other. My spine prickles strangely.

She clasps her hands together in front of her mouth. “I won’t doubt you anymore.”

This is all I ever wanted. To have things be the way they were. But now, for some reason, this feels wrong. Like trying to put on an old favorite shirt only to find it doesn’t fit anymore.

I swallow. It doesn’t matter. I owe her. I’ll spend the rest of my life making it up to her.

“You and me,” I tell her, twisting my words until there’s happiness in them.

“You and me,” she repeats.

Us.

I lean my forehead against hers, just to check, one more time if that twin telepathy has come into being yet. If I can read her mind.

But no current of secrets passes between our skin.

That’s okay. They don’t need to.

All our secrets have been laid to rest.

The next morning, I wake up in my own bed. I don’t remember leaving Grace’s room.

I push the covers back and then I’m shivering, freezing cold everywhere, in my blood, fingertips numb, head throbbing, popping full of needles.

“You’re sick,” Mom informs me after she takes my temperature. She sits back on my bed, studying me while a dragon eviscerates my chest. “Did you take ibuprofen?”

I sneeze.

“I’ll call you out,” she sighs. “But talk to your teachers about any missed assignments first thing tomorrow. Your father and I have to go to work, but Grace will be home.”

Us.

Mom leaves and I go back to dying. This sickness feels like an exorcism. Like all the fear from the past month is being drained from my body.

I’m sick for three days.

It’s a blur of fever, arguing with Dad about going to the doctor, Mom bringing me soup, Grace delivering glasses of water to my bedside table. Her coming into my room isn’t an event anymore. Once, when she goes downstairs, I get up and walk in and out of her doorway five times just to prove I can.

On the fourth day, I wake up and I can see straight. I’m not sweating anymore. I check the clock—two thirty in the afternoon. There are a couple of glasses of water on my bedside table, Grace’s contributions. I chug them both. Someone knocks on my door.

“Come in,” I croak. Mom and Dad are gone. It’s got to be Grace.

But it’s not Grace. It’s Levi.

“The front door was unlocked. Dunno if that counts as breaking and entering. I brought you soup,” Levi says nervously, a Tupperware container under his arm. “I googled the recipe and I bought dried shiitake mushrooms and I let it simmer for four hours.”

Levi?

Levi’s in my house.

I’m 110 percent awake. I bolt upright, tissues falling off my chest.

Did Grace see him come up