Please Don't Tell - Laura Tims Page 0,90
I want to believe.
The darkness peels back and her closeness sears brighter than everything else, dagger sharp.
“Grace, come over here.” My words are suddenly clear.
“You straightened your hair,” she mumbles. “You look like me.”
“Come here, Grace.”
“You can be the one with straight hair once I’m gone.”
I lunge. I’ve caught her before, I’ll catch her again. But the distance between us is too wide and she jerks back, too close, TOO close, her heels balanced on the edge.
“Don’t.” The word flies out, a warning.
I’m going to burst into tears and it’s not going to help. I don’t know what the words are to make this stop. I’ve never known them, and she’s going to fall because I’m not smart enough to know them.
“Please just leave,” she cries.
I can’t. I’m tied to her more than any other person in this world, and I need to learn how to tie the rope between us in something other than a noose.
“I love you,” I tell her.
She shuts her eyes. “If you do, it’s only because you don’t know me for real.”
“I know you, Grace.”
“You don’t.” Her heel scrapes nothingness and please, please, please, but she doesn’t fall, she just looks at me all shivery in the cold.
“I want to.” My mouth is desert dry. “Tell me.”
“I don’t want you to know who I am.” The wind wraps her hair around her neck. “But I’ll never be able to be someone else. Not ever in my whole life. Even when I tried to be you, it didn’t work.”
“Please come here, please, please.”
“It doesn’t take long to hit the bottom,” she says. “It didn’t take him long.”
Fear leaps everywhere in my stomach.
“It’s so dark in there,” she says quietly.
Both her heels are on the edge now.
“I’m not scared, though.”
She’s trembling all over.
I’m crying so hard I can’t speak. “Please. Just don’t. Talk to me. Stay and explain everything. There’s so much I don’t understand. Start from the beginning. How did I get home the night—the night Adam died?”
“Cassius helped me carry you.” Her eyes slide to a point over my shoulder, like she’s watching it happen in the distance.
“And—” Breathe. “He knew all along what happened to Adam.”
“I made him promise not to tell.”
“How—how did you—” I lick my lips. “How did you get those photos of Eastman and Savannah?”
“That part of the email I wrote from Cassius was true.” It’s like she’s in a trance. “He found them in his sister’s room. He came to me. He said I might be able to understand what Savannah was going through, wanted to know how to help her. But there’s no way to help. All you can do is get back at that person. That’s the only way to get the feelings out of you.”
“He gave you the photos?” I stammer.
“I stole them from his house.” She hugs herself. “After the photos went up, he was so upset. He knew it must’ve been me. But he felt so guilty about what Adam did. So he didn’t do anything.”
“So he didn’t have anything to do with the blackmail. You sent those emails.” I already knew, but shock breaks over me in waves anyway.
She looks away from me. “I have to go.”
Keep talking. She can’t fall if I keep her tied to me. “I don’t understand, but I’m not mad, okay? I love you no matter what, okay? Tell me—tell me where you found that video of Officer Roseby.”
“In November’s house.” She answers readily, robotically. “She invited me over one time, when her dad wasn’t home. She wanted to talk to me about Adam. I think she wanted to fix me. I poked around. I wanted to find out more about her. Then I found that video in her dad’s room, hidden away like a secret trophy. And I remembered how he arrested us that night, how awful he made everything. Everyone deserved to know what he’s really like. Just like everyone deserved to know what Eastman is like. People don’t believe all men are like that unless they see it for themselves.”
“Grace—”
“I knew it would be bad for Savannah, okay? And I knew it would probably be bad for November, too.” She lets out a whimper. “But I have to tell the truth, even if it hurts some! You have to warn everyone about what people have done. Or they just keep doing it forever.”
She yanks her fingers hard through her hair.
“Either the person has to die, like Adam,” she keeps going, “or everyone has to find out