The Secrets We Keep

“You have study hall next,” he reminded me.

“Umm hmm.” I knew Maddy’s schedule, made sure I had it memorized before I set foot in school.

“Try to say something nice to Je

They could find another house, but Je

“Ask her about what happened between her and Keith while you were out of school,” Alex added, and I stopped thinking about Je

Alex spun me around and headed me in the opposite direction from him, a silent message to not screw up barely hidden in his voice: “I know it sucks, Maddy, but remember, the sooner things get back to normal, the better off we’ll both be.”

19

I walked in the direction Alex had nudged me toward. I wasn’t anxious to hear Je

Mine was sitting in my room drawing or arguing with Josh over whether or not banana peppers and chicken was a good combination of pizza toppings. My normal was constant. The people around me were predictable. I could tell you that Josh had a poppy seed bagel with veggie cream cheese every morning for breakfast. I could tell you that he never filled his tank past the quarter mark and always went to the 7-Eleven on Reservoir Avenue because it was the only one that had watermelon Slurpees. He’d bring two brand-new mechanical pencils to every test, same make, same brand. One for me, one for him.

But Maddy’s friends … Alex … there was nothing predictable or consistent about them.

I didn’t have a clue what I was supposed to do. I’d never had a study hall in my life. I always filled those empty spots with an open studio or an advanced class. Plus, I had nothing to study. In fact, if I wanted to play the part of Maddy, then I needed to dumb myself down, not get a jump start on tomorrow’s homework.

The halls were pretty much empty. A couple of girls were heading toward the bathroom and a few more were digging forgotten books or homework assignments out of their lockers. The rest of the students were in their classes. Having nowhere in particular to go, I slowed my pace. It was nice to be alone, to have a second of peace to reorient myself.

I had forty-five minutes until my next real class started, and I thought I’d use it to sift through the contents of Maddy’s locker. I’d already gone through her desk, bureau, and closet. None of those revealed anything out of the ordinary, except perhaps the box of condoms I found shoved down in the toe of one of her boots this morning.

I don’t know where the urge to count them came from, but I did. Box of twelve, seven left. That only confirmed my suspicion that Alex wasn’t kidding when he joked that I’d be ready soon. Yeah, no clue how I was going to handle that one.

I slowed nearly to a stop when I heard Je

I counted the lockers three times to make sure I wasn’t mistaken, then searched the numbers for further confirmation: that was Maddy’s locker Je

But it was my name—Ella—mingled into Je

“Alex is angry that we didn’t have this done before she got here this morning,” Je

She had a roll of crepe paper in one hand, a giant poster board in the other. She tore off a chunk of streamer paper and waved at the girl next to her to hurry up and give her some tape. “If he wanted her locker decorated with this welcome-back crap, then he should’ve done it himself. Like the one in the locker room isn’t enough.”

The girl laughed as she dug some sort of homemade sign out of her backpack. I couldn’t read the names on it from where I was hiding, but there were a lot. She tacked it to the front of my locker and offered Je

“I don’t know why he’s mad. It’s not like anybody knew she’d be here today,” the girl said.

Je

“Did you see her at Ella’s locker this morning?” I still couldn’t place who that girl was—probably an underclassman or one of the JV field hockey players that Je

Josh wasn’t weird; he was the most genuine person I knew. And I wouldn’t qualify me trying to clear out my own locker as losing it. I’d call it being considerate of Josh’s feelings.

Je

There it was, that snap of brutal honesty that I’d always associated with Je

I remembered asking my sister about her when we were freshmen. It was toward the end of the year. Je

“She’s not as bad as you think. I mean, you don’t even know her,” Maddy said as she flicked through the TV cha

I rolled my eyes. I didn’t need to know Je

“She’s mean, Maddy. No matter how you slice it, that girl is mean.”

“You would be too if you had her life.”

I highly doubted that, but whatever, I’d bite. “Why? What possible excuse are you going to make for her?”

“She went to the same elementary and middle school as Alex,” Maddy began. “She has lived next door to him since first grade, and their parents are good friends.”

I found that interesting, or at least it made sense as to why Maddy had started hanging out with her to begin with—they had Alex in common.