The Last Secret You'll Ever Keep by Laurie Stolarz (summer reads txt) 📕

skin raw, blistered, and broken. Where had my socks gone? When had I peeled them off: my protective gloves?

Despite the soap and water, I couldn’t seem to get the nubs of my fingers clean. They were just so dirty. My ears were still so itchy. Was that a rock embedded beneath the skin of my palm?

I watched as the water filled the tub basin. Dirt from my body had clogged up the drain. But I didn’t want to move, didn’t care that my skin was wrinkled like a prune.

Sometime later, a floorboard creaked. My heart instantly clenched. I grabbed a razor and watched the bathroom door through the crack in the shower curtain, listening for the sound of footsteps up the stairs, like a wild animal awaiting its predator.

“Terra, is that you?” My aunt was home. Her voice didn’t sound urgent.

I heard the clamor of her keys against the hallway table, followed by the clapping of her heels up the stairs.

I closed the gap in the shower curtain.

“Hey, stranger.” She rapped on the open bathroom door. “What have you been up to? I called Jessie’s grandmother. She said that you and Jessie were still at Jessie’s sister’s sorority house, but you didn’t answer my calls. I was starting to get worried.”

Just starting? “What day is it?” How much time had passed?

“Seriously? It’s Wednesday.”

How was that possible? “Are you sure?”

“What do you mean? I think I know what day it is.”

I’d only been gone for four days?

“Wait, do you have a cold?” she asked. “Your voice sounds funny. Are you not feeling well?”

When was the last time I’d felt even fine?

“Terra?”

Rule number six: Take your time to think things through. Except I couldn’t really think. My body froze, and yet my mind raced. Logic wanted me to tell her what’d happened. But it felt too big to convey. What words would I use?

When had I taken off my clothes? Was it me who’d wound the leg of my sweatpants around the tub faucet? Had I also rolled up my tee and set it on the soap dish?

“What’s that?” she asked.

It was only then I noticed: the stains of dirt on the rim of the bathtub, the glob of mud on the edge of the shower curtain. Had I also made a puddle on the tile floor?

“Terra? What happened here? Why won’t you answer me?”

I bit my knee, making a circle of tooth marks, still unsure what to say.

“Terra?” she repeated, peeking inside the curtain. Her eyes widened at the sight of me. My dirty self. In the dirty tub.

The water looked like the dirt soup I used to make back in my sandbox when I was four and five.

I watched her mouth move, but I couldn’t process the words. Her face contorted into shapes—wide, gaping, scrunched, shriveled. So much expression; I’d never seen it from her before, not even after my parents died.

She grabbed a towel and got my robe, then sat with me on the ceramic tile floor; its hardness reminded me of the ground in the well.

Aunt Dessa held me tight and patted my back, asking over and over again, “What happened?”

I remember the sensation of her pendant charms against my forehead: the letters O and M, for O’Dessa and Maeve (my aunt and my mother), two sisters who’d once been so inseparable they wore each other’s initials around their necks.

“What happened?” she repeated. “You can tell me anything, sweetie.”

Sweetie. The word didn’t make sense, because she’d never used it on me before, had never held me so close either—not even after the fire.

“Tell me,” she repeated. Did she always smell like cinnamon? Was this softer version of her voice the one she reserved for her patients at the hospital?

Over the next several hours, I told her everything—every last bit. She acted like she believed me, grabbing her phone, calling the police …

“Is that why you called me that night?” she asked. “You didn’t leave a message.” Because her mailbox was full. “I assumed it was because you were going to stay with Jessie, just like your text said…”

We spent the blur of days at a hotel in the city—one with a king-size bed and soft white sheets—while investigators collected evidence from the house. When we got back, Aunt Dessa continued to shower me with love, brushing my hair, reading me books, and apologizing over and over: I’m so sorry. I should’ve known better. Should’ve made sure to talk to you. Shouldn’t have listened to Jessie’s grandmother …

She drew me salt baths (I still hadn’t felt clean) and set up the living room sofa with fresh sheets and a pillow and blanket.

And made me food.

And urged me to talk.

But my answers weren’t good enough. Investigators told her I wasn’t reliable enough. Doctors shook their heads and said I wasn’t strong enough:

“Don’t you hear it? She’s still humming.”

“You know she needs serious help, don’t you? You need to consider the repercussions five, ten, even fifteen years from now when she still hasn’t received the support she needs.”

Enough. Enough. Enough.

Need. Need. Need.

“Terra…” Detective Marshall’s voice.

I’d come to know it well. It sounded extra loud, as if being abducted meant I could no longer hear well.

“I need you to answer a few more questions now, okay?”

Not okay.

She asked anyway. “When you exited the park, did you pass through the city square?”

“I did.” I nodded.

“The police station is on the corner of Main Street and Langley Terrace. The fire station, as well. These are places that are open twenty-four hours. Are you aware of that?”

“Yes. I’m aware.” I only stopped for water at the fountain, by one of the park’s entrances. I’d already told them this; why did we have to go over it again? “I wanted to get home.” My eyes slammed shut. My hands wouldn’t stop shaking. “I really just wanted to clean myself up.”

“Do you think the police would’ve cared that you weren’t looking your best, that you needed a shower?”

I shook my head. “I wasn’t thinking about them.”

“We’ve talked to some