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

“I was so scared when I heard the news. Thank god you got away.”

“My older sister was at that party too. Do they know who did it yet?”

“I can’t even believe how amazing you look.”

“Rock star amazing.”

“I think I’d be hiding under my bed right about now.”

“Oh my god, me too.”

“Me three.”

“Please, don’t even think twice; if you need anything, call me. I’ll be there in a second.”

“I’ll be there in a millisecond. We’re practically neighbors.”

“I’m here for you, Terra.”

“We’re all here for you.”

“Terra … You’re so, so brave.”

“So strong.”

“So unbelievably heroic.”

I found myself spinning in circles, in the center of their love, feeling more accepted than I ever thought possible.

But where was Jessie? No longer part of the gaggle. Instead, she sat on the pavement, several yards back, sucking her pinkie finger (a nervous habit she’d given up years before).

In the days that followed, I tried texting her, but she didn’t respond. And then, a short week later, on a dark and desperate night, when Aunt Dessa had been working and Felix couldn’t be reached, I called blowing-kisses Hannah, hoping for that shoulder she’d offered, imagining all of us (her, Juanita, Betsy, Asia, and Jessie) meeting at one of their houses—one big, happy gaggle.

Hannah picked up right away. “Who’s this?” she asked, not having recognized my number.

“It’s me. Terra. I was hoping that maybe we could get together to talk.”

“Are you kidding me?” she snapped. “How could you lie like that? Some people have real problems.”

My chest tightened. What was she talking about? “What are you talking about?”

“On second thought, I’m not even that surprised. I knew you were a liar as soon as you opened your mouth at Emo—all that talk about your parents, in the present tense, as if they were still alive and you weren’t the fire girl…”

“Wait, what?”

“I saw Jessie’s post. Actually, I’ve seen a lot of posts. Famous yet?” The phone clicked off.

I went online to see what she was talking about. Jessie had blasted me on social media, saying I’d once told her I’d do almost anything to be famous: I never thought she’d stoop this low and waste everybody’s time and money, she wrote. But obviously I was wrong. #FireGirl

My heart caved in.

My tears poured out.

Had I said that? Or anything remotely close to it? Maybe once, after a talent show, when a group of us, Jessie included, sang an a cappella version of “Lean on Me.” We’d gotten a standing ovation. Everybody loved it. Maybe I’d said something about being famous then?

I tried calling Felix again. Still no answer. “Please call me back,” I said at the beep, my voice all gravelly.

I crawled beneath my bed with my bottle of maple syrup and the doorknob from my old bedroom, wishing I could go back in time to the night of the fire and have another chance. I wouldn’t have fled out the window, climbing down a neighbor’s ladder. I would’ve tried to save my parents instead of thinking solely of myself. But there are no do-overs in a crisis situation: rule number seven.

It’s dark under my bed, but not nearly dark enough to erase all time and space—not dark like the bottom of a dark, dark well, with the light turned off and the lid closed tight.

THEN

17

It wasn’t long after Jessie’s post that word began to spread about who I was: the daughter of parents who’d died in a house fire; a girl who’d spent months on the mental health floor of a hospital; a student at the school for emotionally disturbed kids … To those I knew—and others I didn’t—I was a liar, a loner, and an absolute loon.

An anonymous former teacher told the local news I was “the kind of girl who sets little fires as a distraction, so you’ll never see the blazing inferno inside” me. Another no-name source said I moped the school halls like “a walking dead girl: there but not; present but absent. It was really kind of creepy.”

A Facebook page for the town where I live had a whole thread devoted to me and my case. I made the mistake of reading the comments: people complaining what a waste of taxpayer money it was to investigate the fantastical claims of someone as confused and disoriented as I am.

My aunt’s home became the one place I could escape from all the voices—until one night, sitting across from Aunt Dessa on the living room sofa, thinking we were going to discuss takeout options for our girls’ night in, I felt her staring at the side of my face.

I looked up from a menu, focused on the gold pendants around her neck—the initials O and M—wishing more than anything that my mom were there. “Is everything okay?”

She scooted in closer, took both of my hands, and asked the burning question: “Is there something you want to tell me?”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“I mean, did you really get taken?”

A match struck inside my heart, burning a thick, black hole. I gazed down at our clasped hands, noticing the trembling of my fingers. Did she feel it too?

“Tell me the truth,” she continued. “Is it possible you might’ve spent those nights at a friend’s house, someone I don’t know? It wouldn’t have been the first time. Remember last summer, not to mention this past Christmas…”

How could I have forgotten? The time I fell asleep in the back of my parents’ car, because Aunt Dessa wasn’t home and the house had felt too vacant. And then this past Christmas, not wanting to be alone, I escaped to Felix’s grandparents’ place. I hadn’t told my aunt, mostly because Aunt Dessa had to work on and off that weekend anyway, Christmas Day included, so what was the point in being “home”? It took two days for her to notice I wasn’t around. And eight additional hours for the police to find me.

And so, flash forward to after I got home from the well, and there