Keep My Secrets by Elena Wilkes (management books to read .txt) 📕

‘I geddit.’ Nat eased her legs from under her. ‘I know why you’re doing it. You’re in the same shit as me.’ She glanced pointedly at her belly. Frankie instinctively drew her forearm across her waistline.

‘I dunno what you’re on about.’

‘Yeah you do.’ Nat nodded and lowered her voice. ‘I’ve bin in your room, r’member? Your boxes of tampons haven’t moved, an’ I found the tests you tried to hide in the outside bin.’

Frankie looked at her, incredulous. ‘You’ve been through the bin?’

Nat looked smug. ‘See? I should be a detective. If they weren’t yours you wouldn’t have reacted like that.’ She saw the expression on Frankie’s face. ‘S’alright. No one else knows, ’specially not Jude… But you are, aren’t you?’

‘You need to mind your own business.’

Nat only glanced into the hallway. ‘I’m just tryin’ to help,’ she twitched huffily. ‘I’m telling you, once they find out, you know they’ll never let you keep it. They say they will, ’cos they have to, but then they come up with all kinds of reasons why you can’t. They’ll take it off you and you won’t have a scooby where it’s gone. You’ll never see it again.’

Frankie looked into her face.

‘You don’t believe me, do you?’ She gave a sad little smile and put the flat of her hand on her stomach. ‘This is my second. I fought for the first when I was fourteen, but they took him off me.’ She glanced around her. ‘I’ve told them they can have this one for adoption, but that’s only to get them off my back. What I’m really gonna do, is look for my mum… I’m gonna see if I can find her. They want babies to be in families, see? If I can persuade her and her boyfriend to take me back, then they’ll have to let me keep it.’

She looks up at the windows of Vanessa’s house, scared of seeing, and at the same time, scared of not seeing movement there – but the pane stays disappointingly blank. That’s Jack’s room at the front. She remembers the hours and hours they spent sitting playing The Tomb Raider Legend. It was the closest she’d ever come to having a brother; there they were, two seventeen-year-old kids messing about playing video games. She often thought about Jack: what it must have been like for him back then, how hard it all was, yet he was always there for her: always had her back. He was always her rock even when things got really bad.

Once, mid Tomb Raider game, she realised he was watching her.

‘Do you feel as weird about this situation as I do?’ He said it so matter-of-factly it shocked her, but then she saw he was smiling.

‘Yeah.’

‘Good. That means we’re being dead honest with each other.’ He was still smiling. ‘We shouldn’t though.’

‘What?’

‘Feel weird – It’s like Vanessa said, you’re a victim just like we are.’

She couldn’t answer.

He shrugged. ‘It’s messed-up. Like, life is messed-up. I’m so sick of hating and fighting. Why would I hate you? You haven’t done anything wrong.’

She went to get up. ‘I think I should go—’

His eyes followed her. ‘I mean, I wasn’t sure at first – like, why Vanessa would ask you here? And then I was even more surprised when you said yes.’ His cool gaze searched her face.

She stood. ‘I really should go.’

‘What’s the matter?’

‘Nothing. It’s just…’ She waved a hand. ‘You’re right, this is weird.’

‘But you keep coming round… I mean, I like it, I just wondered why, though?’

‘You’re right, it’s probably best—’ She bent to pick up her jacket.

‘I remember you that night at the party.’

She froze.

‘It took me a while to think where I knew you from.’ He started to rush. ‘I-I saw you. Later on. When you were totally out of it – I didn’t know what you’d taken, but you were in a state. I’m really sorry for you, you know?’ He looked at her, concerned. ‘I realised you’d got caught up in something without knowing it.’

‘Vanessa thinks I know stuff about Martin – I don’t.’

‘Vanessa’s always trying to make connections that aren’t there – ignore her,’ he said bitterly.

‘That’s why she wanted to talk to me in the first place. She thinks I can tell her something that’ll help her understand what happened with Charlotte, but I can’t! I don’t remember a thing. Honestly!’

‘Shh…’ Jack grabbed her hand. ‘It’s okay, you don’t have to feel bad, Frankie, seriously. It’s not you, it’s her. Vanessa feels as guilty as hell about Charlotte; she thinks her control-freakery drove Charlotte away. Maybe it did and maybe it didn’t. But I do know once she gets her claws in you, she doesn’t let go. You become a possession. My dad’s her possession.’

There was something about the way he said it that sounded off: strangely angry.

‘She was very kind to me though, that day at the court.’ Frankie almost felt like she needed to defend her. ‘She made me feel…’ She shrugged but it felt like a flinch.

‘Yeah, I know how she makes people feel.’

There it was again.

‘She made me feel like she was listening to me. Not judging me, y’know? Girls like me are judged all the time. They shove us in a box as though being brought up in care means you’ve been branded, here.’ She made a stripe across her forehead. ‘It’s invisible but everyone can see it.’

‘You would’ve liked her, y’know.’

Something shunted inside her.

‘Who?’

‘Charlotte. You would’ve got on. I know you had that row, but—’

She lurched.

‘You saw us arguing?’

He nodded. ‘Dunno who else did. No one I know has said anything – but they wouldn’t. All my kind of tribe leave the police alone and they leave us alone… Yeah, I think you would’ve liked her. Some people said she thought a lot of herself, but she didn’t: quite the opposite. She always wanted people to like her – and if they didn’t, it cut her deep. A bit