Chapter 1
The car accident this summer wasn’t an accident.
Secrets have weight, and this one’s heavy. Most of my secrets are light. For example, I dropped a bottle of nail polish behind the couch last year. Now my mom will find a small puddle of Lime-So-Sublime on the floor if she ever decides to remodel. I plan to blame it on the cat.
Which reminds me: I need to get a cat.
Let’s see…other secrets…I pretend high heels are comfortable even though I get blisters whenever I wear them. My recovering ankle has given me an excuse to wear tennis shoes to school for the foreseeable future, so turns out the accident had some perks after all.
One more example: My brother’s beta fish is not the same one he asked me to feed when he left for spring break. The pet store had a near-perfect match, and Brent isn’t very observant. Rest in peace, original Finny.
See? Pretty tame secrets. Until now.
“Natalie,” my mom says. “Remember what we discussed—not telling people about…you know.”
She’s sitting with my brother and me as we eat our traditional, first-day-of-school omelets. Brent still got up to make them even though he graduated in the spring and his classes at the community college don’t start till the afternoon. What’s odd is that my big secret—the car accident—isn’t the one Mom’s warning me to keep this morning. According to her, I have a bigger one.
“I’m not going to tell, Mom.” My face is hot. “Pass the orange juice?” I pour myself a large glass in an attempt to drown this conversation.
“I want what’s best for you.” She picks a microscopic piece of lint from her secondhand Chanel cardigan. “To avoid questions, be careful about where you take your med—”
“Mom, seriously, I got it.” I can’t keep my voice from rising.
Brent focuses on cutting his omelet. I pull out my phone and jab at the screen, fully aware of Mom’s disapproving scowl.
“Natalie, it’s not appropriate to text at the table.”
“I’m not texting, see?” I flash the screen toward them. “I made a note for myself: Don’t tell people I’m a nutter.”
Her carefully composed expression doesn’t change, but her face pales. I want to confront her right then about what I heard the night before my accident, but Brent grabs the carton and says, “Who wants more orange juice? Nat? Have more juice.” He flashes me a stony glare
while he pours into my almost-full glass. The moment passes, and I know I won’t say anything.
“Mom? Juice?”
“Thank you, Brent. That would be lovely. Vitamin C is so important.” The tension leaves the table, and Brent exchanges a glance with Mom. I know what they’re thinking: Crisis averted. We’re just a happy family having breakfast.
It’s one of the biggest things I’ve learned from my mom: appearances are everything. It’s like our family is a designer knock-off: it looks fine on the outside, but something about it isn’t authentic. My phone note reminds me that I haven’t taken my pills today, but taking them at the table would bring the whole thing up again. I eat my omelet quickly so I can go take them in the car.
Once safely alone in my “new” fifteen-year-old Camry, I take out my orange pill bottle. I put it on the dashboard, and it’s as ugly as the peeling gray vinyl around it. The white lid, the white label, and the harsh black letters are familiar in the same way that an obnoxious uncle is familiar: you don’t want to see him, but he keeps showing up.
The pill bottle and I have a stare-down, which happens most times I take my pills.
Pill bottles always win staring contests.
One day I will stop taking them, because either a doctor lets me or I decide I’m simply not doing it anymore. Apparently, stopping treatment is a terrible idea, because without these drugs my brain does weird things, like make me want to drive full speed down a road and then crash into a tree.
I blink out the memories and quickly take my pills before the flashbacks can overrun my mind. I reach for my old gearshift and realize it’s not there. Oops. The new one is by the steering wheel. I hit the gas a little too hard when I speed out of my driveway, but no matter. I’ll get away from my house that much faster. Home is a weird place to be lately, so hopefully school will feel normal.
Students buzz around the one-story brick school like bees near a hive, and it looks the same way it always has. Most of the windows are open in a desperate attempt to catch a breeze. The gazebo to the right of the glass-walled entryway still has peeling white paint on the sides. Students mill about in their first-day-of-school outfits, looking like the best versions of themselves.
But are they talking about me? Are they talking about what happened? It was two months ago, so they’ve probably forgotten.
“Oh my gosh, Natalieeeeee!”
Before I get to the front door, Alyssa Jackson envelops me in a hug. I had physics with her last year (I think). She knocks me off balance so that my full weight is on my bad leg, and I wince.
“I’m so glad you’re okay,” Alyssa says. “I was worried sick! I checked Twitter, like, once every five minutes looking for updates about you. For weeks.”
Whoops. Never underestimate the power of a gossip chain in a school with only a few hundred students. What were people putting on Twitter? Note to self: Get a cat, and also get on Twitter.
Alyssa pulls out of the hug and gives me a once-over. “They said you almost died.” She seems disappointed that I’m not in a body cast. She can’t see the scar on my chest where a plastic tube fixed my collapsed lung, or the scar from the surgery to clamp the internal bleeding. She can’t see the hours of physical therapy I’ve done to fix my whiplashed neck and strengthen my broken ankle. I only got the boot off a few weeks ago. My crutches are in my car, so she doesn’t see those, either. My mom made me take them to school, but she can’t make me use them. School’s mostly sitting anyway. Alyssa also doesn’t see the hours of talking I’ve done with a psychiatrist and a therapist, trying to be mentally ready to come back to school again.
“I’m fine.” I smile, trying to look convincing. “Really. I’m great. Thanks.”
As Alyssa gave me her once-over, more people started coming up to welcome me back/gawk at me. My friends and I usually have quite a few people hanging around us before school, but this feels awkward. It’s different when I’m more of a spectacle than a friend. I start to walk inside.
“You’re limping!” says Alyssa. “That’s awful. Here, I’ll carry your backpack.”
I try to protest, but she already has the bag over her shoulder. “Move aside, people! She’s in pain!”
My face flames. Dozens of eyes turn my way, and I want to sink through the floor.
“Wait up! I’m fine, seriously.” I try to rush after her, but my ankle slows me down. My salvation comes in the form of Cecily, one of my two best friends.
“I can take the backpack. I’ve got first hour with Natalie.” Cecily’s blonde hair is in a curled ponytail, her smile is wide and white, but her eyes are demanding. She stands straight up, a full head taller than Alyssa, and puts out her hand to take the backpack.
Still, Alyssa persists. “Are you sure? It’s really no trouble….” She turns to me, looking for a verdict.
“Cecily can take it. It makes more sense. Thanks, though. I’ll catch up with you later, okay?” Not sure when I’ll catch up with her. If we’re not friends, what is there to catch up on?
Alyssa reluctantly hands the backpack to Cecily.
Cecily waits until she’s around the corner and then throws the backpack to me. “Carry your own backpack, weirdo.” She smiles.
I roll my eyes. “Thanks for that.” It’s more than gratefulness for the backpack bailout—finally someone is acting like things are the way they were before the accident. It’s like a small breath of untainted air.
“I’ve got your back.” She readjusts her ponytail.
Once I’m inside the school building, everyone has something to say.
“I heard you flew fifteen feet into the air!”
“Were you really in the hospital for two weeks?”
“What caused the accident? Be honest: Were you drunk?”
“When we thought you were going to die, I put flowers by the tree you hit. Just so you know.”
“Thank goodness your face didn’t get smashed in. You still have a shot at homecoming queen.”
That might have been encouraging at some point in my life, but right now the priorities of my peer group disgust me. Have they always been this shallow? Have I?
By the time I get to my locker, I’m ready to turn around and drive back home.
“Brynn, I’m going to kill you,” I mutter as I open my locker door. She’s already there, waiting for me and Cecily. Brynn is our other best friend. She’s a shoo-in for “Biggest Gossip” in senior specials. I assume everyone knows the details of my accident because of her.
“Not my fault.” Brynn holds up her hands in defense, as if she bears no responsibility but also as if she’s not sorry it happened. “This is the twenty-first century. It was on the news and a thousand different internet platforms. I didn’t have to spread a single thing.”
I was the juiciest gossip of the summer. As one of my best friends, Brynn played both the part of the insider and the part of the grieving friend. She didn’t mind the attention from either.
“That’s not to say you didn’t spread anything,” Cecily teases.
“I absolutely did not spread things.” Brynn seems indignant. Then she looks up as if she’s trying to remember. “Not much, anyway.”
I raise my eyebrows, and she shrugs.
“Come on, Nat. You’re headline news. Big drama. Like, celebrity-breakup big. It’s not like I could say nothing. People care, so I had to keep them informed for you.”
I couldn’t logically expect Brynn to keep any sort of gossip to herself. She doesn’t have it in her. All people have Achilles heels, and part of being a friend is loving them anyway.
Cecily gets out her phone. “We need to do our annual first-day-of-school selfie.” Her smile turns a bit sad. “Aw, this will be our last one.”
We’ve been doing first-day-of-school selfies ever since sixth grade, when Brynn was the first one of us to have a cell phone. That was also the year we stopped letting my mom take a first-day-of-school picture of us outside the school building (which she’d done since kindergarten). Junior high was too old for that.
“Say ‘seniors’!” says Cecily. We all smile, and Cecily taps the phone a few times. She looks at the pictures. “My hair looks weird. We have to do it again.”
Cecily’s hair never looks weird, but I smile again and brace myself for the dozen or so takes that Cecily will need before she deems the selfie acceptable. It doesn’t help that Brynn starts making goofy faces around the fifth take. Some people are whispering and pointing at me. My smile tightens.
We finally get a picture acceptable to Cecily.
“Nat, you’re so lucky you’re a natural blonde. I’ve spent zillions on highlights.”
I assure Cecily her hair is gorgeous. I even try to act like it’s the first time we’ve had this conversation.
“How did Brent do his hair today? Did he use mousse, or did he leave it natural?”
Cecily’s had a crush on my brother for the past year, and it seems that his graduating did nothing to dampen her fervor. If anything, it made it worse.
“I have no idea,” I say. “Do you really expect me to pay that much attention to my brother’s hair?” I exchange a disbelieving look with Brynn. Crushes turn Cecily’s brain into spaghetti. It’s embarrassing for all involved.
Shelley from the track team walks up and welcomes me back. We were kind of friends before I dropped out of track last spring, and now, with my busted ankle, I probably won’t be running this year either. Without running, S
helley and I don’t really have much to talk about.
“Where were all these people when I was in the hospital?” I whisper to my friends. The only people who visited were Brynn, Cecily, and my art teacher. Not my school art teacher, but the one at the Vicksburg Institute of Arts, a haven in my Michigan hometown. I’ve had lessons with Soo Ahn once a week for the past three years. She was concerned about my overall health, but also I think she was concerned about my fine motor skills. I’m bad at a lot of things in life, but art isn’t one of them. Luckily for Soo, the accident didn’t change that.
A guy I don’t know stops by my locker. “Hi, Natalie. Sorry about the accident.” I smile and say thanks. As soon as he walks by, I turn back to Brynn and Cecily. “Who is that guy? This is getting creepy.”
Brynn squints as she accesses her mental database. “Ben Jones. Sophomore. He’s dating Andrea Sark. I think he’s the one who got caught cheating on an algebra test last year, but that might have been his brother. Not sure.”
I stare at Brynn, who widens her giant blue eyes. “You seriously need to get a life,” I say.
The warning bell rings, and we have three minutes to get to class. With my bad ankle, I’m going to need all three. I shut my locker door. “See you at lunch?”
Brynn and Cecily agree before joining the hustle of students trying not to start the year off with a tardy. I check to make sure I hav
e everything in my backpack, then start making my way to my first-period classroom. Things feel almost normal, but not quite. It’s like someone took my friendship with Brynn and Cecily and put a photo filter on it. The colors have changed just a little bit. Is it because this is the first major secret I’ve kept from them? What would happen if I told them that the accident wasn’t an accident? I wish I could sweep the filters right and left to see what the different results would be before I choose one.
“Hi, Natalie?”
Someone taps me on the shoulder. I don’t have time for another round of assuring someone I’m fine, but I need to be polite.
I stop limping, turn around, and smile. “Hi. Ella, right?”
She’s a sophomore. Her sister, Chloe, is in my class.
“Yeah, uh, sorry about your accident.” She meets my eyes but then looks away.
I force yet another smile. “It’s okay. I’m fine now.” I turn forward and hope she’ll let it go. I have got to get to class on the other side of the school, and running there is an impossibility.
“Uh, Natalie?”
I turn around again, my smile still plastered on. At first I thought she was nervous to be talking to a senior, but there’s something more to it. “The thing is, I was walking home from
my grandma’s on July seventh…”
I get goose bumps even though there’s no breeze inside. Where’s she going with this?
“I take Martin Road,” Ella continues. She nods the slightest bit, like I should put together what she’s trying to tell me without her having to say it.
My stomach drops. My smile disappears.
She takes a deep breath. “I know what really happened.”
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