Secrets We Keep

by Angel Lawson

  Even though I knew some of it was ridiculous and that no, we probably wouldn’t have a joint wedding—or even go to the same college—I did think we would always be best friends. I couldn’t imagine it any other way.

  Until Juliette moved to town.

  And the Wallers and the Chandlers reclaimed their friendship from Thistle Cove High.

  And Rose didn’t just leave me behind—she betrayed me.

  And that’s when I learned that people aren’t perfect, and that mythology isn’t real; it’s a clever way of mixing reality and desire. Truth and fiction. A way of proving to the world around you that you’re bigger than everyone else.

  Until you’re not.

  “I got a call from Regina last night,” my mother says the next morning. She slides a plate with a crispy waffle on it across the table. “She wanted to know if we’d seen Rose.”

  Rose ditching me hurt my mom almost as much as it hurt me. She’d been over here constantly when we were kids, more like sisters than friends. It also put a strain on the relationship between our parents, who, for a long time, spent as much time together as we did.

  Mom got replaced by Monica Chandler the way I got replaced by Juliette.

  If her mom called here looking for Rose, things may be worse than I thought.

  “Seems her car was abandoned on the bridge.” My mother’s skin turns pale when she says it. “Have you heard from her?”

  “No.” I drown my waffle in syrup, filling each and every square. I’m not hungry. I barely slept. My phone pinged all night with rumors and gossip and worries about Rose. No one knew anything other than she missed school yesterday and her car was found on the bridge. Juliette is using it like a bullhorn, pleading for Rose to contact her. To call home.

  Finn has been silent.

  “I told her the last time I saw her was when she stopped by to see Finn a few days ago. I think you were at work.” She sits across from me, hand clasped around a mug of coffee. “I only remember because they seemed to be in some kind of argument.”

  I look up from my syrup-soaked waffle. “They were fighting?”

  She laughs. “Right? A big change from all the PDA going on all the time.”

  I wrinkle my nose at my mom using the term PDA, but she’s not wrong. One thing that made Finn and Rose so hard to swallow as a couple is they crammed their affection down everyone’s throats. Or rather, their tongues down one another’s throats. It wasn’t uncommon to walk out the front door, glance over at the Andrews’ porch and see them mid-dry hump.

  “I’m going to be late,” I say, seeing the time on the microwave.

  “But you didn’t eat.”

  I shove my fork into the waffle and cram down three pieces.

  “I need to go pick up Alice, and I’ve got to take the money from last night to the bookkeeper before school starts.”

  She waves me off, knowing it’s pointless to argue. The yearbook is my main priority. Getting the head editor job is a pretty big deal. I grab my backpack and the cash box, then head to the car. I freeze halfway down the steps when I see the cop car in front of Finn’s house.

  My phone buzzes.

  Alice: Where are you?

  Kenley: I’m on my way.

  I shove my bag in the backseat and crank the engine. At the entrance of the neighborhood I see a figure walking down the road with an unmistakable lanky build and a trademark black cap. I slow next to Ozzy and roll down the window.

  “You need a ride?”

  He grimaces. “I can walk.”

  “Dude, we’re going to the same place.”

  “Did you just call me dude?” A small, strained smile lifts his lips.

  “Get in.” He tugs at his cap but opens the door. “The back. Alice rides shotgun. You know how she is.”

  He nods, climbing in the back of the Honda.

  Alice lives one neighborhood over, and I turn down the main road to get there.

  “Did you hear anything else?” Ozzy asks.

  I look in the rearview mirror, catching his eye.

  “The cops are at Finn’s house.”

  “Shit,” he mutters, tugging off his cap and running his hands through his hair.

  “And her mom called my mom to ask if we’d seen her.”

  He raises an eyebrow. That’s how well known it is that if they’re calling me, they must really be desperate.

  “So she really is gone?”

  That word hangs between us as I turn down Alice’s street.

  Gone.

  There’s so many things in the air, so many questions, but it seems one thing is true: Rose Waller is gone.

  7

  Finn

  The last place I want to be is at school, but it’s better than being at home. I know the most important thing right now is to act normal. To pretend like everything is okay.

  Except it’s not okay.

  Rose’s didn’t come to school yesterday.

  Her car was found on Carter’s Bridge.

  And today the police showed up at my house asking question after question until my mind was a jumbled, aching, muddled mess.

  When was the last time you saw Rose?

  Has she contacted you?

  Did she seem upset?

  Did she mention going anywhere?

  Was she having car trouble?

  Had you been fighting?

  Nope, nothing is okay.

  Including the fact that I’m tardy, and I have to stop by the office on my way to class for a note.

  Ms. McCormack, the attendance worker, is a notorious hardass. She’s heard every lame excuse, dramatic excuse, bullshit excuse, and has zero fucks to give for whatever story kids walk through her door trying to convince her into giving them a pass.

  One second after walking in the door, the urge to flee is back. Ms. McCormack sees me and stands, dabbing a tissue at her eyes.

  “Sorry, I’m late,” I say, clutching the note from my mother. It doesn’t exactly say, “Please excuse my son, he was being interrogated by the police about his missing girlfriend,” but Thistle Cove is a small town and the implication is there.

  Ms. McCormack waves it away.

  “I know today is hard for you, son. Take your time. Everyone is very upset. Rose was a lovely young woman. I’m praying for her safety.”

  A numb sensation rolls up my spine.

  Coming to school was a bad idea.

  “Thank you,” I reply, stepping back in the hall. I lean my back against the glass trophy case and close my eyes. The last time I saw Rose comes to mind. She’d been upset, angry, but not specifically at me. She’d been like that more and more lately when we were alone, moody and upset. Restless. We hadn’t had sex in months. She barely let me touch her anymore.

  I didn’t say any of that to the police. It’s none of their goddamned business.

  “Hey, Holloway.”

  I open my eyes and see Ezra.

  “You look like shit.”

  “Not today.”

  “You want to get out of here?” He raises an eyebrow.

  I’m not into drugs or whatever it is that Ezra’s selling, but I do need to get the fuck out of this place.

  “Yeah,” I say, pushing off the trophy case. “But I’ve got to lay low. The last thing I need is the police following me around.”

  “The police?”

  “Yeah, they came by this morning asking a bunch of questions about Rose.”

  He nods thoughtfully. Ezra’s encounters with the cops are well known around The Cove. The fact he’s not in military school or some kind of lock-up is only because his father is a lawyer. I’d said as much to Rose last spring when he got busted dealing down at the marina. It’d seemed like the one that would send him away for good. It didn’t.

  That’s how good Ezra Baxter, Sr., is in front of a judge.

  “Can you help me avoid them?” I ask him.

  “Yeah, I think I can.”

  I hesitate, just for a second, wondering how the kid I’d grown up wi
th playing Pop Warner turned into the town dealer. Yesterday, I would have said no to going off with him. It wasn’t worth the risk. But today? I start walking toward the door, everything is different and having a guy that knows how to cling to the edges? That’s just what I need.

  8

  Kenley

  I have regrets about coming to school before I even get to my locker. The whole school is caught up in Rose’s disappearance. Juliette is surrounded by cheerleaders, all of their faces red and splotchy. Teachers whisper to one another, deep lines of concern slashed through their foreheads.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” Alice says with a dramatic eye roll. “Half of these people didn’t even know her. Obviously, it makes sense that they’d be the ones crying; they have no idea what a conniving bitch she really is.”

  “Alice!” I say, looking around to see if anyone heard her. “Really?”

  “Sorry, Kenley, but count me out of the people thinking this is a big deal. I’m in the camp that her car broke down, and she hopped in an Uber for the airport.”

  Alice is talking about the rumors that started swirling immediately. There were a lot of them. That’s the curse of social media and too many true crime documentaries. Did Rose run away? Maybe with a secret boyfriend. She’d always said she wanted to move to New York. On and on and on…

  But there was one other one. A scary one.

  That she jumped.

  “Then again,” Alice adds, scanning the new posts on social media, “I can totally see her finally getting sick of living with her traitorous self and jumping off the bridge to put an end to her guilt.”

  “Alice!”

  I slam my locker shut.

  She looks at me innocently. “What?”

  I can’t even respond. I turn and head the opposite direction. Away from Alice, away from the rumors, tears and crying. I open the door to the yearbook office and shut it behind me. I don’t turn on the lights, just happy to have a moment alone. I drop my bag and drop my face into my hands, letting loose the tears that have I’ve been holding inside since last night when I saw her car.

  Rose is gone. I can feel it. I don’t know if that means something terrible happened on that bridge, or if it means she vanished on her own free will. What I do know is that any chance we’d ever have to repair our friendship is probably over. And that’s what I’m mourning right now.

  I’m so lost in my emotions that I don’t realize I’m not alone until the chair across the room squeaks. I look up and see another person hiding in the dark. Our eyes meet, and grief turns to embarrassment being caught emotional like this.

  Ozzy crosses the room and stands in front of me, his own eyes rimmed in red. He doesn’t hesitate to reach for me, pull me into a tight, warm hug. I stiffen, caught in the weirdness of Ozzy Drake hugging me, but he doesn’t let go and finally, I relax into his arms. We stay like that for an eternity, until I’m all cried out.

  He steps back and places his hands on my cheeks, wiping away the tears with his thumbs. “You okay?”

  “I’m not sure,” I confess. I’m confused about my feelings. Confused about why Ozzy is here and how I didn’t realize how much I needed him until this very moment. “But I do know that if I go back out there, I’ll lose my mind.”

  He nods. “Same. It’s pretty fucking intense out there. You wanna ditch?”

  “Please.”

  We grab our bags and slip out the side door just before the bell rings. I spot Alice standing down the hall searching for me. I duck my head, not wanting to be a part of whatever toxicity she’s spewing right now.

  We escape into the fresh, clean, fall air and leave Thistle Cove High behind.

  The bridge is closed, but I don’t want to drive that direction anyway. Helicopters have been flying overhead since morning, and every minute that passes that we don’t get a text saying everything is okay, fills me with a sense of dread. But I also don’t want to be alone or sit in my house with my mother as she obsessively watches the news. So Ozzy and I go down to the windy trail above the bay and take a walk. It’s perfect; wind and the crashing waves against the rocky surface make it impossible to talk. We walk side by side until Oz suddenly stops.

  We’re right in front of the Wallers house.

  It’s a massive two story with gray painted shingles and a slanted roof. A large porch wraps around the back. Technically, it’s part of our neighborhood, but the Wallers built it to their specifications the year after he won a spot on the city council. My eyes go directly to the upstairs balcony that I know leads to Rose’s room. Near the back stairs I see a sign staked into the ground. “Brice Waller–Mayor,” as if he’s trying to catch the vote of fishermen and sailors.

  “It’s been a long time since I’ve been in that house,” Oz says, tugging at his cap.

  “Yeah, me too.”

  He cuts his eyes at me. “You ever going to tell me what happened between you two?”

  “Do you think it matters at a time like this?”

  “Don’t you?” He shoves his hands in his pockets. “Rose is missing, and you’re her number one enemy. Seems like it may come up.”

  I gape at him. “You think I did something to her?”

  “No, but whatever did happen between you two was so big no one has ever talked about it. It looks suspicious.”

  I exhale. “It’s just embarrassing.”

  “It can’t be that bad.” He smiles crookedly, and my heart does a surprising flip-flop. Nerves, most likely. The idea of telling someone—Ozzy specifically—what happened that night suddenly feels right. But this isn’t the place. I need somewhere less windy. More private.

  I scan my eyes over the Wallers' estate and an idea pops into my mind.

  “Come on,” I say, gesturing toward the boardwalk. “I think I know where we can go.”

  9

  Ozzy

  Kenley jogs up the weathered steps to the boardwalk that leads to the Wallers' waterfront house.

  “You want to go to the house?” I ask, completely confused.

  “Nope.”

  There’s a small break in the railing—an overgrown path. She jumps down and gestures for me to follow. I do, although I’m not sure how I feel about sneaking around the property of a man on the city council member. A powerful man who is currently running for mayor. Kenley doesn’t seem concerned, and soon enough, we’ve entered the shady forest that runs adjacent to the house.

  “Wait,” I say, getting my bearings, “are you taking me to—”

  “Yep. Rose’s cottage.”

  I’ve been there before—we all have. It was a big hang out for us in middle school. Part treehouse, part doll house, the little cottage sits up on stilts and is painted bright green, with pink trim. Everything about it looks authentic—like a tiny home—real windows and a door, shutters that open and close, and it’s fully furnished inside.

  Kenley climbs up the small staircase and twists the brass door knob. It’s unlocked, and even after all these years, the cottage is plush. Whoever built it designed it to last, because everything from the wallpaper to undersized living room furniture is in pretty good condition. I glance in the corner and see dark pebbles. Well, other than the mice that decided to move in.

  There are other small differences, like the One Direction poster on the wall that must have gone up since I was here last. There’s a red, faded heart around Harry Styles' face. I also notice the makeshift ashtray on the small table in the corner, filled with the stubs of burned out cigarettes. A couple of crushed beer cans on the floor.

  “I think the last time I came here was the summer before ninth grade—”

  “When Ezra brought that bag of weed,” she says, completing my sentence. The five of us had all smoked up that afternoon. It was probably the last time we’d hung out together before everything fell apart. From the expression on Kenley’s face, she’s remembering the same thing.

  The cottage is just one room—a tiny living room. The ceilings are high enough that I only have to b
end a little bit, and really, it’s larger than I remember. I sit in one of the musty arm chairs and Kenley takes the loveseat.

  “You ready to tell me the big story.”

  “With all this pressure it feels sort of dumb.”

  I catch her eye, the blue filled with worry. “Whatever happened, I’m sure it’s not dumb, but I do want to know.”

  “Well, like you said, the summer before ninth grade was fun. During the day we hung out at the pool and spent nights watching movies in Ezra’s home theater. Juliette had moved to town and everyone was excited about the new girl. On top of that, Thistle Cove legend Jason Chandler had moved back home to save our floundering football team.”

  I nod, remembering. I’d spent those days pretending like I wasn’t obsessing over Kenley and the red and blue tankini that showed a swath of tan skin across her stomach. I was fourteen and constantly nursing a raging hard on. I took so, so many showers.

  She pulls her knees up to her chest and wraps her arms around them. “Things kind of escalated that summer, you know, like with the weed. That was Juliette’s idea. There was something about her—something exciting—that made me and Rose both want to try new things.”

  “She definitely has that energy.”

  Juliette moving to town had been kind of like a time-bomb for all of us. A catalyst, I guess.

  “About two weeks before school started, I woke up to the sound of something clanging outside, followed by voices. I looked out the window and saw two bikes by the curb and Juliette and Rose hovering in the space between my yard and Finn’s. I thought they’d come to get me. There’d been rumors of a party at Rich Crawford’s house and they were both determined to go. Juliette was dying to go to a high school party, and Rose seemed game, which meant I was too. I’d do anything Rose would do. In the streetlight I could make out that they were dressed in matching tanks, ripped jeans.” Kenley’s voice takes on a faraway quality. “I saw the thick makeup on their eyes and the dark red lipstick they both wore every day for the next year. They looked so mature, and I was wearing pajamas with teddy bears on them. Although I was petrified at the idea of sneaking out, there was no way I was going to miss it. I rushed to change.”