This Secret Thing, стр. 84
“If you were brave enough to tackle a large man with a gun, I guess I should be brave enough to tell you what happened at school. Why I came back. You’ve waited long enough.”
Bess gestured to the bed with her good arm. “And, hey, I’ve got lots of time.”
Casey nodded. “That you do,” she said. “That you do.”
And then she repeated what she’d told Violet in her room just hours before. It had been a dress rehearsal of sorts, she supposed, a practice run for this moment. She was glad she’d had Violet to talk to then. She was glad she had her mom to talk to now. She had fled school and run home. But the journey to actually get home had taken far longer than she had anticipated. She was glad to finally arrive.
Violet
Instead of her life returning to normal, it just kept getting stranger. She was in Micah Berg’s house, spending the night in his sister’s old room. Polly stayed in the room down the hall, the one Violet was pretty sure Olivia Ames had died in, but she didn’t mention that to Polly. They’d had enough talk of death for one night.
Violet sat on the edge of the bed, too nervous to crawl under the covers, too keyed up to have any hope of falling asleep. A light knock on the door startled her, but she composed herself and said “Come in” just loudly enough to be heard. It was probably just Polly, checking on her yet again, or Micah’s mom, who’d come over and invited them to spend the night, considering all the cops streaming through their house, which was a crime scene once again. Or—she dared to hope—maybe it was Micah, responding to the text she’d sent him: I’ve got something to tell you. In person.
The door opened and she saw his shape fill the doorway, like a wish granted. She’d hoped he would respond to the text, but this was too quick. Micah Berg sauntered. He strolled. The only time he hustled or rushed was when he chased a hockey puck down a frozen rink or rebounded a basketball. Or, she thought, when he hoped that the girl across the street had information about his father. Before she spoke, she reminded herself that that was all she was to him: the girl across the street.
She beckoned for him to come in, motioned for him to close the door. He took a few steps forward but stopped at the midpoint between the doorway and his sister’s bed as if there were a mark there, like actors have on stages. He looked stricken, as though he were balancing on a tiny raft and surrounded by hot lava he might fall into. She and Nicole used to play that game all the time.
“I found it,” Violet said.
Micah looked down at her hands to see they were empty, then raised his eyes back to meet hers. “Well, where is it?”
“I . . . must’ve dropped it. When everything happened,” she said. It was just a little lie, a necessary one. Everyone had to believe that a cop had found the drive on the scene, not that it had been turned over by the accused’s daughter. For her plan to work, no one could know what she’d done. It was this secret thing that would remain solely hers. Her mom wasn’t the only one who could keep secrets, she reminded herself.
Micah’s face changed from hopeful to devastated in a flash. “Then what did you have to tell me?” he asked, impatient and exasperated.
“Before I lost it, I checked it. I checked it twice.” She waited a beat, then added, “Like Santa.” She grinned at him, and as she did, he saw that she had good news to deliver. He exhaled and smiled. “He’s not on there, Micah. He’s not on there anywhere.” Micah bridged the gap between them in two steps and swooped her up, hugging her so tight she could barely breathe. But she didn’t mind. She didn’t mind a bit.
“Thank you,” he said, and kissed her cheek. Shocked by the unexpected contact, she pulled back, a reflex she instantly regretted. Micah’s face became all circles: round dots of color on his cheeks, round eyes, round mouth. He set her down and took a step back.
“I’m sorry,” he said, holding his hands up. “I shouldn’t have done that. You’ve been so nice to me these past few weeks. You’re practically the only person who has been nice to me in this whole freaking town. I didn’t mean to overstep.” He lowered his head. “No one wants to be this close to a girlfriend killer.” He said it low, but she heard it.
The silence between them swelled until she finally spoke, her words quiet, but clear. “You didn’t kill your girlfriend,” she said.
He gave her a sad smile. “You’re sweet, Violet,” he said. “But I know what everyone thinks. Trust me, you don’t have to try to save me from that. You’ve done enough, just with what you’ve done.”
He took a step back, ready to move toward the door. She could just let him go, let him and everyone else keep thinking what they’d thought since that night last spring. Or she could finally tell her secret. There were only so many secrets Violet could carry. She’d picked up a new one tonight, so this was as good a time as any to lay the old one down.
“I saw you,” she said, and watched as his face changed from resigned to curious. “That night. Of your party. I was . . .” She searched for a less incriminating, less embarrassing way to say what she had to. “I was watching the party from my window.” She pointed in the direction of her house. “I had the window up, and I could hear everything.”
She waited for him to grasp what she was saying. He