Please Don't Tell Read Online Free PDF Page A

days.”
    â€œHow’s Grace taking it?”
    Maybe I can sew the tiger’s leg. I rotate it and it comes off in my hand.
    â€œIt makes me anxious when you don’t answer,” heblurts. “I start thinking I said something annoying and that I should stop talking and that maybe you don’t like me anymore, and I know it’s ridiculous but I can’t help it.”
    People are always turning silence into a knife to stab themselves with. “I would never stop liking you, I promise.”
    â€œOkay. Thanks.” Relief, embarrassment.
    â€œI should probably go. I have a thousand years of homework. I’m still failing American History because I hate America and I hate history.” Make another joke, show him I’m fine. “Also tomorrow’s trash pickup day so I gotta go put myself out on the curb.”
    â€œPlease don’t say things like that.”
    Wrong joke. “Just kidding.”
    â€œYou’re the only person at school I feel comfortable around, and you’re a very important friend to me, and I don’t think you should call yourself trash.”
    â€œYou always cheer me up every single time you talk to me, did you know that?”
    I can feel him smiling.
    â€œDon’t stay up too late tonight, okay?” I tell him before I hang up.
    I stare at my history book on the floor. Principal Eastman’s brought me in twice to talk about American History. But I can’t start the homework. It’s not just a sheet of paper, it’s the horrible black hole of my future.
    I toss the broken tiger into my closet, go out into the hall, knock three times on Grace’s door.
    She doesn’t open it all the way. “What’s up, Joy?”
    It’s the way teachers talk to you when you go to them after class and they know you’re gonna ask for an extension. That kind of weary readiness.
    â€œI went to his funeral.” Mom and Dad are watching football downstairs. The noise blares up to us. She still doesn’t let me in.
    â€œHow was it?”
    â€œIt was okay.”
    â€œUh-huh.”
    Let me in, let me in, let me in.
    She tilts the door closed a little more. “I’m doing some school stuff. . . .”
    â€œYeah.”
    â€œSo I kind of need to concentrate.”
    â€œOh! I’ll leave you alone.”
    She hesitates. “You okay?”
    â€œI’m always okay.” Now I need to ask it back. But what if she finally admits that she’s not, and I still have no clue what the right words are—
    She closes the door before I can find them.
    We used to crawl into bed together and turn off all the lights and watch YouTube videos until we sobbed with laughter.
    Back in my room, I check Adam’s Facebook. His wall goes straight from thirty-seven happy birthday posts to fifty-eight death posts. He’s got more friends now.
    Maybe he reeled drunk through the woods to looksoulfully at the moon and think about what a fucking “artist” he was. And that last birthday shot caught around his ankles, and the wind carried him into the quarry.
    The breeze drags a splintered piece of the overgrown oak tree branch against my window screen. Must’ve done that when I snuck out. The breeze rustles Grace’s old drawings taped to my wall, crayon versions of us. She always drew me taller and gave me a sword.
    I get up to close the window. But there’s an envelope on the sill. Sealed neatly, thick. My name’s written on the back.
    A weird feeling settles in my stomach.
    I tear it open, feel inside. Photographs, stiff and glossy, and a folded piece of paper. A letter.
    Only the first few lines make sense to me before the rest blurs and my mind gets stuck and my hands stop feeling like anything.
    To Joy Morris—
    I was at the party. I was at the quarry. I saw what you did.
    I saw you murder Adam Gordon.

THREE
June 7
Grace
    â€œ YALE .” PRINCIPAL EASTMAN THROWS A PAMPHLET onto the pile