Read Keeping You a Secret for Free Online

effort to be here on time. Needless to say, the girl dropped the class. A lot of people had dropped. I would've too, if I didn't need another lit credit to graduate.
    The bell rang. No Cece.
    After lunch I sprinted up the stairs to art. She was sitting at the table nearest the window, talking to Brandi. Some compulsion drove me to interrupt their little téte-á-téte. "Cece?"
    She blinked up at me. "Yeah?"
    "I have this application for you." I searched my stack of spirals to find it. Ignoring me, Brandi continued, "So, anyway, if you want to come over tonight I could pick you up after work."
    "Here." I shoved the app at Cece.
    "Okay, thanks." She smiled and laid it on top of her books. To Brandi she said, "I'll call you."
    Mackel flew in the door. "Heads up," he chirruped. "Everybody got their supplies now?"
    I stumbled to my table. Winslow was already there, doodling on a tablet. "Yo," he said.
    "Yo back." I took a deep breath and tried to clear my head. What was wrong with me? A simmering sort of anger had been festering all morning, even before school started. It began with Mom cornering me in the kitchen to remind me that Faith was staying over this weekend and would I mind not making myself so scarce? Yes, I'd mind. That was the master plan. At the end of class this morning Arbuthnot added Grendel to our list of required readings, like I had all this idle time. I couldn't fathom in calculus why we even had to learn about rectilinear motion, and if Mackel gave us homework I'd torch his hair.
    He must've felt my fire. "We'll do an in-class exercise today," he said. "You should be able to finish it. I want you to create a completely different object out of a familiar one. Alter your mindsets. Expand your vision."
    I had no idea what he was talking about. Familiar. I surveyed the room. Everything in here was strange, unsettling. Her, whispering with Brandi. Stop looking at her.
    I forced my eyes to the table, to my tablet. My left hand was spread across the paper. Okay. Familiar. I traced around my fingers. Studied the outline.
    Turkey. That's all I saw. Winslow reached over and drew the gullet under my thumb. We both cracked up. Had to bury our heads on the table to smother the laughter.
    Winslow actually handed in the turkey. I did a pencil scraping over my Jeep key and labeled it, "Not a key. Expand your vision."
    On the way to my locker after school my cell rang. It was Seth reminding me about ice skating tomorrow, like I'd spaced it. Which I had. He said he'd pick me up at ten, then added, "Good luck at your meet. I wish you'd let me come cheer you on."
    "Not now, not ever." We'd been through this. He knew how much I hated people in the audience, how freaked I got knowing someone was out there watching me, expecting me to perform. Swimming wasn't about the competition. It was about … I don't know. The team. Me. The girls.
    As I slipped my key into the Jeep door, I noticed something stuck under the wiper blade. It was solid and square and wrapped in red foil. Throwing my junk in the back, I clambered onto the seat and shut the door. Running a fingernail under the Scotch tape, I folded back the wrapper and removed the object.
    It was a CD. Dixie Chicks. A current of warmth surged up from my core.

    ***

    The smell hit me before I got to the basement. "Faith, didn't I ask you not to burn incense down her?" A stick was smouldering on her dresser. Her shrine, I should say. It was littered with all these ghoulish winged creatures, weird religious symbols, and crucifixes. The stance of incense permeated everything.
    Faith dunked the incense into a glass of water, scowling at me through the mirror. She'd taken extra care to cake on the white makeup. On, that didn't bother me as much as the hands she always had in her mouth. She chewed her fingernails until they bled. Apparently Goth advocated self-mutilation.
    "Where are you going?" She spit out a cuticle and followed me to the end of the partition separating our