Please Don't Tell by Laura Tims

It’s like putting a big spotlight on the fact that I’m a freak.”
    â€œYou’re not—”
    â€œI don’t like the way it makes me feel, either.” His words are practiced. He rehearsed this. “Like you think I’m helpless.”
    â€œYou’re right. It’s bad, I’m trash—”
    â€œYou’re not trash! You make it very difficult to talk to you sometimes.”
    I sit on my bed. How can I ask him for help now?
    â€œMom told me I should be honest with you about this.” He sucks in his bottom lip. “Please don’t decide to stop being my friend. I’m not that mad. Not end-of-relationship mad.”
    â€œI dunno why you always expect me to stop liking you.”
    â€œI don’t know why, either.” He rubs his forehead violently, sits next to me on the bed. “I’m sorry for being this way.”
    I take a deep breath. “When I was a kid, my parents were always like you’re the big sis, you gotta look out for the small sis even though I’m only eighteen minutes older than Grace. But then she stopped needing me.”
    â€œSo what, I was your replacement protectee?”
    â€œAt first,” I admit. “But that’s not the only reason I became your friend! You’re fun to talk to and we like the same stupid shit and you’re really helpful with figuring things out.”
    He tries to hide a smile. “What did you need help figuring out?”
    Right. Okay. Back to this. I take the envelope out, slide the photos and the note onto his lap.
    â€œOh my God.” He blanches. “That’s Principal Eastman.”
    I dig my nails into my wrist as he reads the note. When he’s done, his eyes glaze over, his mouth slightly open. Then he shakes himself, lightly hits his own cheek. “Weare not going to panic.”
    â€œOkay,” I whisper.
    â€œWe are definitely not going to do that.”
    â€œRight.”
    â€œSay it again, slower.”
    I breathe out. “Right.”
    â€œObviously we need to find out who this is.” He crumples the edge of the envelope. His eyes are still glassy. “It must be someone who was at the party. You must’ve been drunk enough where they knew you wouldn’t remember it. And they must know why you hated him so much you might believe someone who said that you were the one who killed him.”
    Pres is a problem solver. I’m safe. I have him. I’m going to be okay.
    Unless I actually did —no don’t think about it.
    â€œYou and me and Grace are the only ones.” I say it quietly, even though the treadmill’s still thumping down in the basement, loud enough for me to hear even from up in my room. “Grace doesn’t even know you know.”
    â€œShe must’ve told someone.”
    â€œThere’s less than zero percent of a chance she did that.”
    â€œThen we have to assume Adam told.”
    Told someone, maybe. Bragged about it, maybe. My gut clenches.
    â€œWhich means that this person, the blackmailer, was friends with Adam.” He’s zoned into his thought process. “And obviously not a big Joy fan, if they’re doing this toyou. Here is my theory.”
    â€œYou have a theory already?”
    â€œWe can’t assume Adam’s death was an accident anymore.”
    My hands go numb. “So you think I—”
    â€œNo! God, no. Look, there’s only one reason someone would try to pin Adam’s death on you when everybody thinks it’s an accident. That’s if somebody did kill him. And they’re scared people’ll find out.”
    â€œYou think the person who wrote this letter is a murderer.”
    â€œIt’s the clearest motive.”
    â€œYou think a murderer climbed the tree outside my window and left me this and, like, knows where I live.”
    â€œI didn’t say it was ideal.”
    I put my head between my knees and imagine the