I’d been in such a state of disbelief after Matt had told me the truth that I immediately went upstairs to find the paper for myself. It had been right there on the coffee table, lying on top of mine as if I was meant to find it, destined to know who the boy in the closet had been. After making sure that Jaxon and Violet were still distracted, I pulled out my phone and took off the case, allowing the little scrap of paper to fall out into my hand.
CHARLIE OWEN
I always loved his handwriting. I especially loved it next to mine.
+ Madison McKinnon, seven minutes in heaven. Falcon High homecoming party.
The best kiss of his life.
I flipped the paper over and read the passage on the back as if I didn’t have it memorized already. The promise I’d given myself that night as I struggled to fall asleep.
I’ll tell him after I graduate. Matthew won’t be mad anymore by then.
Back then, it felt so far away. Like it would never really happen. But now that it was staring me in the face, I knew I was wrong about Matthew; he would care. He would kill me if I told Charlie. But I had a feeling that keeping the secret would kill me too—it already was killing me, clawing its way through my body, breaking my heart every day of my life. It was a slow and painful death, and I wasn’t sure I could live with it any longer.
“Two months,” I whispered to myself. “I’ll give myself two months.”
Charlie Owen would know it was me in that closet by the end of the summer.
Regardless of what happened after my confession, at least then I could go off to university knowing I had done everything in my power to win over the boy of my dreams—no matter what my brother thought of it.
four
I pacedthe length of my room in just a towel and face mask, holding my phone flat on my palm as Violet’s voice crackled through its crappy speaker. She had been telling me about the movie she and Jaxon had seen yesterday but had gotten distracted halfway through and was now debating what outfit she wanted to wear while we went rollerblading after my work shift today.
My phone dinged loudly with the notification of an email. I frowned and swiped down the notification screen to look at it. This email address was the one I only used for school and work, so it was strange for me to be getting a message now when classes had ended days ago.
“Everything okay?” Violet asked.
“Yeah, just an email,” I said. “Give me a second.”
I couldn’t hold back a groan as I saw the email’s sender: Courtney. I hated her on the best of days, but I especially hated her after seeing her with Charlie. What was so great about her that he wanted?
“Courtney?” Violet guessed when she heard my groan.
“Of course,” I said. I shook my head, ignoring the way my new bangs kept falling in my eyes. I had stupidly cut them theother day on a whim, and it was an awful idea to say the least. “And she’s being so passive aggressive too. The whole email is basically just telling us how to do our jobs as if we haven’t all had training and experience working here before.” I put on a false high voice as I read out a few sentences: “‘You need to show up at least thirty minutes before your first class—if you don’t, you will be penalized. Your bathing suit must be deemed work-appropriate—no two-pieces, please! If you wear something I don’t consider appropriate, I will take over your classes and send you home to change, resulting in loss of hours. And remember, we all have to work together to clean up!’ I swear, half of these are targeted at me.”
Violet’s laughter was muffled like she was covering her mouth with her hand.
“They probably are,” she said. “You did manage to make her really angry last year.”
“Hey, she was angry with me for no reason,” I corrected. “Remember the day that she said my bathing suit wasn’t appropriate? I was wearing the exact same one as Penny, but I was the only one docked for it because she hates me.”
Penny Owen was my best work friend—which was a little ironic considering my feelings for her brother—even though she was a year younger than me. Last year, we’d gone to Costco together and found a pack of great bathing suits, so we’d agreed to split them between us. There were various patterns in the pack, but more often than not, we ended up wearing the same ones on the same day. The kids thought it was hilarious, but Courtney deemed it “unprofessional” and compared us to ten-year-olds trying to “twin” for school—which I thought was a stupid comparison to make given that both Courtney and I had gone to private schools with uniforms for our whole lives. Every day was “twin day.” She also claimed that the bathing suits wereinappropriate on me, even though she thought they looked fine on Penny somehow.
“I didn’t say it wasn’t ridiculous,” Violet said. “Just that you’re probably right about it being targeted. You know how much she hates you.”
I sighed and shook my head. The towel that was wrapped around my hair shifted and started to slide off slowly, causing pressure to build as it practically ripped my hair out of my scalp. I put my phone down on the shelf while I unwrapped it and threw it towards my closet.
“Have you heard from your supervisor at all?” I asked.
“Not from my direct supervisor, but I got an email from Ms. Moscowitz confirming my position and which kids I’d be working with.”
Since Bayshore was a private school, many teachers worked year-round by running summer school classes, but a few years ago Ms. Moscowitz started a summer tutoring program that hired only the school’s students. A couple of the other teachers helped out with the program, but she did most of the higher-up work while students filled the other roles. I had no idea who Violet’s supervisor was this year, but I could only hope that they were better than mine. Luckily for her, the bar was so low it was practically underground.
“What subjects are you tutoring again?”
“Anything in the humanities,” she said. “I wasn’t looking to spend my summer doing math and science.”
