The Secrets of Us

by Lucinda Berry

“Dr. McGowan is the one who’s been calling because he’s been assigned to her case,” Theresa explains. “All he kept saying was that she was in a compromised mental state.”

“It doesn’t matter how cleaned up you get on the outside; your insides will always be dirty. You—”

Seven whole days. She doesn’t even go in the backyard, and that’s her favorite spot because she spends hours reading books by the pool. How is that possible? Nichole has walked three miles every morning for the last ten years. She even does it on vacation and when she’s sick, and her backyard is her personal sanctuary. And then it hits me like a sucker punch to the gut. What if Aiden or someone else was keeping her trapped inside? What if the fire was the only way for her to get out?

“She’s got one of the biggest hearts on the planet, and she’d never hurt anyone.” My deceit settles like a cold stone in the pit of my stomach, but I can’t open that box. Not now. The last pieces of our life will come crumbling down. I’ve never been more grateful that our juvenile records are sealed.

Mrs. Wheeler, Krystal, and I are on our knees, furiously scrubbing Alice’s blood from the ground. We work without speaking. Veronica’s inside taking a shower. She wanted to stay and help clean, but Mrs. Wheeler made her go. Bleach burns my nose. The sound of the bristles against the concrete is punctuated by sniffles and hiccupping sobs from me and Krystal. But we have a job to do. We’ve got to get the blood off the floor. The harder we scrub, the bigger the circle grows, but we don’t stop.

They moved slow. All their frantic movements from before were gone. Nobody got in the back of the ambulance with her. Because she wasn’t there anymore. Only her body. And they weren’t taking her to the hospital. She was going to the morgue.

I choke on the smell of burning flesh. Flames engulf dismembered hands, arms, legs. Black smoke covers blank faces. My eyes blister. I can’t see her, but she’s coming for me. I’m next. My eyes snap open.

All the light’s been turned off in my world. I’m falling into a bottomless pit, swirling into soundless oblivion.

I can’t imagine that she knew and didn’t tell me, because her pain would be impossible to contain or hide. But I do think she found out, because the only thing I want to do right now is set everything on fire that he’s ever touched.

I’ve never been to Las Vegas, but everyone calls this place a miniature Vegas because of all the casinos lining the coast and jutting out into the ocean. There’s a sex shop between every casino, and they stay just as busy. All the casinos are attached to hotels, so it was easy to get a housekeeping job. Nobody even asked for our ID.

I just have to keep putting one foot in front of the other until I’ve walked far enough away from all the evil. I keep telling myself that brains are like bones, and they can be fixed.

Even though we didn’t push her out the door, her blood is still on my hands, and no matter how hard I scrub, it’ll never come off.

She mimics my voice almost perfectly. Not in a mocking way but in a way that allows me to see myself from her perspective like I never have before, and I plummet into shame.

The horror of the realization fills her face and moves its way into her body like a disease.