“And why should I?”
“I don’t know that you should.”
“So I haven’t agreed to keep your secret and you can’t give me any reason why I should. You’re not really making a strong case for yourself. What makes you think I won’t tell anyone?”
“I don’t think you want to.” And this is where she wins even if she doesn’t know it yet. She’s right. I don’t want to tell anyone. I want her secret all to myself but she has no way of knowing that.
“That’s a big gamble on your part.”
“Is it?” She cocks her head to the side and studies me.
“You have no reason to trust me.”
“No, but I trust you anyway,” she says, walking out toward the driveway.
“And I’m supposed to trust you?” I say to her back. This girl really is crazy if she thinks she’s walking in here, out of nowhere, and expecting me to do that.
She stops, turning to level her eyes at me before she goes.
“You don’t have to trust me. I don’t have any of your secrets.”
***
She leaves before I can respond. She never even sat down, but in the few minutes that she was here, everything shifted. Maybe she’s giving me time to decide if I want this, whatever this is. Her secret? Her friendship? Her story? Maybe I don’t want it. I do know that I shouldn’t want it and that may make my decision right there.
I know something about her that no one else does. I haven’t had a secret in years. Everybody knows my story. Mother and sister killed in a car accident. Tragic. Father has a heart attack. Dies. Grandmother fights ovarian cancer. Loses. A year later grandfather picks up the cancer baton. I don’t know if I’m supposed to die now, too, or if I’m just supposed to be the last one left.
I can’t help thinking that there must be something better to be known for.
I won’t tell anyone about her. I know that much. I still have a hundred questions formulating in my mind but only one that keeps coming back again and again. Why me? It’s the obvious question, the question that still plagues me even hours after she’s left. It’s the one question I don’t ask, because no matter what the answer is, I don’t want it. I just don’t care.
***
It’s been days since she spoke to me. I expected her to show up the next night but she didn’t. Or the night after. Or the night after that. I’ve seen her at school every day but she hasn’t so much as looked in my direction once. I’m beginning to think I imagined the entire encounter. Maybe I’m the batshit one in this scenario. I’ve spent the last several days trying to make myself believe that I was glad she had stopped coming and that I couldn’t care less. After all, it was what I wanted. I made several arguments to myself. I wasn’t very convincing.
I hadn’t even had the excuse of seeing her at Drew’s on Sunday. Leigh was here for the weekend and I was with her. It should have made things easier but I think it might have made them worse.
“You don’t have an accent.”
When she finally shows up, exactly one week after she spoke to me, this is the first thing I say.
“No.”
“I thought you would. The name.” I can’t stand the name. It doesn’t fit. But then maybe nothing about her does. She considers this and for a minute I think she might say something, but she doesn’t. She just keeps walking around my garage and touching tools and running her hands across half-built pieces of furniture and it’s starting to piss me off.
“Are you Russian?” I ask, hoping to distract her.
“You got to ask the questions last time. Tonight’s my turn.” She didn’t answer the question but at least it seems to have temporarily shifted her focus away from all my stuff.
“I don’t remember agreeing to that.”
“I don’t remember giving you the choice.” And she’s back to wandering around my garage again. Studying. I feel like grabbing my crotch and checking to see if my balls are still there because I think they may be in her pocket and I need to get them back. This was fun or different or intriguing for a little while but not anymore. It’s one thing to have her sitting and watching, but if she wants to start with the interrogation and the inevitable teenage girl psychoanalysis, I’m out.
“You know who likes to talk? Drew. Why don’t you head over there and make his day?” I need to walk away. I pretend I have to get something out of the tool chest across the room. She’s settles back on the workbench and the legs start swinging immediately.
“I think there are other things he’d rather I did with my mouth.” There’s nothing coy or suggestive in her tone. She says it like she’s talking about helping him study for trig.
“Did you really just say that?”
“Believe so,” she says blandly.
“Well, if you do that you might make his week.”
“I could make his year if I wanted to.” Confident girl. Makes me wonder if she can back that up and I shouldn’t be thinking about that at all. The legs are still swinging and it’s driving me crazy.
“Do you want to?” Not what I planned to ask. I wonder how much it would hurt to cut out my tongue.
“I’m asking the questions.”
“Not to me you’re not.” There.
“Do you live here alone?” That lasted a while.
“Yes.”
“Why were you emancipated?”
“Necessity.”
“Is it hard?”
“What?”
“Is it hard to get emancipated?” I knew that’s what she was asking. Really, I did.
“No. It’s embarrassingly easy.”
She doesn’t speak right away which, ironically, is now unusual. I look at her and she’s studying me.
“What?”
“I’m trying to figure out if you’re being sarcastic.”
“No, it really is embarrassingly easy. It basically comes down to two things. Age and money. And, really, it’s the money that’s the most important. I think the state would cut you loose at twelve as long as they knew it wouldn’t cost them a dime to support you.”
“So, what did you have to do?” If these are the questions she’s going to ask, then I can deal with it. As long as she’s far away from anything personal, I’ll tell her what she wants to know. She lives with her aunt. Maybe she wants to be emancipated, though she’s got to be almost eighteen so there doesn’t seem to be much of a point to it now. My grandfather and I took care of it a year ago as soon as he found out he was sick.