Keeping His Secret

Three missed calls before I answered.

“Hello?” I grumbled into the phone an hour after midnight.

“Daniel?” A soft voice asked. She was taking quietly, worry evident in her voice through the single word spoken.

“Yeah, Sara?”

“Yeah.”

“What do you want? It’s one.” I didn’t want to talk to her. I didn’t want to talk to anyone. Regardless, I tried to feign emotion in my monotonous voice.

“I watched the news today.”

I grunted.

“That was your Slade, wasn’t it?”

“How’d you know?” Rhetorical question.

She answered anyways. “Come on, how many guys named Slade are there around here?”

I didn’t answer her.

“Did you know what he did before this?” Her voice was soft again, innocent. She sounded as if she was a child, not a teenager.

I hesitated before answering, “Yes.”

There was a pause on her side also before she spoke again, “When you said earlier that you met him younger… did he…?”

“Yes.”

“Wow.” She breathed. “And you let him return in your life after that? Did you know about the girls he raped?”

“No. I didn’t.” That was the worst part. I would’ve been more comfortable if the child pornography had been of me, and that was all. But the fact that he had been previously arrested for supposedly raping two girls…

“I’m so sorry, Daniel.”

“It’s my own fault. I should’ve been smarter.” I shook my head, ashamed, “I didn’t think about anything.”

“Don’t blame yourself… you couldn’t have known.”

That wasn’t a good enough reason. “Sara, what sane person let’s an older man into their house who touched him when he was eight? What sane man goes out into the dark in the middle of the night to meet a criminal in a park?”

She was silent as I yelled at her.

I sighed, shaking my head, “I can’t believe I let myself fall for his act. It was total bullshit. I can’t believe I didn’t see it any earlier.”

“I’m so sorry,” She repeated.

The words meant nothing to me. While she had every intention, I knew, they were just words. They couldn’t reverse time. They couldn’t prevent Slade from ever finding me in the first place.

They couldn’t fix a broken heart.

“Do you want to know the best part?” I laughed sarcastically once. When Sara didn’t answer, I continued, “He actually tried to explain himself. He raped two girls and got caught twice for child porn, and he thinks he has even a chance at explaining anything that happened?!”

“What did he say?”

She was missing the point.

“That’s not the point, Sara.”

“Just tell me what he said. I didn’t think you’d have any contact with him after he got arrested.”

“Neither did I.” I mumbled that more to myself than to her. She understood. “He sent me text messages.”

“Messages?” She repeated.

“Yes.”

“What did they say?”

I was silent for a moment as I recalled his words written in the formal black letters on my screen, “He told me to trust me. To keep us a secret. And then I saw the story.”

“Was that all?”

“No…. he sent me one more before I fell asleep.”

“The suspense is killing me, you asshole.” She giggled slightly. “What did the text message say?”

“‘It’s not true.’” I quoted.

“That’s all?”

“Yes.”

She was silent for a moment.

I checked my screen to make sure she hadn’t hung up on me or anything without my knowledge.

“I think you should trust him.” Her voice surprised me. After such a long moment, it was louder than I had expected.

It was firm.

“Why would I even think of doing that?” I growled into the phone, struggling to keep my voice low so that my mother didn’t wake up.

“Because he clearly tried to talk to you. That’s hard to do when the cops are on your ass.”

“You would know.”

“Shut up, you know what I’m trying to say.”

I sighed, not answering.

“Listen. If there’s ever a chance for you to talk to him, even if you have to visit jail… I think you should at least give him a chance to explain himself.”

“Impossible.”

“Why?”

“I already told you. How do you explain something as… as… as heartless as what he has done?”

“He’ll find a way.” She sounded so sure of that. What if he didn’t? What if he fed me more lies?

“You sound as if you know him, Sara.”

“I wish I had gotten the chance to meet him, but someone was busy hogging him up.” She teased.

“I’d barely known him for a week.”

“Really?”

“A lot happened in a week.”

“A lot happens in a few minutes. You realize you’re in love, Slade gets arrested, you crumple to a million pieces. All that happened in but a few minutes.”

“I wasn’t ‘in love’ with anyone.”

“Fine. You were ‘in like’ with Slade.”

“I didn’t like him.” What complete bullshit. The message I had sent him before was still in my phone.

“I can tell when you lie, Daniel.”

I rolled my eyes, glad she couldn’t see that little action, “Whatever. Look, thanks for calling and all…”

“That wasn’t the only reason I wanted to call.” She interrupted.

I waited for a few moments for her to continue. When I got no response, I asked, “What was it then?”

“Uhm…” She sounded nervous…embarrassed, “I wanted to ask you a question. It’s kind of silly now, but…”

“What is it?”
“We’re friends, right?”

“Yeah.”

“And I can trust you not to make fun of me or anything, right?”

“Yeah, of course.”

“Well…I kind of asked that guy that I like, you know—”

“Chase Richards?” I smirked slightly, grateful for the change of subject. I enjoyed teasing her about her little crush.

“—Yeah, whatever, him.” She said quickly, “Look, so I kind of asked him if we could hang out this weekend.”

“What did he say?”

I felt like two thirteen year olds at a slumber party gossiping.

“He said no. He has football practice or something.”

I hissed, “Yikes. I’m so sorry, Sara. He rejected you, just like that?”

“Yeah.”

“So what was the question then?”

“Well, I’m not done with my story.”

“Continue.”

“So as I was walking away blushing like an idiot, one of his friends comes up to me. You know Liam Phelps right?” She didn’t wait for any confirmation, “It was him. So he says that Chase is too superficial to hang out with someone who isn’t friends with as many ‘popular’ people as he is.”

I laughed slightly.

It was true.

“I, obviously, agreed, adding a few… not so nice words in there too. So Liam asked if he could walk me to my next class, and of course I said yes. I mean, he’s not too shabby himself, really.”

“Please don’t talk about how cute a guy is around me.”

“Why? You’re bisexual.”

“I’m not comfortable with that.”

She sighed, “Whatever. Anyways, we ended up getting into a pretty intense conversation and he asked if he could take me out on a date this Saturday. Do you think it would piss Chase off a little bit if I went out with Liam? Or do you think he wouldn’t even notice?”

“If I was Chase, I don’t think I’d care as much if it was just one date. But if you guys kept going on them, I’d get a little annoyed eventually.” I answered truthfully.

She sighed. “Oh.”

“What did you tell Liam?”

“Yes.”

“So you’re going?”

“I was hoping to be able to piss Chase off as soon as possible, and going with Liam’s just a win. I think you’d like him.”

“I don’t know…”

“I think I’d have to worry about you meeting him though.” I could hear the smirk on her lips.

“Why?”

“You might try to steal my man.”

“Shut up Sara!”

She giggled, “Listen, it’s almost two. I’m going to go to bed so that I’m not completely dead tomorrow.”

“Let’s ditch.”

“After lunch.”

“No, just skip the whole day.”

“But… Liam’s going to meet me before school starts at the cafeteria….” She sighed, “I’m not skipping tomorrow.”

I sighed, “Alright. Have fun with your boy toy.”

“I’d love to say the same but…”

“Please don’t.” I whispered weakly, “Don’t refer to him as that. I hate that son of a bitch. I hate him.”

“No you don’t. Give him a chance to redeem himself. If he can’t then, he’s not worth it. Deal?”

I hesitated, “Fine. Deal. One chance.’’

“Good boy.”

I closed the phone, staring at the screen.

One new text message had come through. It was from a number that I didn’t recognize. I clicked it open nonetheless.

Daniel Stone?

I glanced around my dark room, confused. Yes.

The text was sent back almost immediately.

Go to the Burger King at the corner of Main and Arch street at 4:15.

Who is this?

Tanner Benner.

Who?

Slade’s brother.

How did you get my number?

There were no more texts sent after that.