Keeping You a Secret by Julie Anne Peters Read Free Book Online Page B

across the ice, she said, “I miss the old days.”
    I frowned. “What old days?”
    She looked at me. “When we were kids. Coming here. Skating for hours. Playing tag and keep-away. I’m going to miss all this.” Her arm extended to include more than the lake.
    We dodged a bunch of rowdy boys who were dogging these girls ahead of us. Making them giggle and scream. I guess I knew what Leah meant. Life was easier when we were kids. It wasn’t so much about change and choice and moving on. We lived for the moment. Time was eternal.
    I linked my arm with Leah’s. “Tell you what. I’ll buy us a banana split with extra whipped cream and two cherries on too. For old times’ sake.”
    “In your dreams,” she said. “I’d have to diet for a week.”

    ***

    I was just drifting off to sleep Sunday night when Seth called. My eyelids were lead weights after poring over the same page in Beowulf six hundred times. Not one word had registered. “Is Faith gone?” he asked.
    “Yes.” I yawned. “But Neal’s here.”
    “I don’t care,” Seth said. “I’m coming over.”
    He hung up before I could protest. Not that I didn’t want to see him; but it was Sunday. A school night.
    First thing he did after I trailed him downstairs to my room was unzip his jeans. “Jesus, Seth. You didn’t even ask.”
    He paused with his jeans around his hips. “Don’t you want to?” he said.
    I sighed and plopped on the bed. Scotching up against the headboard, I hugged my knees and answered, “It’s not that. I just…” I stalled.
    “What?” Seth searched my face. “What, Holl?”
    “Whenever we’re alone, this is all we do.”
    He rezipped his jeans. Perching on the mattress beside me, he said, “We don’t get that much time alone, babe. Since you won’t do it in the car and we can’t be together when faith’s here. Now school nights are out.”
    I got the message. “Remember how we used to talk? For like hours and hours, we’d just talk. We never talk anymore.”
    “We talk every day,” he said. “I see you at lunch, and I call you almost every night. We’re together on the weekends as much as possible.”
    I squeezed my eyes shut and dropped my head to my knees. Seth stretched out beside me, snaking an arm around my waist and drawing me close. “We can talk,” he said. “What do you want to talk about?”
    “I don’t know,” I murmured.
    “I love you,” he whispered in my ear. “I know I don’t say it enough. I love you, I love you, I love you. Is that what you want to hear?”
    It wasn’t. I aready knew that. “When did we stop being friends?” I raised my head.
    He pulled back a little. “We’re still friends. You the best friend I’ve ever had.” He studied me. “It’s different with girls, I know. But don’t you think of me as your friend?”
    “Yeah, I do. Of course I do. It’s just…” Just what, Holland? Tell him.
    Tell him how you want to go back to the way it used to be. Before the sex, the commitment. Oh, yeah. He’d be stoked about that.
    Seth kissed my ear, then my neck, my lower neck. Hard as I tried, I couldn’t respond to him. What was wrong with me? He was great, wonderful, perfect. He was everything a girl could ever want.
    Then why, long after he was gone, did I lie awake and ache inside for something more?

Chapter 8

    The cold at first. The swelling of lungs. Then the force. Fighting it, straining against it. Harder, stronger. Glide. Kick. Breathe.
    Faster and faster. Moving, moving.Away from it. Toward it. Get there.
    My inner voice chanted, “Get there, get there, get there.”
    Get where? I asked.
    No answer came.
    Concrete grazed my fingertips at the same time my head burst through the surface of the pool. My chest hurt. Every muscle in my body burned. How long had I been swimming? Too long at speed. My eyes stung. I closed them, hung over the edge until the dizziness evaporated. Then I hauled myself out of the pool and padded to the locker room for a hot