Secret Keeper (My Myth Trilogy - Book 2): Young Adult Fantasy Novel Page 2

  The defense attorney tears off the paper with our game and wads it up, tossing it carelessly over his shoulder. On the next sheet of the notepad is my name followed by a list of bullet points:

  EMILY

  Incompetent

  Mentally unstable Overdose

  Self-mutilation

  Hallucinations/Fantasies

  LIAR

  “Emily.” Nancy’s distant voice is worried. “You’ll return to your body and the present in three, two, one. Open your eyes when you’re ready.”

  Fresh tears I didn’t realize I’d been crying wet my cheeks. Nancy hovers above me, dabbing at my face with a tissue. I’m gasping for breath. Dutifully, Nancy hands me my asthma inhaler and I take two deep puffs.

  “I’m sorry, Emily. I let you sink a little too deep. Are you all right, Dear?”

  Chapter Two

  I’ve never understood the stupid hospital rule where they insist on wheeling you out in a wheelchair even if there’s nothing wrong with your legs. Mom and I have each been assigned an orderly to push us: elderly, frail men with matching limps who don’t seem at all fit to be moving people around. But that’s the least of what’s wrong with this picture.

  This has to be the first mother/daughter detox release in the history of humankind. That’s the Alvey family for you: making history one dysfunctional day at a time.

  A nervous laugh somersaults in my gut. I steal a glance at Mom who must also be cringing at our ridiculously slow pace down this hall to reception, but she doesn’t notice me looking. She’s staring down at her hands in her lap, a faded smile fixed on her lips, a blushing radiance to her cheeks.

  And just like that the temptation to giggle is gone, flitted away like a dragonfly. Just like that I’m afraid again.

  It takes all my restraint to keep from bolting out of the wheelchair. I long for a distraction—a natural disaster, maybe—so I can make my escape. Not Armageddon or anything, just a little 3.7 shake-up on the Richter scale would do.

  Alas. No such luck.

  Through the glass doors at the end of this eternal corridor, I spy our welcoming committee clumped together in reception, smiles glued to their faces. Claire stands next to Aidan and Jacob, shuffling two bouquets of plastic wrapped flowers in her arms. She beams first at me, then at Mom.

  Gabe stands shoulder to shoulder with Dad, gazing at me with a warm smile to match his sun-gold hair and skin. Classic, supportive Gabe. Is there nothing I can do to scare him away? Kaillen is stationed behind Aunt Meg and Uncle Ian, watching me stoically. Stance wide, hands clasped behind his back, he’s like a member of the Secret Service on high alert. His dark inscrutable eyes stare right through me and there’s nowhere to hide. How convenient, to have the two guys I’m crazy attracted to here to witness my finest hour.

  I’m awkward under their gaze, tragically, stupidly, annoyingly awkward. I don’t know what to do with my hands. Wave? And what about my mouth? Do I smile? I’d make for a brilliant anti-drug ad campaign:

  Don’t want to end up humiliated in detox like this pathetic loser?

  DON’T DO DRUGS.

  I think of Nancy’s repeated advice: I must be kind to myself. She always reminds me that even though I feel like I failed, I haven’t, and that my breakdown has nothing to do with my being a strong person. A human can only carry so much before her knees start to tremble and then give.

  And I was carrying a lot. As Mom and I continue to advance at a snail’s pace toward an awkward reunion with our loved ones, everything that brought me to this point streams through my mind as if I’m watching it happen to someone else—a documentary of some wretched girl’s life. Only it isn’t someone else. It’s me, and all that has happened to me. It’s my mom’s addiction, the burden of taking care of my younger brothers and sister, of repeating my junior year, of anxiety about my dad, who is out of prison and in my life for the first time in a decade.

  Just one of those things alone is enough to send a person crashing down, according to Nancy.

  And then, of course, there’s the other thing. The hardest thing of all. Just one week ago I finally admitted to myself the devastating truth about my past: Dad molested me when I was seven years old. Three times that I remember. Right before he went to prison for something entirely different: securities fraud.

  The stress of those secrets I’d buried for ten years turned my internal geography into post-leakage Chernobyl. Except I didn’t sprout extra limbs (unless you count wings in an alternate Realm). I fractured in other ways: addiction, self-mutilation, and the Voices.

  A week ago, Uncle Ian found me unconscious in a grove of redwoods at the edge of his property. I’d overdosed on sleeping pills.

  I wasn’t trying to kill myself. That was never my intention. I just wanted—needed—to get out of my head for a while.

  Because things had gotten pretty strange in there.

  But it turns out they still pump your stomach and send you to detox, even if you didn’t technically mean to hurt yourself.

  And, as it happens, Mom’s rehab facility has a detox center as well. Aunt Meg and Uncle Ian thought it made sense to keep us in the same place. Mom’s just finishing up her thirty-day stay, and I’ve been in for a week.

  Nancy—my honorary aunt and now my therapist—waits in reception, too, her hands on Claire’s shoulders, shining her unconditional love at me with her Magic eyes. She’s the only one who knows the whole story, and probably the only person who genuinely understands that I wasn’t trying to off myself. She’s been here every day, teaching me about my PTSD and explaining why my egos’ Voices were at war in the first place.

  With Nancy’s guidance, I’ve integrated at least two of my wounded egos: Hannah, my Reactive Child, and Margaret, my Critical Parent. Nancy says I was successful at least in part because I allowed myself to re-enter my childhood fantasy, the enchanting First Realm, inhabited by elves and maidens...the Fae.

  I initially visited the First Realm as a child, as a way to escape my father’s abuse. Only, back then I didn’t need drugs to get there. My imagination, desperate to protect me, was its own escape hatch. A couple weeks ago, when we arrived at the Vineyard, Nancy suggested I go back to the First Realm and ask the two Voices—Hannah and Margaret—what they were afraid of, and what they needed from me to feel safe.

  So, with the help of a candy bowl of prescription meds I scavenged from anyone and everyone at the Vineyard, I went.

  When I got there, sweet, innocent Hannah told me she was afraid I would shut down the First Realm entirely, that I was pretending the bad things we suffered together had never actually happened. She was beginning to doubt herself, to question whether she even existed. I assured her that she did exist, and gave her my word she was important to me, that I would never forget her or what happened to us.

  Stern, disapproving Margaret was afraid that if she didn’t always yell at me, I’d make mistakes and bad things would start happening again. She needed to know I would pay attention when something frightened her, instead of neglecting or dismissing her.

  I promised them that I would never ignore or bury their Voices, but I also put in place boundaries (another technique I’ve been learning about from Nancy). I explained that I had to focus on my True Voice.

  It was when I made peace with Hannah and Margaret that I was finally able to hear her: Ava, my True Voice. Ava is teaching me how to listen to my different egos and make responsible decisions based on all the information.

  So many Voices in one girl’s mind. No wonder I flunked out of eleventh grade.

  Thinking of school makes me think of my estranged bff Sophie. Ugh. It’s not like I expected her to hop on a plane and fly from our Dallas home base to northern Cali so she could be here among my welcoming committee. She probably doesn’t even know I’ve been in detox.

  I didn’t exactly post updates to my Snapchat story. But it still hurts that she’s not here. I miss her, desperately.

  One day at a time, as Nancy says. It’s a barf-worth
y cliché but it does help center me. I’ve accomplished some pretty amazing things in the last week, and in my life, too—though it’s still so hard to give myself any credit for the good stuff.

  And really, there’s not much room for celebration, because it’s not like I’ve come out and told the world my horrible truth. Only Nancy knows what Dad did to me.

  I had to tell Nancy. I was drowning in a vast ocean of panic and despair, my entire psyche hopelessly tangled in the knotted net of my secrets. With every move I made the knots constricted, dragging me under the waves.

  But Nancy didn’t judge me. She didn’t say it was my fault. And as she listened and validated me, the knots loosened, the net slipped away, and I was free.

  Well…more free, anyway. It still feels like I’m stranded in the middle of an endless sea, but I’m floating on my back now and at least I can breathe.

  Nancy is a licensed clinical psychologist. She says that if someone tells her about abuse that’s currently happening she’s legally obligated to report it. But she also says it isn’t always necessary to publicly self-reveal abuse that happened in the past (in my case, ten years ago), and that sometimes private revealing and counseling are enough to help a victim heal; in fact, sometimes speaking out can create further harm, if the victim is really struggling or afraid.

  Ultimately, this isn’t her story to tell, and it’s up to me to decide when I’m ready. If I think there’s a risk anyone else could be in danger now that Dad is out of prison, it would be important for me to speak up. But otherwise, I don’t need to say anything unless I want to.

  The problem is, I do think there’s a risk.

  Just the fact that he’s been released from prison makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand sharp. Dread churns in my stomach, quaking my intestines, sucking the air from my lungs. I haven’t felt this unsafe since before he left, since before I processed just what a monster he was.

  And now he’s here, right here in reception, posing like he’s one of us, like he’s here to guard us. He’s got his arm chummily around Jacob’s shoulder, ruffling Aidan’s too-long hair, looking right at me like he’s just been named Father of the Year.

  They don’t know what he really is. What he’s capable of.

  But I know. Even before I was able to admit it, I knew what Dad did on an instinctive inner plane. That’s why all the dark secrets I’d kept hidden from myself started bubbling up a couple weeks before his release from prison. That’s why Hannah and Margaret started arguing in my head, why I started cutting and taking pills. My body was desperate to make me remember the things my subconscious had locked away.

  I was right to be afraid. The way Mom is looking up at him tells me everything I need to know. Deep within I’ve held a small burning hope that when she woke up from her drug-induced haze she’d remember his cruelty and violence against her, and maybe even have a sense of what he did to me. I fantasized that she’d lunge into some maternal mode of protection.

  But her blush, her twinkling eyes, inviting him in… I know he’s the reason she’s so radiant this morning. My little fire of hope winks out of existence. She’s completely under his spell.

  Maybe he’s changed? Maybe he won’t hurt anyone else?

  No.

  He hasn’t changed.

  That fantasy died when I met him one-on-one in the diner ten days ago, right after he was released from prison. He told me the doctors were wrong, that Mom still needs her pain pills. He told me that he and I would be a team when we got back to Dallas: I’d take care of Mom and the kids and he’d bring home the bacon. Like playing house. He said I’d be his ‘little girlfriend’. The memory literally makes my skin want to crawl off my body.

  Mom and I have finally made it down the eternally long corridor. A nurse pushes a button on the wall and the sliding glass doors open to allow our orderlies to push us out into reception. I count to fifty in the time it takes my orderly to lift the footrests from my wheelchair so I can stand. The bones in his hand squish together queasily in my grasp as he helps me to my feet.

  Eyes fixed on the floor, I shuffle out of the spotlight, knees wobbling. Claire bounds over to me, brimming with the exuberant energy of a ten year-old. A smile splits her face and I swear my lungs expand fully for the first time since I woke up in detox. I can’t help but choke back the tears, I love her so much.

  She thrusts one of the plastic-wrapped bouquets of dip-dyed neon-pink carnations into my arms. I reach to run my fingers through a snarl in her fine red hair, but she scampers away to hand the other bouquet to Mom before I get a chance.

  Aidan steps over to me. He studies my face with unnerving quiet. I don’t want to know what he’s searching for in my eyes, but I hope he doesn’t find it. I turn him around so he can’t see my face and lock my arms around him from behind like a lamprey. I’m pretty sure if he leaves, I’ll forget how to breathe.

  Jacob waits next to Gabe, his back straight as steel. Even though we’re in stupid rehab, it’s such a relief to be in the same room with all my siblings. Jacob looks like he’s grown two inches in the week since I saw him last. At this rate, he’ll be twelve feet tall before he turns sixteen next February.

  I wait expectantly, but he doesn’t look at me or come closer. All his attention is on Dad, who is gel-haired and gallant at Mom’s side, joking about carrying her out to the car like he did over the threshold of their crap apartment when they got married.

  I can’t even.

  I turn my attention back to Jacob with a dissonant pang and realize: he isn’t coming to hug me.

  “Jacob,” I call quietly.

  He doesn’t budge. There’s no way he didn’t hear me. He’s only three feet away.

  “Jacob,” I call, louder this time.

  He turns his head in acknowledgment. Mouth tight, nostrils wide, eyes narrowed, his angry glance squeezes like a fist around my throat. I wither as he looks away and resumes contemptuously ignoring me.

  Ouch.

  But I know why he’s angry.

  The last time I spoke to Jacob before I overdosed, I told him that I didn’t trust Dad, that Dad was a predator intent on preying on our power, and that he would never stop hurting us if we didn’t do something to stop him. I told him I didn’t know if I could defeat Dad by myself, but that I was going to try.

  He begged me not to do anything stupid, but he should have known better. Doing stupid things is one of my best talents.

  And now here we are.

  Jacob bounces on the balls of his feet with nervous energy. His arms are folded across his chest in a formal kind of anticipation as he watches Mom and Dad. I know that posture. He’s excited about this reunion and our fresh start. He’s looking forward to the road trip back to Dallas complete with a game of “Remember When” and some light banter about who will be the man of the house now that Dad is home. He’s mad at me because he thinks I’m trying to sabotage our chances of being a happy family.

  In the chronicle of my many rocks and hard places, this is the rockiest and hardest I’ve ever experienced. If I tell Jacob the truth of what Dad did, I destroy his dream and he hates me. If I say nothing, I put us all in serious danger.

  I’m double-cast as both the messenger and the message. Someone shoot me.

  Twice.

  A shadow hangs over all of us. Am I the only one who sees it?

  It’s my fault. All of it. The hollows under Aidan’s eyes, the optimism of Claire’s smile, Jacob’s eagerness. Even the bashful slope of self-consciousness in Mom’s shoulders as her orderly retracts her footplates and she rises weak and unsteady from the wheelchair.

  Dad offers his hand. Mom takes it, shy and grateful, sinking into the crevice of his shoulder, caving into his sheltering embrace.

  I hide the distress of my quivering lips in Aidan’s soft hair. Dad’s energy dwarfs the room and everyone in it. Larger than life, his hand lands possessively on my shoulder, pulling us all in for a group bear hug.

  Somehow, I manage to only flinch on the
inside.

  Chapter Three

  I keep my composure until I’m in the van.

  I seem to do a lot of freaking out in this particular van. While my body clenches into a mass of solid panic, my brain wonders academically if perhaps this van isn’t one of those ‘cosmic archetype’ thingies my teacher was always going on about in AP Psych. Like, maybe it’s a symbol for going bonkers? Because every time I’m in this van for more than a few minutes, I end up taking a journey down the rabbit hole to someplace unequivocally strange: from Dallas to the Vineyard where I first met the Fae; from the Vineyard to the diner to meet Dad/Drake, and then from the diner back to the Vineyard where the First Realm finally swallowed me whole.

  And now I’m traveling from detox to certain doom, because it’s obvious that Dad isn’t going to ease back into our lives with any sort of attempt at repairing the damage he’s done. Nope. Now that Mom’s out of rehab he’s coming in with both guns blazing, determined to make up for lost time.

  As we left the hospital, he invited Jacob, Aidan, and Claire over to his motel for a sleepover tonight. Thankfully Uncle Ian insisted he needed their help at the Vineyard. Which of course didn’t sit well with Dad. Even though he shrugged it off, I could tell he was steaming inside. He’s probably cursing in his rental car right now about how Mom’s relatives have no right to interfere with his family, which is rich since they’ve been the ones providing for us the entire time he was incarcerated.

  Maybe if I lean against the window and drift off to sleep right here, right now, I’ll wake up in a Realm where no one has dual identities: Nancy is my therapist and long-time family friend, not the wise and supportive Lady Quince; Ian is my great-uncle, and not the general of the Fae army; Mom is only my mom, Sandra, not the fragile co-dependent Princess Nissandra completely blindsided by her infatuation with her manipulative, abusive husband; Dad is only Dad, not the evil Drake who is hell-bent on world domination. And I’m just a seventeen-year old girl. NOT the only person standing between a predator and his future prey.