Still, I nodded, agreeing with Aiden.
I really didn’t see anything wrong with opening up to Aiden—at the time, I’d never felt so comforted before. I had some of the best sleep I’ve had since the accident.
But waking up the next morning, my panic rises. And it keeps going all weekend. My overactive mind whirls over every single reason I shouldn’t have told Aiden.
It wouldn’t be so bad if I’d just left it at “My dad was the drunk drive
r,” but the more we talked, the more I felt compelled to tell him the truth. Something about him just made me feel so comfortable, so okay with being vulnerable that I forgot to keep my guard up and stick to my script.
I’ve never opened up to anyone about any of that before, and out of nowhere I decide to spill some of my darkest secrets to the school’s biggest badass? What the hell, Amelia? Get it together!
My mom’s going be so pissed when she finds out. We’re going have to move again and then she’ll have to find another job again and every day she’ll grow to resent me even more and—no.
I stop pacing. She’s not going to find out. I won’t say anything to her because Aiden isn’t going to tell anyone. I mean, normally Aiden would probably tell the Boys, since they do everything together, but he’s not going to. Not this time. Aiden and I connected on a deeper level last night. He told me about his mom and his brothers. I wonder what happened to them?
But either way, I think he’s intuitive enough to know that I wouldn’t want anyone else to know.
I mean, he didn’t tell anyone about Chase loving Charlotte, so it’s not like the Boys share one brain; they keep their own secrets too. I’ll catch Aiden first thing and confirm that he won’t tell anyone. He won’t. I just know it. I can trust Aiden. Sure we started out hating each other, but now we’re friends. He opened up to me. He trusts me. He understands me.
I shower and fix my messy hair, putting it into a French braid down my back, attempting to hide the dark-brown roots growing in. I put on a bit more makeup than usual, masking the dark bags under my eyes.
Since I don’t have to straighten then loosely curl my hair, I finish getting ready really quickly, giving me about twenty minutes until I have to leave.
I open my closet door and pull out an old shoebox disguised among my other shoeboxes. I sit down cross-legged on my bed and pull it in front of me.
Aiden got too close to finding out the whole truth last night. Looking through this shoebox, I’m reminded of why he can’t find out anything else. Why no one can know anything, and why keeping my secret safe is important.
The first thing I pull out is a bunch of newspaper clippings about my dad’s accident, detailing the accident and showing pictures of our totaled SUV and Tony’s destroyed car. Aiden’s plan worked in the end. He wanted to tutor me to find out some of my secrets, and he did. He found out more than I ever intended anyone to know. And it really wasn’t that hard for him.
What he doesn’t know, though, is to what extent Tony’s grief overtook him.
I pull out another newspaper clipping, running my fingers over the bold title: 16-year-old Thea Kennedy kidnapped.
I pull out another one: Prime suspect in Kennedy kidnapping identified as Tony Derando.
They go on and on, and I flip through them unconsciously, stopping at one in particular: Thea Kennedy found safe; Derando nowhere to be found.
I put it aside and grab the next thing: a note, with the simple words You Will Die written in a harsh, crazed scrawl. I pull out another similar one, and another, and another—more death threats phrased in different ways in the same menacing handwriting.
Sifting through them, I come to an object with a picture stapled to it. This is the only picture that exists of this girl. She’s got blond hair cut into a short bob and wears thick-framed glasses that no one knew didn’t have an actual prescription. This picture was taken without her knowing, like a surveillance photo, as she was leaving school.
It had been stapled to a doll—one that had been altered to look like the girl, except for one difference. The doll originally came with a knife shoved cruelly in its head. The note that was attached to the brick that came through the window read: You can run Isabella, but I will always find you.
I shiver, moving the doll and picture to the side. I pull out another newspaper clipping: Teen attacked at part-time job: three people dead.
Another: Witnesses say mall attacker’s prime purpose was to kidnap teen Hailey Johnson.
Another: Police still looking for mall attacker who left three dead and as many injured.
Another: Teen Hailey Johnson recovering in hospital from attack that left three others dead.
Running my fingers over the picture taken of Hailey as she was leaving the hospital, I recall the color contacts that made her eyes blue and the straight, black hair that framed a bruised face. She was holding the left side of her ribs, recovering from the fight with the mall attacker.
I shiver again and quickly throw the artifacts back into the shoebox.
Aiden knows that Sabrina’s father, Tony, lost everything the day of the crash, but he doesn’t know that he’s been out to get me ever since. He doesn’t know that I’ve been running from Tony for the last year, and that’s the reason that I’ve moved so many times. He doesn’t know that Tony has found me and tried to kill me three times in the last year. He doesn’t even know that my real name isn’t Amelia.
No one is going to find out any of this. But Aiden is smart. He’s observant. He knows how to connect the dots.