Secrets 3

- I Won’t Let You Have Him

I stared at the note in my hand for about five minutes before I went inside my house. Those six words, written in that beautiful, cursive handwriting, was enough to create the coldest fear inside of me. I usually don’t get afraid of panicked easily, but I was now. I locked the door. The whole house was very quiet, abnormally silent. I couldn’t hear anything at all...that made me even more nervous. I saw the small black book with my journal entries in it, on the floor where I had accidentally dropped it. 

Still gripping the note in my hand, I crossed the room and picked up the book. I didn’t want to read anymore of my secrets about in that book. I wanted to throw it away; I wanted to know who had read my journal and rewritten all those entries, and I also wanted to know who wrote the note that I was still writing. But when I thought about it, there were only two people I knew who would do this: Danny and Rose. The thing was, I didn’t know if it was one or the other - or if it was both.

Not wanting to, I read all the entries in the black book. Some of the entries were complete, with every thought I had expressed in them; some were just fragments of things I’d written that really wouldn’t make sense to any other person reading them except for me. The handwriting was inconsistent throughout the book. It seemed like more than one person had compiled these entries together; some of the pages had really good pen ship, very neat and small - which I assumed to be a girl’s handwriting. Other pages had large, sloppy, angry handwriting, which often time expressed the mood I was in when I wrote that particular passage. 

The thing that really disturbed me was that some of the passages I read weren’t from the journal I destroyed - they were from earlier journals I had written in a couple of years when I was sixteen, and which I had buried in a shoe box in my closet. I didn’t know how anyone could have access to those journals without me knowing it. I read one particular entry, one I wrote in tenth grade, shortly after Patrick started going with Rose:

March 4, 2002/ He looks at her too much. He smiles too much when he’s around her. I haven’t seen him smile like that every since what happened last year. I don’t see what she has that I don’t - except for breasts. I bet know he won’t even pay attention to me anymore...

I closed the journal. I couldn’t read it anymore. I thought about what Patrick had told me earlier that night, about how he really didn’t like Rose. A big part of me was secretly pleased by that - more than a big part - all of me was happy that Patrick didn’t like Rose. But what wasn’t good, was Patrick’s choice to stay with her anyway, knowing how she truly felt about him, and how he felt about her. He had said that it wouldn’t be easy to break up with her - maybe he really didn’t want to. Maybe he liked her more than he thought. I didn’t want to really think about it. 

Yet I also thought about how Patrick had asked me if I was gay and how I had told him yes. He didn’t seem surprised at all and he said that he wanted to see me tomorrow. I didn’t want to take it as a sign that he was interested in me - in the way that I was interested in him. But for a moment, I allowed myself to actually ponder the idea that Patrick could really like me. Looking at the note in my hand, I assumed that whoever had written this note also believed that Patrick could really like me. 

* * *
I waited for Danny to come to his locker when I got to school the next morning. I saw him coming, from the very opposite end of the hallway. The closer he got, the more nervous I began to get. I’d forgotten what I planned on saying to him. Danny saw me, and his attractive face contorted into a mask of hatred. He stopped inches away from me. “What are you doin’ at my locker, Sean?”

Though my heart was racing, I was able to maintain an even-toned voice. “There’s something I need to talk to you about, Danny.”

“There’s nothin’ I need to say to you. I told you that, yesterday. Move outta the way so that I can get into my locker.” I noticed that Danny’s eyes appeared to be brown again. Yesterday I could’ve sworn they were dark green.

“You might not have anything to say to me, but I got something to say to you,” I said to him.

I reached into my bookbag and retrieved the small black book. “Like what is this?”

Danny’s face never changed from that cold, heartless expression. “It’s a book.”

“Well, I see that, Dan.” I knew that Danny hated to be called ‘Dan’. “But why was this at my house last night on my doorstep?”

“Because I wanted you to see it,” Danny said simply. “To know that I wasn’t just kidding around.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Danny didn’t say anything. He just kept on staring at me hatefully with his dark eyes.

“Did you write the shit inside of this book?” I questioned kinda loud. A girl, whose locker was right next to Danny’s looked at me and Danny and then walked away.

“That book is your basic life story,” Danny said. “If you’re callin it shit then that’s your problem.”

“You did write this.”

For a moment, Danny just stared at me. There was something really inhuman about his eyes, as though there were just pure malice behind them. “You wrote it Sean,” he said. “I just rewrote some parts.”

“How did you get my other journals?”

“Easily,” Danny said. 

I hadn’t expected him to actually tell me the truth. “Some? Who wrote the other parts?”

“You already know,” Danny explained. He took a step toward me. “Now move outta my way, Sean.”

“No. Did Rose help you with this?”

“There’s nothin else I need to say to you, Sean. Now I’m gonna say this again: get the fuck outta my way before I make you.” 

“I thought you were my friend,” I said.

“No you didn’t,” Danny responded plainly. His face was as expressionless now as a robot. He brushed past me, bumping me aside so that he could get access to his locker. 

“Don’t do that shit again, Danny. Just `cause I don’t like you the way you like me, doesn’t mean you need to do all this stalker bullshit you’re doing.”

“You’re right, Sean. 

“You’re fucked up, Danny.”

Opening his locker door, Danny said, without looking at me. “Three years and you just figured that out.” He retrieved a book, slammed the locker door shut, and walked away very quickly. 

* * *
I didn’t see Rose all day, not that I really wanted to see her at all. But I wanted to confront her about the note and the black journal. Usually, I would’ve seen her at least ten times a day; mostly Rose would ignore me when we passed each other in the hallways, which was fine with me. But the few times our eyes met, Rose would glare at me with those evil eyes, ten times more hateful than Danny - or basically anyone could. She always stared at me as though for some reason I was a threat to her. Whenever I was around Patrick and she saw us, Rose would always find a way to divert Patrick’s attention. Did she really think I was trying to take Patrick away from her...or did she think that Patrick actually liked me -- maybe even more than he liked her?

I didn’t get to see Patrick much that day either until the end of the day. He past walked up from behind me and playfully punched me on the shoulder as he usually did. “Hey, Sean. What’s up?”
I turned to see him behind me, handsome as ever, grinning at me with his perfect teeth.
“Nothin’ special,” I said. 

Patrick leaned against the locker door next to me. “You think you could give me a ride after basketball practice?” he asked. 

“What happened to your car?”

“Some asshole slashed my back tires last night.” Patrick said that with no emotion at all, as though it really meant nothing to him.”My dad had to drive me to school today. Gotta go get that shit fixed this weekend.”

“Are you serious? Last night?” I thought about Danny hiding outside of my home, I thought of the black book and the note left on my front door. All of those things had to be related. 

“So you think you could give me a ride home?” Patrick asked with a smile. His face looked so perfect - almost too perfect.

“What time is your practice over?” I asked.

“Like at five-fifteen or somethin,” Patrick answered. He waited patiently for my response. He knew of course that I would say yes.

“Okay,” I said. “Meet me out by the front parking lot in front of the library at five-fifteen.”

“Alright,” Patrick responded. He winked at me and walked away. I got pleasant chills when he did that. 

I decided to go to the library and do my homework as I waited for Patrick to be finished with his practice. The library wasn’t too crowded with people, so I was able to sit alone at a table by myself without having to hear obnoxious people laughing and talking about stupid shit while I studied. 

I was doing my pre-calculus assignment, when out of the corner of my eye, I saw Danny walking by. I looked up and saw him, along with another guy - I didn’t know his name, but he was tall and muscular, with a box-shaped jaw and a serious expression on his face. Danny was leading him into the men’s bathroom. Neither one of them saw me as I watched them go inside. I was very curious as to why Danny would bring that boy into the bathroom and also I wondered who that guy was. I had never seen him around campus before - our school wasn’t that big to the point where you didn’t see everyone at least once or twice a day. That guy looked like he could’ve been in his early to mid twenties or something.

My first thought was to go inside of there and see what they were doing, but I decided not to. Instead I tried to concentrate on my homework. I figured that Danny and the other boy would be coming out of the bathroom soon - but they didn’t. Several minutes passed, and still neither one of them had returned from the bathroom. I was really starting to get anxious about what they were doing. I put down my pencil, got up from seat and went into the bathroom.

The bathroom was white and spotless. There were five urinals that lined one side of the wall and five toilet stalls that lined the other. When I listened carefully, I heard whispering coming from the very last stall. I bent down and saw two pairs of shoes underneath the stall door. Danny and that boy were sharing the same stall. The curiosity in my grew, and I really wanted to know what they were doing, or were about to do. Slowly, without making much noise, I went over to the stall right next to the one that Danny was in, went inside and closed the door, as quietly as I could without Danny or the other boy noticing.