The Words We Keep

After a million kisses and somehow not enough kisses—never enough kisses—we force ourselves to stop and get out of the water. We pull on our clothes and he walks me to his house and presses his mouth to mine one more time. I drive home, the taste of the ocean and Micah on my lips.

The house is quiet when I creep through the front door and close it softly behind me. I almost make it past Dad’s office without detection.

“That you, Lily pad?”

“What’s up, Dad?”

Did that sound casual? Or guilty? Casually guilty?

In his study, he’s sitting in his armchair, buried in a book. The rest of the house is dark, the dishwasher running softly like it does every night after Dad and Staci go up to bed.

“Were you waiting on me?” I ask.

“Of course. Can’t sleep until all my girls are home, safe and sound.”

“Sorry I’m so late. I didn’t meant to worry you.”

“That’s the thing: I never have to worry about you.” Dad stands up, stretches, and puts his arm around me. “Late-night study session?”

I nod.

“Those teachers really push you, don’t they?”

“Understatement of the century.”

“Not that you ever had a problem pushing yourself just fine,” he says with a wink. “Speaking of which, I haven’t seen you running much. You still shooting for state?”

“Yep.”

“That’s my girl.” He piles a stack of papers with Fairview’s letterhead into a drawer.

“Dad?” I swallow hard. “I know about Alice’s bills. And I’m doing everything I can to win this scholarship for the summer program, but—”

Dad cuts me off, shaking his head.

“Now, let’s not talk about that,” he says. “Leave that to me. That’s what dads are for.”

On his desk, a picture of the four of us at the beach sits next to a stack of student exams. It’s from the day when Alice got me to swim out past where the waves break, when I almost let the water take me. But this is earlier that morning, and Dad has Margot on his shoulders, while Alice and I dance in the sjushamillabakka, in the in-between where the waves meet the sand.

“Seems like yesterday,” Dad says, changing the topic with a happy-sad look on his face. He picks up the picture and rubs the back of his neck. “I wasn’t sure I could do it after your mom died.”

“Do what?” I ask.

“Raise you girls. All alone. No one really tells you how, you know?”

The quaver in his voice scares me. He’s Dad—always trying to make things better, trying to make me happy. Always there, period. I wrap my arms around him from behind.

“You’re doing great, Dad,” I say. “And you’re not alone.”

—

The Post-it notes have taken over.

Dozens of them adorn Alice’s side of the room. She looks up at me from where she’s scribbling something on a new one, and then she slaps it onto the wall. Her eyes are bloodshot, and the room is a total mess.

“When’s the last time you slept?” I say, stepping over the plastic tarp and paint cans. Margot is zonked out, curled up in my comforter, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban tucked under her arm. I told her days ago that I’d talk Dementors with her.

Worst big sister ever.

“No time for sleep!” Alice says, and then she skips over to me and pulls on my wet hair. “Besides, I’m the one who should be asking the questions, when my little sister comes in at midnight, fresh from what I can only assume is a skinny-dip?”

Busted.

“How did you know that?”

“I’m your big sister. I know all,” she says with a wink. “And also, you’re wearing his hoodie.”

I look down at the sweatshirt Micah wrapped around me tonight. “Oh.”

She laughs, the high, uncontrolled pitch I’ve been trying so hard to ignore.

“Don’t worry, your midnight rendezvous secrets are safe with me. So I guess this means you are into him?”

I nod, the lingering feel of his lips, sending aftershocks rippling through me. “He just sees the world in this beautiful way, and I want to be part of it.”

I sit on Alice’s bed so I won’t wake Margot. Alice studies the sticky note in her hand. “You know he has a pretty complicated history, right? It doesn’t bother you?”

“It did. But then I got to know him, and he’s nothing like everyone says,” I say, sorting out my feelings for Micah as I shape them into words. “And it’s like his depression, his time at Fairview, it’s all part of who he is, and sometimes I think I could fall in love with who he is. And when you love someone, you love all the broken pieces, right? Or maybe when you love someone, those pieces don’t seem so broken anymore. They’re just part of them.”

Alice is quiet, looking at the scars peeking out from her sleeves now. “You really believe that?”

“Yeah. I think I do.”

“Secrets!” she yells, snapping her fingers. “I could do a whole segment on the secrets we keep. How we try to protect people. How we protect ourselves.”

“Alice—”

“And why we say some things and not others—”

“Alice!”

“What, what? Why are you yelling?”

“I’m trying to talk to you.”

She slaps the Post-it onto the wall and laughs. “Sorry, but the ideas just keep coming, like, bam-bam-BAM! I can’t write them down quick enough. It’s like they’re building up inside me, like this pressure, and they’re gonna leak out my ears because they’re coming so fast, and like, I have to reach in and pluck them out of this tornado before they’re gone forever.”

I pat the bed next to me, trying to whisper so Margot stays asleep. “Come, sit.”

She obeys, but barely. Her butt is on my bed but her eyes dart around the room, her fingers flicking the pen back and forth.

“Alice. I don’t think you’re fine.”

She rolls her eyes. “I told you—”

“No, Alice, I’m serious. Maybe you need to get back on your meds.”

All her energy turns angry in an instant, her bloodshot eyes turned on me.

“No! I’m not going back to that place—where I feel nothing about anything. I want to feel everything. What I need is for everyone to stop trying to fix me.” She points to Margot. “Did you know she thinks something called a Patronus is going to help me? Told me I had to think of my happiest memory. Like she can wave a magic wand and—poof—no more bipolar disorder.”

“I’m not trying to fix you, Alice. I’m trying to help you.”

“For the one millionth time, I don’t need help.”

“If the Hundred Acre Wood has taught me anything, it’s that everyone needs help.” I choose my words carefully. “So if you won’t take your medicine—”

“I won’t.”

“Then Micah said he has this group he goes to, from Fairview. What if you went to that? Just once, just to try it. I’d even go with you.”

Alice groans and leans her head back. She puffs out her cheeks as she blows out all her air. “This is important to you?”

“It is.”

“Fine. I’ll go.” She points a finger at me. “But not because I need help. Maybe I could help them. Maybe I could show them my videos or—” She stands up, scribbling on another Post-it note. “Or maybe I could interview them. A whole segment on life after Fairview!”

She slaps the note onto the wall with the word THERAPY in the center.

I change for bed but leave on Micah’s hoodie because it smells like him and the ocean and tonight. And even though the symptoms of mania are still bouncing in my head, I can finally breathe in this room.

Because she’s gonna get help. She’ll be okay.

We all will.