SECRECY

Jane

Despite all the appropriate pills, Rhys fell asleep before I did. The change was subtle in his heartbeat and his breathing, but I listened to the shift often enough to know the difference between silently lying awake and finding sleep.

I listened because I needed to hear something real and tangible. The dripping didn't come. The quiet didn't invite in darker things.

It just didn't invite sleep either.

I went through the same process a hundred times, going over the same tips and tricks different therapists suggested.

Slowly... slowly...

What did it feel like to be swallowed up by nothing? Just a peaceful, dark eternity wrapping me up like a blanket? Some kind of state of nirvana or like the edge of the universe? Like space. Cold and dark and endless.

Slowly...slowly...

Rhys shifted, something uneven in his breathing for half a second.

I drew back, pulling my hand away from his shoulder.

He shifted, turning, tangling in the quilt before his eyes snapped open. A shadow boy in the lack of light.

Instinctively, still sluggish from unconsciousness, he reached for something off the side of the bed.

Not the blinds again. We were on the second floor. No one could be at the blinds.

After fumbling a moment, the lamp flickered on. Even the dim glow of the bulb warming to life burned my eyes.

Rhys pulled a notebook from a drawer, something usually hidden from view, and scribbled something short onto a page.

Spots continued to float in my vision.

"Is everything okay?" I mumbled, struggling to find my voice beyond my cotton throat.

The light flicked off again, plunging us into utter blackness. All the shades I could make out a second before were indecipherable again.

"Yeah."

"Doesn't sound very yeah."

His arms snaked back around me, pulling me closer again.

"Just trying to string things together. Little pieces that make no sense."

How could I argue with him when he held me like that?

"But you'll tell me more about the pieces sometime?" I asked. He wasn't alone. Hadn't I told him that? It was too hard to do alone. It was hard with Natalie and it was hard with him.

Silence.

"There's nothing to tell yet."

That still sounded less like the truth and more like pride. Before I could press any further, Rhys found my lips in the dark.

I preferred a kiss to a fight in the middle of the night.

˚˚˚˚˚˚

Strands of my hair slid away from my face, brushed away by the same soft touch that grazed my cheek.

I wanted to stay asleep, but it was too late for that. Still, I couldn't bring myself to move, just to open my eyes.

Hazel. I could wake up to hazel every day.

Rhys' hand settled gently on my arm, his smile so warm. People were meant to wake up that way, not in the middle of the night, dampened in sweat.

He looked at me like... I probably had static-y, tangled hair and puffy eyes and pillowcase creases pressed into my cheek and Rhys still looked at me like that.

"Go back to sleep," he whispered.

And then I was alone in his bed while the shower droned across the hall, still not moving.

I could sleep... only a few extra minutes since I still had school and responsibilities. It was not a lazy Sunday morning where I could linger under a warm quilt.

But there was a book hidden in a drawer. That book looked so much like Natalie's.

Rhys was too stubborn. Too proud. He wasn't alone. If I could figure out Natalie's instructions, I could sort through what clues Rhys had. At the very least, I could be a fresh perspective or someone to bounce theories off of.

Was it wrong to inch my way to the edge of the bed? It wasn't. It couldn't be. Rhys was miserable at asking for help and it nearly killed him once before.

I couldn't let that happen again.

Still, my stomach twisted as I pulled the drawer open to reveal the black moleskine. Too much like Natalie's but without the sticky notes and the wear and tear in the edges.

I flipped to the first few pages, half-expecting Natalie's cramped, feminine handwriting.

Rhys' came in sharp, long lines instead. To the point, swift, urgent. I always read his handwriting quickly, as if the very letters demanded it.

I remembered the first few notes, standing next to him when he noticed a sign or a road he remembered from a dream. They were little things. Proof that his dreams weren't always just dreams, but nothing really came of those flashes of deja vu.

A few pages in, I caught a line. Tan car. Slow. Driving by.

I expected more bits and pieces. It wasn't the same clarity I expected Natalie had, but it was much more than Rhys made it out to be. He'd had the dreams more often than he let on.

My heart in my throat, I swallowed hard. Black hands never faces.

I flipped the page.

My heart stopped, nothing more than a useless lump in my throat. Rhys wrote notes at different times, red layered over black.

I stared at his block caps.

Dead. Bia.

How could he not tell me? How the hell did Rhys come to the conclusion that keeping me in the dark was the way to go? How—

Over the pound of blood in my ears, I never heard the water shut off or the door creak open. I didn't hear anything, but like being caught in the crosshairs, I felt Rhys' eyes on me. He loomed in the doorway, taking up practically the whole frame.

I couldn't meet his eyes with the same intensity, not while they stung and blurred.

"Why didn't you tell me?" I couldn't tell which came out more prominently: the anger or the betrayal or the hurt. Which feeling tightened my chest?

Rhys shut the door behind him wordlessly. Too tall. He was entirely too tall while I was still propped up on his mattress, like I was looking up at a giant.

I slipped out of bed, standing as tall as I could, still having to crane my neck. How intimidating.

There was betrayal in his eyes too, and a twitch in his jaw. I shouldn't have read it, but I had to. Obviously. Or he'd keep bombshells to himself.

"We can fix it, can't we? If Natalie could tell me what to do, she must've changed something in whatever she saw. That doesn't have to be the future." A tightness in my throat threatened to force out tears. It wouldn't be like what happened to Kate. It wasn't too late and there wasn't Natalie giving us the information after the fact.

"It's more complicated than that," he said, quietly. We weren't the only ones in the apartment. Who knew if Lucas was awake or asleep or oblivious. 

"How, exactly?" My voice threatened to crack. No argument I made would sound reasonable if I was on the verge of breaking at any moment. 

"It's not as straightforward as Natalie made it seem. There are worse futures. There are variables," Rhys pressed, "maybe ours was the best of what Natalie saw, and it involved her dying." 

How would I know that? He never told me.

"How do you know that for sure?" I brushed my eyes with the back of my hand impatiently. He had to be wrong. There had to be another option. 

"I've seen it. Worse things can happen." Rhys insisted. There was too much space between us. Part of me wanted to cry and have him hold me steady and another part of me very much didn't even want to look at him.

"How could it be worse?"

I needed Bia. I needed someone normal who didn't cater to the broken parts of me. She'd been as much a staple of my family's Filipino parties, as vital as piles of food and karaoke. Bia was so much of the life I used to have. Before Cullfield. Rhys was everything good about after Cullfield, but Bia was my anchor for something else. 

Rhys shifted uneasily. "I don't think I should tell you."

"Well, that seems like your answer to a lot of things right now." No matter how angry I was, how angry I wanted to look, the tears kept spilling and the best I could do was wipe them away.

"The more I see, the more I think I get why Natalie did the things she did. If Kate didn't die, do you think her dad would've killed Dean? Would you have taken Natalie seriously if she didn't kill herself first? If she didn't make you a part of her book?" Rhys forgot about Lucas, no longer quiet. "I am trying to figure out the right path to take, but I don't know if there is a right path at all."

Fuck that. Kate had to die? And Natalie, too? I could've... it could've been different. That was beyond my control. Natalie made the calls there, but Rhys had the information now and we could do better.

"What did you see in that other future that scared you so much?" I watched his face for signs, but he wouldn't look at me. The king of eye contact couldn't meet my gaze.

"If I tell you, you'll make it happen. I can't let you." Instead of me, he looked out the window, avoiding me altogether.

"I don't need you to tell me. I'll figure it out. How hard can it be?" I could work backwards. I could avoid everything he wrote down. If those were the variables, then not partaking had to lead to something other than my roommate's death, didn't it?

I gathered up my things, my phone and charger, clothes, my backpack...

"Jane, stop." He didn't try to touch me, which was probably better for both of us.

My throat threatened me with proper water works if I said much more. If I didn't look at him, maybe it would help. All I wanted was to get out of there. The walk to school would help. That was what Autumn air was good for.

"If anything happens to her, I'll never forgive you," I said with the very last of my voice.

"I know." He forced a bitter smile, finally looking at me. "It's still better than the alternative."

How did I take that? I couldn't decide, but it made me nauseous to think about. I brushed past him so I could shut the door between us, putting up a barrier.

Arms full of my stuff, I forced myself to walk calmly down the hall.

Lucas, poor Lucas, stood in the kitchen, eating cereal over the counter.

"You're shaking," he said. Maybe he couldn't hear all the words, or make sense of any of the conversation, but through thin apartment walls, could he mistake it for anything but a fight?

I was shaking. I couldn't stop.

"Yeah."

Great conversationalists we were.

Lucas put down his bowl for a second, pulling my scarf off the back of a chair to drape it around my neck.

He didn't say anything and neither did I. It wasn't exactly his place. We weren't that close. I doubted he and Rhys were. He just... looked me over, not knowing what to do.

After a long, quiet moment, he opened the door for me.   

It must've looked awful the way I walked downstairs to my own apartment, rather under-dressed in a tank top and yoga pants. Walks of Shame were meant to be done carrying high-heels. They were for after different kinds of mornings where regrets weren't so heavy. 

I wanted someone else, anyone else to keep horrible secrets from me. Maybe Rhys had a point. After Kate died, Natalie was nowhere to be found. She couldn't be blamed. Maybe it was easier for her to play her future of choice out like that. Without having to take the fall. 

I dug my keys out of my jacket pocket, trying hard not to drop anything else, and let myself in. 

There was Bia, milling around the kitchen, making smoothies or something. Bright-eyed, as Bia always was as a frustratingly sunny morning person. 

The second she saw me, she stopped. She took my whole armful of everything and tossed it to an out-of-the way corner of the floor. 

And she hugged me. No words. No nothing. Just a squeeze of someone who knew something was wrong and didn't need an explanation. 

That was why I had to do something. 

A/N The plot thickens. And some possible insight into Natalie's choices. Any theories on what happens in the alternate future Rhys is hiding?

Dedicated to @XbeautificationsX for the cover, which she originally did as fan art (fan art! Aaaah! No one's ever made me fan art). Her covers are prettier than mine. Go check out her graphics for more pretty things!