Page 25 of Never Tell Secrets

“I don’t know.” I examined the chest. A coded padlock held it shut. There was a small note hanging from it and I turned it over.

The day I lost you.

A.

My birthday.

I keyed the code in quickly and lifted the lid. Inside I found a dozen or more leather bound books, some looking older than the others. I shared a confused glance with Keira. I lifted out theone at the top and opened it. The first page was blank except for a sentence written in handwriting I knew all too well.

The Exploits of Alfie Tell.

Oh holy crap. These were his journals.

I sat cross legged on my bed, surrounded by decades of Alfie’s life. Each journal was dated and I’d selected the most recent one first. I’d flipped through but seeing my name on every page had unnerved me. I’d snapped it shut and gone for the oldest one instead. The dates began about twenty years ago, when Alfie was around fifteen years old. The handwriting looked different, younger somehow, but it was unmistakably his. Though it seemed to lack his cold rigidity, younger Alfie allowed an imperfect cursive on an S, an overreaching slant on a T. The Alfie I knew would never allow such mistakes. My hands shook as I opened the journal and began to read…

My shoulder aches too much to write well, but no one will ever read this so it doesn’t matter anyway. I don’t know why I’m bothering to write here.

Actually, I do know. I’m writing because I can’t play. My violin is eyeing me from across the room, angry with me for giving up on it a few minutes ago. I tried to play the hurt away but my shoulder gave out, ice hot pain ripping through me, sending the notes out harsh and off key.

Maybe I really am an idiot.

I understand my father’s game but I won’t play it.

He wants me to be like him? Well, I won’t.

He wants me to hurt my brother? I won’t do that either. Even if Charles doesn’t give me the same courtesy.

Today was Geographical History but it didn’t matter what the topic was, the game played out the same way as every other time. Charles giving wrong answer after wrong answer and for every wrong answer, I felt the crack of my father’s cane, the smirk on my brother’s face, the pride from my father as he looked at Charles and the disappointment as he looked at me, his second best, kneeling on the floor but refusing to cry. I got back up like always and when my turn came, I answered my question right and spared Charles a beating.

I hate both of them. No. All of them. I fucking hate all of them.

It was a boring game by now. My father has become predictable and the older I get, the less invested he is in changing me. I am becoming invisible. Good.

I wish I was becoming invisible to Charles too. He scares me. I can’t say that anywhere else but here. I have nightmares about him.

I’m counting down the days until my mandatory two weeks at our summer home in the Hamptons is over and I can go back to school. This year, for the first time, I won’t have to deal with Charles. He’s aged out and moved on to working in father’s company. I don’t envy him.

Once, I had to sit in the back of my father's Bentley, watching as his bailiffs threw tenants out of their homes so he could turn their apartment building into a new hotel. They laughed at them, Father and Charles, and I sat there and wondered how we were related. How we could share the same blood.

I have this fantasy sometimes, when I’m lying in bed at night, unable to get comfortable because every position presses on new bruises, where I imagine that I’m not related to them at all. That my real parents were good people but really poor and they begged Joseph and CarolynTell to take me in and give me a better life.

I’ve been told so many times how lucky I am. Lucky for the private education, lucky for the chauffeur and the chefs and the maids, lucky for the summer homes. Am I lucky for the beatings too? Am I lucky that my own Mother doesn’t care? I remember going to her when I was little and Charles had hurt me, she just pushed me away. Like I annoyed her. She wouldn’t even look at me. But at least I learned quickly. I haven’t embarrassed myself by asking for affection for a long time. Asking for that was as embarrassing as wetting the bed to me now.

I miss Ada. I’m too old for a nanny but I think Mother would have kept her around if she hadn’t reported Father to social services. I loved Ada for that, she didn’t even look scared when Mother was threatening her. She was the only one that cared when I got that ear infection when I was six. I hope I’ll get to see her again.

I hope for a lot of things.

I hope I get out of here and never have to deal with these fucking people again. When I’m older and I have my own family, I’ll be nothing like them. I’m going to get married to a girl who doesn’t give a shit about money and I’ll be a perfect husband. I won’t ever lie to her or scare her and I’ll be good to my kids too. I won’t let my fucked up parents anywhere near my own family. I’m going to live in a normal house and have a normal job and do good things, not bad things.

I hope to get back to school soon. I made a real friend this year. Riley. He’s strange. His family can barely afford the feesand they don’t even have live-in staff. But I think he’s my first real friend. I hope he remembers me at the start of term and

The entry cut off there. I could only imagine he’d been interrupted and by what, I couldn’t bear to think about. I read on and on, late into the night. Painful page after painful page. Alfie being hurt, Alfie being neglected, Alfie lonely and sad. I read as his rebellion grew over the course of a year. During that time he morphed from a scared but hopeful boy who did wild things to get attention, to a resentful young man, cutting himself off from anything that might hurt him. I was watching the evolution of Alfie Tell the boy to Alfie Tell the Never Tell playboy right before my eyes. It made sense to me now how he became that person, but still, each page hurt until finally I snapped the journal shut, unable to read anymore.

Alfie…

My mind swarmed with the knowledge of what had been done to him. I wanted to reach into the pages and strangle every single one of his family members. I sat on my bed, my eyes squeezed shut. I felt sick. So many things slotted into place–how confused he’d been when I’d tried to take care of him, how surprised when I’d stayed after he burned himself. How defensive whenever I made a joke about him. His comment about Ryan being put out of the way. How nervous he was when he’d given me the red dress, a gift he’d chosen himself. I knew now that Alfie had given his mother a gift when he was little and she had thrown it back in his face.

But Charles…I couldn’t wrap my head around it. I remembered the article I read about him, the one singing his praises…this is what Alfie’s family really was underneath? This is why he was uncomfortable about me not dressing and acting appropriately? This is what he wanted to protect me from? ButCharles and his father were dead, so was it just their ghosts he still feared?