Page 73 of Keeping Secrets

“Don’t lie to me, Travis. Ali saw you. She took a picture of you holding hands.”

“We weren’t holding hands,” he said, confused all over again.

“Oh my God, Travis! I saw you! I saw the picture!”

He tried to remember what had happened, what she thought that she saw, and pictured the brief moment that Rachel had reached out and touched his hands.

Beneath everything else, he felt a stab of betrayal. He had thought that Ali was his friend. She could have so easily walked up to their table and found out that it wasn’t a date or anything of the sort. At the very least, she could have spoken to him. But instead she had taken a picture and sent it to Keely. He felt deeply hurt by that, but he shoved Ali’s actions to the back of his mind.

“It wasn’t a date,” he said.

“Come on, Travis.” Her voice wavered between rage and grief. And somewhere under all of that, he heard a desire to believe him.

“It wasn’t. Rachel is a friend, that’s all.”

“Do you hold hands with all of your friends?” she asked, her tone scathing.

“We weren’t holding hands!” His voice rose slightly, and with effort he brought it back down to a reasonable volume and tone. “She reached out and touched my hands for, like, a second. It wasn’t anything romantic. It was just… like a big brother thing. Like you and Nick.”

“Like me and Nick,” she said flatly.

“She looks up to me, I think.”

“I can’t believe this.”

“I’m telling the truth.”

Keely put her hands over her face. He didn’t know if she was trying to calm herself down or if she was about to burst into tears.

“I’ve liked you for so long.” Her voice was so quiet now that he could hardly hear her.

“Same,” he said softly.

She dropped her hands and looked at him, her eyes wide and vulnerable. “So why were you meeting this Rachel person in Half Moon Bay?”

“She asked me to.”

“But why?” Keely demanded.

Travis took a breath and looked away. How could he possibly explain this without burdening her with the knowledge of what he had done? Short of that, how could he explain it without piling up a new mountain of lies that was sure to crush any hope of what they might be able to build together.

“The truth, Travis!” she demanded when he was slow to answer. “Not some story! The truth doesn’t require so much thinking about!”

“It’s not my truth to tell!” The words were out before he had thought them through. He took a breath and tried to build on them, walking a line between fact and fiction. He wanted to tell her the truth without revealing everything. “I helped her out of a bad situation, that’s all. She wanted to thank me and to tell me that she’s doing better.”

“What sort of bad situation?” Keely asked suspiciously.

He wanted to tell her. He wanted to say that Adam had taken advantage of Rachel in exactly the same way he had taken advantage of Keely, only this time he was prepared to wield that power to subject Rachel to a nightmare even worse than what Keely had endured.

But how could he?

He just spread his hands helplessly and repeated, “It’s not my story to tell.”

“Fine.” Her shoulders slumped in defeat, and she moved toward the door.

“Keely, wait.” He reached out without thinking and put a hand on her arm.

She turned toward him, just slightly, and for a second he thought that she would let him take her into his arms.

---