Page 80 of The Roommate Lie

“You don’t know that. You’re just guessing.”

Except I do know—I’m not guessing. If they were the Victorian, if the Old Birds were cold and calculated enough to write all those recent scandal sheets while pretending to be my friends, my worst secrets would’ve been printed a long time ago.

I want to keep Alice’s hand in mine. I want to guide her toward that one last tattoo like I did when we were on the picnic blanket yesterday, to feel her fingers on my skin. But I don’t.

Letting go, I gesture to that tattoo myself. The ink I got so I’d never forget who was there for me when I needed them most. The tattoo I never talk about, not with anyone. Except here, except now.

“This one”—I point to that top black band—“is for Edna Finch.”

Chapter Forty-Two

CHARLIE

“Edna Finch?”

Alice sounds confused. She still looks hurt, but she doesn’t try to bolt again. I can’t believe I’m telling her this, that I’ve confessed half the things I have to Alice. But something in me likes telling her things; some quiet part of me wants her to know who I am.

“Edna is the last person I ever pranked,” I admit.

That Friday before I turned sixteen was one of the worst nights of my life, but it was also one of the best. My phoenix night where my entire miserable life finally burned down so I could build something new. Something honest.

I can barely look at Alice, but I keep going. “I was twelve when I found out my dad was cheating on my mom. I didn’t mean to keep it a secret—he kept promising he’d tell her himself. Before I knew it, a year had passed, and then it was my secret too.”

I was terrified to tell my mom the truth. My dad said she’d be mad at me for keeping quiet, that things between us would never be the same, and I was just young enough and trusting enough to believe him. That secret ate me alive, but there area thousand ways to make yourself forget. Bad and dangerous ways.

“That’s when I started getting in trouble around town, when I started drinking. And it only got worse the longer I kept that secret.”

I started stealing beer out of my dad’s garage fridge when I was thirteen, often multiple cans at a time so I could share them with friends. I’m not sure when he figured it out, but he never tried to stop me. I guess he thought if I was keeping his secret, he might as well keep mine.

Alice’s face softens the more I talk, but I’m not sure if I like the look she’s giving me. Even now, people feeling sorry for me never sits right in my chest. A lot of things happened to me, sure, but I made a lot of choices too. Where my life went, all those dark roads I went down, those were my own fault.

“The weekend before I turned sixteen, he made a big deal about us going on a father-son camping trip. But then he texted me Friday afternoon to say he’d be out of town until Sunday. He told me to stay at a friend’s house and lie low until he got back—and I just sort of snapped.”

I’m not sure how many drinks I had before I came up with my plan. Before I was ready to—literally—burn things to the ground later that night. But it was way too many drinks, especially for a kid.

“I was upset, and I wanted to do something drastic. But I think I wanted to get caught too—so my dad would get caught.”

That’s probably why I picked the prank victim I did. Why I would ever choose to go after someone as grumpy and unforgiving as Edna. She didn’t live in the hedgerow back then. She and her husband still had their farm before they sold it to her nephew. It was on the outskirts of town, right on the edge of nowhere with only a few neighbors scattered here and there.

“We had some fireworks left over from the 4thof July, so I went over to Edna’s house”—I pause as Alice gasps—“and I blew up her mailbox.”

She gasps again, clamping her hands over her mouth. “Charlie, that’s afederal offense,” she whispers between her fingers, and yes—yes it is.

“I didn’t know that, but Edna works at the post office. So she definitely knew.”

I can still remember how angry she was, how Edna grabbed my arm like a murder-hawk and dragged me into her house. Her husband was gone on a hunting trip with his brothers, and it was just the two of us.

“She told me she knew something was up with me. She said if I didn’t confess, she was turning me in, that her neighbor had probably already called the cops. So I told her everything.”

About my dad and my drinking. About how horrible I felt for keeping that secret from my mom, and how much she was going to hate me if she ever found out. How much Carl and Roxie would hate me.

“When the town sheriff got there, she told me to stay in the kitchen. Then Edna went outside and told him she’d done it herself. That she’d gotten a new mailbox, but she wanted to give her old one ‘a Viking funeral.’”

Alice cracks the tiniest smile, and the warmth of it eases through me as I keep going. “People still don’t know the truth about that mailbox. I’m not even sure if she told her husband.”

If Edna was the Victorian, if the Old Birds had anything to do with that scandal sheet, the whole town would know about that night. The Victorian reported on plenty of my other misadventures, but that last one and everything that came after—all those tiny details that only Edna knew—stayed a secret.

Well, for the most part. Except for the stuff she told my mom.

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