Page 117 of How to Hide in Plain Sight
“I know, Eliot. It…it took me a while, but eventually, I put it together.”
“But how—”
“You. The little kids. And the way your thoughts work, telling you you’re a lesbian when you aren’t or cheating when you aren’t or essentiallyanythingyou aren’t…I know how your mind works, Beck. I might even know it better than I know my own.” He paused, stooping to catch my eyes with his. “It wasn’t hard for me to put two and two together. A simple look at the history on my family’s computer just confirmed it. I knew, Eliot. I knew, and I tried to tell youthe next day. I tried to tell you the next month. I’ve tried to tell you for three years straight, goddammit, but you won’t listen.”
“But…” I swallowed, unable to tear my eyes away from the pools of liquid chestnut staring so intensely at me. “But…if that’s true…then, why are you here? Why did you…You…You let me kiss you…” I shook my head. “I don’tunderstand.”
“I let you kiss me because Iwantedyou to kiss me, Beck. I already told you: you aren’t the thoughts in your head. And you certainly, without question, arenota pedophile. Or a cheater. Or a murderer. Oranyof the things your brain so wrongly tries to convince you that you are. You are agood person, Eliot Beck. One of the best that I’ve ever known.”
I felt as if I could collapse. As if my legs would finally, after three years of carrying this secret, just collapse.
OCD made me want to give up. It made me think that it would be easier just to be alone. To cordon myself off from everyone who loves me, to protect them from me. It told me this story over and over again. It made this life sound so easy, so compelling.
But that story wasn’t true, was it? It was just a story. Because being alone was miserable. I hated life without my family. Without Manuel. I hated the loneliness, the constant crying. OCD wanted me to think that I needed to be alone. It wanted to isolate me. To tear me down. To make me think that all I need isit.
But now I see the truth.
My mouth opened. “Manny, I—”
“Eliot.”
When I looked over, I found Karma standing in the doorway to the patio beside Speedy. Speedy’s face was slathered in shock, pale white, as if he were still processing what I had said to him earlier. But when I looked at Karma…
Freezing cold water washed over me.
Her body was hunched over, her fists tight at her sides. Her face was screwed up, as if she were fighting a wave of fury. Breath dragged in and out of her nostrils, her chest rising and falling beneath her purple dress.
Speedy told her.
She knows, and now she hates me.
Beside me, Manuel looked between the two of us. “Eliot?” he asked. “What’s going on?”
I couldn’t look away from Karma. Her gaze was drill sharp and terrifying. Behind her, my siblings were starting to take note of the scene unfolding just inside the doorway. I saw Taz stand from his chair, saw Caleb crane his neck to try and get a better view. Everyone looked confused, even concerned. I opened my mouth—to say what, I’m still not sure—but snapped it back shut when Karma began to storm forward. Her eyes beat into mine like two bullets trained on twin targets. Her small legs swished back and forth inside the purple fabric, heels pounding the wooden floor. It took everything within me to not recoil. To not turn around and run. What was she going to do? Ream me out in front of everyone? Yell at me for stealing the remains of our dead brother? Hit me?
Instead, to my great surprise, she did none of those things.
She hugged me.
Her strong little arms wrapped around me, pulling me tight to her body. I went stiff beneath them, shocked at her embrace. She only hugged me tighter.
“You were so young,” she whispered against my skin. “You didn’t know what you were doing. It’s okay, Boose. You were just a kid. You don’t have to carry it alone anymore.”
I nearly choked on the air in my throat.
Over her shoulder, one by one, my siblings stood from the table and filed into Sunny Sunday, pulled inside by curiosity about whatwas going on with their sisters. I watched the scene register on their faces—Karma’s arms around me, my rigid body, Manuel confused beside us. And I watched as they all made the same decision: to walk right up to us and join in. First Taz, then Caleb, then Clarence, even Shelly and Helene. They walked around the side of us, or behind, and added their arms into the throng. They surrounded me, my family, one big mass of bodies enveloping me, pulling me close, acknowledging me in the way I had always so desired.
“You don’t have to carryanyof it alone,” Karma whispered, and I knew she didn’t just mean Henry’s ghost.
And that’s when I started to cry.
40
THEN
“YOU’RE SCARED OF SPIDERS?” MANUELasks. It’s our first summer together on Cradle Island. “That’s stupid. Spiders are completely harmless.”
“That’s not the point,” I say.
