Page 3 of Keeping Our Secrets

She nodded her head. “Oh yeah, that’s right. Hard to believe it’s been that long.”

It had been the one-year anniversary of Michael’s death during Easter break and, of course, my mom was conveniently out of town with her new boyfriend, James. So Jen talked me into something crazy to keep me from dwelling on the memory of his death.

It didn’t take much for her to convince me.

We packed enough clothes for the week, took a taxi to the airport and used her dad’s credit card to buy two tickets to the cheapest place.

Which just so happened to be Paris.

Spending one week in the city of love was all it took for my life to change forever.

Well, there were a couple of wrong turns somewhere too. Losing my twin, not wanting to attend college before losing my virginity, alcohol and a gorgeous hunk of a man, contributed to the delinquency of this girl. Yes, I was eighteen, but it was my last year of high school. The death of my brother fuelled my desire to change into the perfect daughter.

Maybe then I would garner a bit of my mom’s attention?

Unlikely story.

I transformed into little Miss perfect, an honour roll student who never dated, and never did anything wrong. Maybe people would have called me a control freak, and until my trip, I would have concurred.

“Are your parents home?” I asked her.

“Tonight’s date night, so they won’t be home until after midnight.”

“What about your brother?”

“Josh is going through an emo phase, so he won’t leave his room.”

“He probably found your dad’s porn stash,” I teased.

“Ew.” She made a face. “I don’t need that visual.”

“Do you think he’d leave us alone long enough to do this stupid test I don’t want to do?”

“Wanna spend the night?” she asked. “Just like old times?”

“I don’t have extra clothes with me.”

“Don’t be a dingbat. You can borrow some of mine,” she told me. “Just not my underwear, cause that’s gross.”

“Don’t worry. I don’t want to wear any of your granny panties anyway.”

“I don’t wear granny panties.” Her cheeks turned red. “I’ll have you know I went shopping the other day and got some nice lacy ones.”

“I’m not going to borrow any of your butt floss ones either.”

“I’m not even going to dignify that with an answer.”

“You just did,” I told her.

“Whatever.” She rolled her eyes. “Are you staying over or not?”

“I could use a night away from home.”

“One night away from home coming right up,” she replied as she took the next exit and headed in the direction of her neighbourhood.

Within twenty minutes, we were pulling into her garage.

“Josh,” she called into the empty house. “I’m home.”

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