The truth about keeping secrets by Savannah Brown

Author:Savannah Brown [Brown, Savannah]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780241346310
Publisher: Penguin
Published: 2019-03-07T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 11

Heath played Vivaldi. I wasn’t entirely sure what sort of music I’d envisioned him liking; all things considered, this seemed to make sense. He drummed his fingers against the steering wheel absentmindedly, hitting each note in Summer. I only knew it was called that because the screen in his car said so.

I attempted futilely to get hold of Olivia. The fog in my brain – thinner, thankfully, but still there – meant typing anything was a slow process – in fact an insurmountable task. I couldn’t get the words out. Wasn’t even sure what the words were.

So I gave up. Watched the world outside zoom past. We might as well have been flying through space, each passing streetlight some faraway star; being at the River Styx with June felt like it might as well have been a million years ago. It was even colder, now, and the heated seats made the car smell faintly like burning.

He wasn’t talking so I attempted to make conversation. ‘I think this is giving me anxiety,’ I said, referring to Vivaldi. Good one, me.

Heath kept his eyes on the road. ‘It’s supposed to. “The shepherd weeps, because overhead hangs the fearsome storm, and his destiny.” ’

‘Oh.’

‘Vivaldi wrote a sonnet for each of the four seasons. Pretty groundbreaking stuff for a composer at the time. That’s translated, of course. It sounds much better in the original Italian.’

‘Yeah. Of course.’ I don’t know why I felt like I had to impress him, but I did, like I was hoping for his approval. Anyway, there was something endearing about him listening to Vivaldi directly after leaving a rager.

‘Hey, so, I actually wanted to thank you.’

The steadiness of his voice implored me to turn off my phone. ‘For what?’

‘For everything you’ve done for June.’

I wasn’t sure I’d heard him correctly. ‘I mean, yeah, you’re welcome! Happy to be of assistance!’ And then I saluted him, which I liked to think normally would have been caught by the filter that kept me from doing things that were lame as fuck. ‘What do you mean, though?’

Heath shifted. A lock of his hair tumbled forward, and stuck there like a Superman curl. Even with the film of sweat on his forehead and the slight pink tinge to the corner of his eyes, he was still annoyingly handsome. ‘She was having a really rough time this summer. Was in a really dark place, actually, and I don’t know if you know, but she saw your dad for a bit.’

I widened my eyes like this was completely new information. I don’t know why.

‘Yeah,’ he continued. ‘She really liked him. But she’s been happy, lately – I imagine you might have filled that gap for her, in a way. Don’t you think?’

‘Yeah, I mean. Yeah. I guess.’

Heath hummed, like I had just confirmed something for him. But I didn’t think too much of it; I was focused on my heartbeat, which, instead of ba-dum, took on four new syllables: she’s been happy, she’s been happy, she’s been happy.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.