it isn't very smart
tends to make one part
so brokenhearted

It didn't work, though. I kept thinking: Annie knows? How did she find out? Who is she going to tell? Who has she told already? Aren't I sort of relieved, in a way, that she found out, that I didn't have to tell her, and that I won't have to be the one to tell the people she's told or will tell? For hours my mind ran circles around those same themes, and when I woke up in the morning I was exhausted. At least, I thought it was morning. But a quick glance at the alarm clock revealed that it was indeed 5 o'clock in the afternoon. I showered and pushed myself downstairs, more nervous than I'd ever been. Would they look at me differently?

No sign of Annie or Carey. No sign of Clu. Fiona was watching a movie on the couch. At least, the movie was on the television in front of her, but she was actually staring at the ceiling. She looked over and greeted me impassively.

"What's up?" I asked tentatively.

"Not much."

"So where is everybody?"

She sighed. "Mom and Irene are using the laptop to look around the Internet for something, I didn't ask what. Carey is at work. Annie is shopping. I don't know where Clu is. And I'm watching this movie." With that, she stared hard at the TV screen, and I got the picture and left her alone.

One of these days I was going to have to ask her what was wrong. But I just didn't think I could handle someone else's issues in addition to my own right now. So instead I made myself a sandwich and I was headed back up to my room when Annie intercepted me yet again, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed as usual. "Good morning, sleepyhead!"

"Hey," I said warily.

"What are you doing?"

"I was going to eat lunch and watch TV. What are you doing?"

"Oh, I've been out all day," she said, and giggled compulsively, perhaps out of amusement at her own lame pun. "Anyway, would you mind doing me a favor?"

What was this about? Blackmail? "Um, okay"

"Good!"

She shoved me into my room and closed the door behind me. "Stay!" she commanded. I stared at the closed door, bewildered.

Soon, she returned with an armful of candles of all sizes, shapes, colors, and scents, and candle-holders. "I went to the craft store and got all these super cheap!"

"Um, okay. Thanks?"

"You just sit tight. Everything's taken care of." She winked at me, and then began placing candles on virtually every flat surface in the room. She sat cross-legged on my floor in front of my CD cabinet and started rifling through my collection. I sat tight, as ordered, and shut up, utterly mystified. After a few minutes, she wrinkled her nose and stood up.

"You know, your CDs really suck. No offense. But, come on, who listens to sheDAISY besides, like, 12-year-old girls?"

I opened my mouth and was about to defend myself-and the fine, upstanding musicians of sheDAISY-when she glanced at her watch and squealed. "It's almost time!" She ran around the room lighting all her new candles. "All right, now, you sit still, and I will deliver a certain person directly to you!" She ran away before I could say anything.

But I finally understood the candles and the music and the "stay!"

I swallowed hard. Had she told Clu? What could she have told him? How did she even know anything about it? Oh, God, what if she brought him here on some totally unrelated grounds, and now she was going to thrust him into the room and slam the door, and he would think that I set all this up I could see how she might think it was helpful, and I appreciated it, but this whole set-up had the potential to be completely embarrassing. I felt sick.

Outside, I could hear voices raised. My wrists and my neck began to throb and my mouth went dry. The moment was finally here, the moment I had been planning and rehearsing since he left me that night four years ago, since I told him to go.

The door swung open and, as predicted, someone was thrust into the room. I squinted. In the dim candlelight I could just make out a tall figure with dirty blonde hair.

"You?" Carey asked incredulously.

"Me?"

"She said she knew my secret."

"She said she knew mine, too."

"So she thinks--"

"That we're-" I stopped. Simultaneously we burst into laughter. "That poor girl. She tried so hard."

"She really thought she had us figured out."

I raised an eyebrow. "You have a secret?"

"No," he replied nonchalantly. "But you certainly do, whether you want to admit it or not." He sat on the bed beside me. "Dude, why don't you just say it? To whoever you need to say it to. Say it to Clu, say it to everyone else, say it to yourself. Just get it out in the open."

"That's easy for you to say," I muttered.

"Yeah, well, do as I say, not as I do," he grinned, and was about to leave when Annie burst in.

"You're kidding!" she exclaimed. "It didn't work?"

"Sorry," Carey said through barely-stifled giggles, patting her on the shoulder.

"But I saw you two in the kitchen last night!" She turned on Carey now, her tone accusatory. "And I heard you talking on the phone yesterday about how you couldn't tell anyone about--"

"No you didn't," he cut her off.

"And you! You've been mooning around up here almost the whole time I've been back. When I told you both that I knew your secrets, you got all jumpy. And, when you suggested him and Fi--"

"That was your idea?" It was his turn to raise an eyebrow. I shrugged.

"You told me that you thought he should be happy, and then when you"--she turned back on Carey now--"wrote me that e-mail, you said you wanted him to be happy, so I just thought"

How could I be upset?

"No, I get it," I assured her. "It was really sweet of you. But that's just not my secret."

She looked completely crestfallen. I put an arm around her shoulders. "Look, you guys, I really do appreciate everything you've tried to do here."

"What is it, then?" she asked suddenly.

"Huh?" I decided to play dumb.

"Your secret!"

"I don't have one."

"Yes, he does," Carey told her. I glared at him.

She looked at me expectantly. I sighed. It was now or never, apparently, and I figured that it might as well be now.