5. Amelia
AMELIA
Oh god. There’s a folder about it? I think, racking my brain as to why Mom would have kept any physical proof of the incident with Imogen.
Had I known, I never would have asked her to start packing up the office.
At least, not until I peeked around myself and got rid of any evidence that could fracture Imogen’s world as she knows it.
I stare into the swirling wood of my desk, as if the details of the folder’s contents might surface there. Maybe Mom had already destroyed whatever was inside and simply forgot to throw away the folder itself.
I quickly change the subject to packing and hit Send.
“Miss Bly?”
A small gasp escapes my throat. I didn’t hear the boy approaching my desk. I drop my phone between my legs like I’ve been caught by a police officer at a red light. One of my students stands in front of me, a piece of paper clasped proudly in his hand.
“Yes, Bodhi?” I say, startled, hoping I got his name right. I quickly spot the name tent on the only empty desk in the classroom and see BODHI scribbled messily in blue crayon. I smile softly in confirmation.
“I finished my test,” he whispers, handing it to me.
Right, the test.
“Great job.” I beam.
It’s a little test called Mighty Math that will help me assess the class’s general level of skill as we continue our lessons on multiplication. I check the final question on the sheet, which is the only one that tests the multiplication we’ve learned this month. It asks, What is 3 x 3?
Bodhi put 6. I try not to take it personally.
“Are you sure you don’t need some extra time? You finished pretty quickly,” I say quietly so the other kids don’t hear me.
I want to get back to my text with Imogen, but I’m worried Bodhi sped through his test.
“I’m sure,” he says with a slight lisp, sweeping long hair from his eyes. He leans in closer. “Can I play on my Nintendo Switch now?”
Sigh.
“Do you have a book that you can enjoy instead while the rest of the class finishes their tests?” I ask gently.
Bodhi shakes his head; he doesn’t have a book to read. He only has his video game.
“What about my phone? Can I play on my phone?”
Third graders have phones now?
“No phones in class, buddy,” I say, feeling guilty. Just after the words leave my mouth, my own phone silently buzzes against my thigh. Imogen, I imagine.
What did she find now?
“But you were on your phone,” he says almost mischievously. “So doesn’t that mean I can go on my phone, Miss Bly?”
“That was”—I pause—“an emergency.” I snatch Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park from my desk. “See? I’m going to read, too.”
I peer around the room to check if any of the other kids notice our conversation. They are hard at work, fat pencils scrawling across papers.
“Give it a try,” I attempt. “Why don’t you grab one from my shelf over there?
” I whisper, nodding toward the short case of favorites from my own elementary school days.
I include books for multiple reading levels to ensure all my kids have something that works for them.
“I have some fun ones I think you’ll like as much as your game. ”
He slumps over in disappointment, and I realize I have the perfect book.
I creep over to the bookcase and trace my fingertips across the spines until I find Goblins Don’t Play Video Games within The Adventures of the Bailey School Kids series.
Imogen and I used to love reading all the ones with food in the title, like, Ghouls Don’t Scoop Ice Cream, and The Bride of Frankenstein Doesn’t Bake Cookies, and Cupid Doesn’t Flip Hamburgers.
Each book is about a school employee who is believed to be a mythical creature, with four recurring kid characters having to crack the case of whether the staff member is, indeed, a mythical creature.
Or if they’re simply the new lunch lady.
With the messages Imogen and I are exchanging, I almost feel like the main character of my own book in the series. Like, Amelias Don’t Tell Lies. It sounds far less fun than Bigfoot not square dancing, or Dracula not drinking lemonade. But it’s because mine is real.
A big grin crosses Bodhi’s cheeks when I hand him the book. As he skitters back to his desk, I grab my phone off the chair and covertly read Imogen’s latest text.
A middle finger emoji. Charming.
I had to lie to her, saying I didn’t know. Truthfully, the year is a distant blur—just fragments, the echo of a fuss I can’t place. Because does anyone really remember being seven?
What I do remember is what came after. For years, Mom and I circled the subject, trying to find ways to bury it, like an anchor dropped into the lake.
But anchors don’t vanish. They sit there, heavy and rusting, their chain tethered to the surface.
The secret has stayed that way, too: visible to us, to the other family, to the therapists and doctors.
But even their versions are skewed, as there was never an official police report filed, at Mom’s insistence.
Sometimes I wonder how much of my own version of events—secondhand, as it is—has twisted away from the truth. What details am I missing? The one person I could ask doesn’t even remember it happened.
As I got older, I became the only one Mom could confide in.
She was too ashamed to tell her friends, and I was the only person who could understand anyway.
She knew, because of the details within that secret, that I wouldn’t tell anyone.
I never did. But carrying that weight caused me to push Imogen away.
It’s almost as though the further we get from it, the more I want to talk about it.
The more I want her to tell me. Yet I can’t bring it up.
Mom and I never wanted anyone to look at Imogen any differently. Besides, in a way, Mom fixed it. There was no need to unearth its filthy memory, not even now.
Especially not now. Not without her here to help me explain it. It’ll just send Imogen spiraling, into the unsafe depths of fragility.
Desk chairs squeak as students finish their tests, thwacking them on my desk one by one:
9. 9. 9. 6. 9. 6. 9. 9.
I check the clock on the wall and watch as the smallest hand ticks on; second, after second, after second.
Like it’s taunting me. Its ticking hasn’t even crossed my mind once since I arrived at my desk at 9:00 a.m. But now, suddenly, it’s showing me how slowly it can go.
I almost swear one second lasts as long as two—3:30 feels hours away, when it’s only minutes away.
Tick, tock. Tick, tock.
My heartbeat quickens when I remember the note I left for Imogen this morning—promising I’d pick up food on my way back.
I haven’t even ordered it yet. When I penned it in the kitchen earlier, I expected a leisurely afternoon of errands after work.
Popping around the city at snail speed to prolong my time away from Mom’s house. To feel normal.
More tests drop on my desk. The classroom gets louder as children chat and giggle. I look up, and Bodhi is still reading.
I smile again. But it swiftly fades.
I’m the monster in my story. The lying monster.
I haven’t been anxious to return to Lake Blair all day.
The only reason I didn’t wait until this weekend to go there was so Imogen didn’t have to be alone every night.
She wanted more than two days to pack everything up, expecting to find precious items of our past. We hadn’t been back in a while, didn’t know the state of the house.
I can’t help power-pack until Saturday morning, when I’m off work—something I was already dreading.
But now all I can think about is the end-of-day bell ringing so I can speed home and make sure Imogen doesn’t find whatever was in that folder.