Epilogue Darcy
EPILOGUE DARCY
Secrets, she has learned, are sharp objects to hold. Still, there are reasons people try. Sometimes it is to protect yourself. Sometimes it is to protect the ones you love. And sometimes, it is out of shame. When she looks back on the summer, Darcy understands that she was guilty of all three. She also understands, now, that she was guilty of nothing other than trying to keep that secret. What happened to her—rather, what someone did to her—was not her fault. And she wishes she had believed that back then. Finally, now, she does.
Darcy will never forget the awfulness of that day when the police came to the neighbors’. It is engraved on her heart. After Flick was cleared, and after Adam came home from being questioned at the police station with her parents, her father went out. He did not tell anyone where he was going. And he was not gone very long.
They were all sitting at the kitchen table, her mother, Adam, and her. When the front door banged open, no one startled. They’d already had enough scares for the day. As her father stood in the doorway, blanched and sweaty, Darcy suddenly understood where he’d been.
When he walked into the kitchen, eyes only for her, Darcy felt the chair fly out from underneath her. She doesn’t remember running to him or falling into his arms. What she does remember when she thinks back on that moment, was that it was finally over.
“Please forgive me,” he cried, clutching her to his chest. “I’m so sorry, Darcy. I’m so sorry.”
That’s the sharpest part of a secret you try to hold back: the sorrow, because it’s the sorrow that draws blood. Darcy hadn’t wanted her parents to hurt like she did. What she has come to learn is that sharing your burdens with others is like wind on a mountain, and water on stone. Little by little, that sorrow is eroded by all the hands that touch it. With every passing between hands, it is molded; so that, by the time you lift it to the light, you realize all the jagged edges have been worn down. And then—finally—you can let go.
Darcy did not have to share her secret with Flick Creevy. Eventually Flick understood it for himself, and in trying to be a good friend, he kept her secret. But only for a little while, he later told her. Because good friends won’t let you hold on to hurt for too long, even when you ask them. Good friends will tell your secret, if they love you enough. When they talk now, Flick doesn’t ask her how she feels. These days, he sees so much of Darcy that he knows the answer to that, too.
High school has started. It’s a new year, and when they hold hands in the hallways people look at them. Darcy tells him it’s because they both look happy. Flick tells her it’s because they can’t believe what a lucky guy he is.
There is one trophy left that did not get smashed that fateful day in the driveway. Somehow it toppled to the side and escaped her rage. For now she keeps it in the garage; she will probably never put it back in her room again. But her mother has convinced her to hang on to it. It’s a sign of what she’s accomplished, and when she looks at it now Darcy doesn’t just think of the wins.