The Secrets We Bury
Author: Stacie Ramey
Release Date: March 6, 2018
Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire
ISBN: 9781492654209
Summary:
Seventeen-and-a-half
year old Dylan Taggart is on the run. His family is trying to put him
in a school for psychologically challenged students. Dylan realizes he’s
had some anger issues and he's a complete loner, aside from the
friendship of his cousin Emily, who he calls the other pea in his pod.
But he knows the Believers Charter School is not the place for him. As
the investigators his mother has hired close in on him, he decides the
Appalachian Trail, a hike that takes approximately six months––the exact
length of time he needs to stay off her radar until his eighteenth
birthday––may be the perfect place to hide out until he can legally drop
out of school.
Except
Dylan needs people more than he'd like to admit. And the biggest
surprise is a hiker named Sophie, whom the other hikers call “the
ghost.” Dylan finds a bond with Sophie he's never had before with
anyone, and slowly they confide the secrets of what they're each running
from. Trusting someone is scary, but Dylan is about to find out that
sometimes love is more important than keeping promises, and some
promises are made to be broken.
Praise for The Secrets We Bury:
“A gripping novel that will tug on readers’ heartstrings until the very end.”–Booklist
“A sensitive, funny, and sometimes awkwardly romantic story of survival and self-awareness.”— Kirkus
Buy Links:
Books-A-Million
Compulsively
stirring my coffee in Nowhereville, New Jersey, I recognize I’m going
to have to do a lot of explaining when Emily gets here. Well, assuming
she’s figured out my code and picked the right coffee shop.
I
look at my burner cell and check the time. 12:02. Not super late.
Especially not for my cousin, who is less governed by rules than I am
but still hates being tardy. Tardy is her word,
not mine. Although I totally approve, because it feels specific to the
situation of meeting with someone. I hate nondescript words.
Cell
in hand, I’m hit with a new, burning desire. Text Mom. Tell her I’m
okay. Tell her that I’m sorry I do these things that only make sense to
me. Like that time we went to my great-aunt’s farm. The older cousins
wanted to scare us younger ones, so they told us there was a big pit
where the previous farm’s horses were buried. We were warned to stay
away. So of course, that’s the first place we went. The place was nasty.
It smelled. There were thorns everywhere, but that didn’t stop me from
digging and going deeper into the pit. They had to call the fire
department to have me removed from what was really a sinkhole used as a
large animal grave. My brother, Brad, and Emily’s sister, Abby, got in
huge trouble. Emily had burns on both hands from trying to pull me out
by the rope I had tied around my waist. I was so freaked out about the
bones I found, about the smell of death and all the animals buried, that
they had to sedate me. Good times.
Man,
I was a pain in the ass. Once I set my mind on doing something, I
couldn’t veer from whatever stupid thing I’d decided to do. Mom never
understood that I couldn’t control my obsessive behavior. But it wasn’t
her fault. I am a lot to handle.
I start to type. Mom, I’m sorry. I was always sorry after I’d upset Mom. But for some things, like not following clear-cut rules, rules like Don’t dig where you shouldn’t or Don’t run away from home, saying sorry doesn’t help, so I delete the text.
Emily
and I are more like brother and sister than cousins. From the time we
were little, we were always together, only interested in what the other
one was doing, never paying attention to anyone else. Ignoring the older
siblings and cousins, especially.
“We would hang out with other people if anyone else was remotely interesting,” I always said. Emily agreed. Of course.
But
this time, I’m not sure she’ll agree with what I’ve got planned, so I
have to tell her the right way, which is never easy for me. Words come
to me like pictures stored on a hard drive that cycle in front of me
constantly. I can’t always control which ones I choose as they spew out
of my mouth. They call that verbal impulsivity.
It comes along with a slew of other labels doctors have given me over
the years. Whatever you call it, for me, choosing the right words is an
exquisite sort of pain.
“Be brief,” Dad used to tell me. “Let people catch up to your brain.”
He said that to make me feel better. Like none of my dysfunction was my fault.
The waitress approaches, lifting the coffeepot and her eyebrows.
I
shake my head, drink my coffee, and think about how I can explain my
plan to Emily in a way she’ll get behind Operation Wild Thing.
The
taste of coffee paired with the drizzling rain sends my mind back to a
time when our families were on the Cape and everyone was at the beach.
Emily and I hung at the house, because I needed some
away-from-the-rest-of-them time. A fly buzzed around my head, the sound
making me insanely edgy. So edgy, apparently, I was sitting there with
my hands over my ears. Maybe even rocking a little. Okay, rocking way
too much.
Emily
yanked me out of the house by my arm and into the fresh air. We stood
on the dock behind Uncle Bill’s house. The sky was overcast, and the
breeze kept the gnats and mosquitos away.
I rubbed my shoulder joint. “That used to be attached, you know!”
She punched me in the arm. “The fly is going after the crumbs, not you, Dylan, you big dork.”
“I
knew that.” I did. It’s just that buzzing puts me in such a constant
state of make-it-stop that I can’t do the simplest thing, like figure
out I can walk away. But Emily does. And she gets me.
If I was the kind of person who blushed, I would have blushed then.
It
started to drizzle. “Come on,” I said, going around the side of the
house. “They’ll be home soon.” I tapped my leg. “Max, we’re going for a
walk.”
The rottweiler Dad brought home for me when I was six jumped up from his spot on the grass to join me.
“Wait
for me.” Emily ran inside and grabbed a rain jacket—yellow London Fog,
because she wanted to be like her mom back then. “I can’t believe with
all of the things you hate touching and the things you hate touching
you, you don’t mind the rain.”
She
was right. I didn’t mind the rain. Never had. It was like nature’s
drumming. I was obsessed with drumming. Not actually playing the drums,
but listening to them as loud as I possibly could. A therapist had
explained I liked the sound because I could feel them before I could
hear them. Whatever the reason, they calmed me, for sure. Just like the
rain did that day.
Now,
a good five years later, sitting in a coffee shop in a tiny town in New
Jersey, I wonder if I’ll feel Emily’s presence before I hear her. I
sent her an email the other day using the fake account I set up for us
before I ran away from home and the alphabet code we used when we were
kids.
Zelda,
I have something big to tell you. Huge. Meet me. Next letter. Tell me when and where. But do it soon.
Yorik
Yorik,
Coffee. 12:00 3 on the list on TLD. You always scare me.
Z
I
stare at my coffee. My Dad used to drink his coffee black. “Like my
heart,” he always said. The rest of my immediate family uses a dash of
cream and definitely no sugar. I like my coffee light and sweet. Is it
any wonder we don’t get along?
The
waitress appears again. Alice, as her name tag says, refills my cup.
I’m supposed to thank her, even though she doesn’t seem to mind our
nonverbal exchange. But then she goes and ruins the silence. “You want
anything else?”
I
shake my head, pour in more cream, and wait for it to swirl around my
cup like the thoughts that swirl around my mind. After coffee, that is.
Without coffee, I am stuck in a fog of nothingness, like my brain knows
it’s supposed to be processing information but just doesn’t feel like
it.
Emily
always said coffee was going to be my undoing. My Kryptonite or some
bullshit. But it’s not like I’m at a loss for things that destroy me.
The list is long. Starting with sounds. Like Brenda White’s shoes
scraping against the floor of my kindergarten classroom over and over
again. Scrape scrape scrape scrape. Pause. Scrape scrape scrrrapppe. Is it any wonder I flipped my shit and hid under the desk? Or Josh Mellon’s click click click of his pen during exams in physics. I could have told him flicking his pen wasn’t going to get him the right answers. Or…
The door opens. I look up. Not Emily.
The
refrigerator at the front of the shop hums, and that makes me want to
cover my ears, but the best way to deal with unwanted sounds is to tune
them out by playing louder ones. I scroll through my playlist: Rolling
Stones, Led Zeppelin (best band ever). Dad and I agreed about that. I
guess I get distracted by listening to the drum solo in “Moby Dick” for
the zillionth time, because shoes appear in my field of vision next to
my table and stop. Em’s shoes. Running shoes. Since I’m planning the
biggest running-away-from-home plan ever, I find that ironic.
Emily
puts her raincoat on the back of her chair, giving me a second to
acclimate to her presence. Her coat is a navy-blue North Face, because
Emily is all about being serious now. Serious as a heart attack, motherfucker. “Hey,” she says.
“Hey, yourself.” I wave. Stiff-handed (my usual).
She
punches me in the arm. It’s a trick of hers. The punch floods my body
with enough input that I can actually handle being hugged. She leans in.
Emily smells like she has since she was five years old: cherry Life
Savers, rain, Dial soap. It’s weird to know what soap your cousin uses,
but I’m not being creepy. I can literally detect the scent of more than a
dozen different brands of soap. It’s awesome to be me.
I
wrap my hands around her shoulders and hold for five seconds. That’s
the usual amount of time that people who are related to each other hug. I
don’t hate it for the first one or two seconds, but by the fourth
second, I’m like, Seriously, can we be done?
But I let her hold it longer, because I know most human beings don’t
mind physical contact for five full seconds. Some even allow seven. Sick
bastards.
Emily
grabs the biscotti off my plate, the extra one I’d ordered because I
knew she’d take mine when she got here. She bites a hunk of it,
oblivious to the crumbs she’s sent flying, and says, “You were counting,
weren’t you?”
My eyes go to my coffee. “No comment.” I take a drink, slurp on purpose. She laughs. God, it’s great to hear that laugh.
“So, what’s the big emergency?” she asks as she motions for the waitress.
“I never said emergency.”
“You said, ‘Soon.’ That’s definitely heightened language for you.” She puts air quotes around the word heightened. The waitress approaches. Waits.
“You have mochaccino?” Emily asks.
The
waitress rolls her eyes, taps her pen on her pad. “We don’t have
crappuccinos here. Just real coffee. For people who like coffee.”
“Alice!” the woman in the front of the shop yells, clearly having overheard her.
Alice scowls. “Our frappé machine is down at the moment. May I get you something else?”
“Bring
her a double espresso, whipped cream, lots of whipped cream.” My hand
palms the sugar packet dispenser. “Don’t worry. We have enough of this
to make it palatable.”
Emily
nods. “Oh, and a menu.” Then to me. “You look skinny.” She pulls out a
wad of cash. Yes, a wad. The bills are all crumpled, and change flies
everywhere. “Babysitting money. It’s on me.”
When
the waitress’s steps tell me she’s out of earshot, I reach for Emily’s
hands, trying to grab the mess of bills sticking out everywhere, trying
to contain her chaos. I need her to focus on what I’m saying, so my
hands clamp over hers. “I’m going to hike the Appalachian Trail,” I say.
She drops the money on the table. “What?”
“I’ve decided. You can’t talk me out of it.”
The
waitress returns, stands, pad perched. I read that as a little hostile,
but I’ve no idea why. And like with most human interactions, I really
don’t care.
Emily
stares at me as if she’s suddenly gone mute, selectively mute, which is
one of the other labels those doctors tried to stick on me. I close
Emily’s menu, aim my voice at Alice the waitress. “She’s going to need a
few minutes.”
Alice huffs and moves on. I point at her moody retreat. “Did she seem a little…?”
Emily
stares at me like—I don’t know. Facial expressions? They’re fuzzy for
me. Muscular patterns? Those I can read. Like how Emily’s gripping her
closed menu like it’s the only stable thing in an insane world.
Obviously, she’s angry. Her fingers are turning white because she’s
exerting so much pressure with her grip on that innocent menu. I’m the
only one who can piss off Emily that much. So she must be mad because of
the Appalachian Trail. Got it. So of course I say, “What? It’s totally
safe.”
She throws her head in her hands, then looks up. “Sure it is. Why not? Why don’t I just put my life on hold and join you?”
I
stir my coffee, only it doesn’t need stirring because I’ve mixed my
cream in completely and it’s a nice homogenous blond. “That’s
ridiculous. You like your life.” I take a sip, which must really piss
her off, because she reaches for my cup, a tactic Emily only resorts to
when she’s about to go nuclear. I move my cup out of her reach. “Hold
up, psycho.” Then I lean forward. Leaning forward makes you seem
earnest. “I have to. It’s my only choice.”
“You could come home,” she says, but she knows I can’t.
The
last school they sent me to had a special unit for “emotionally
challenged” kids. I only agreed to go there because it was Emily’s
school. The teachers and counselors had a big meeting, and they said if I
didn’t do well, I’d have to go to a school that had a more “therapeutic
environment.” And I guess forcing the faculty to have to evacuate the
entire school from the auditorium after losing it during an assembly
qualifies as “not doing well.” Yeah. But honestly, me sitting in class
with a bunch of kids who are more messed up than I am? Not. Going. To.
Happen. Not if it’s up to me. Which it will be in six months when I
finally turn eighteen. Which is why I ran away from home to begin with.
I
hold her hands again, this time because I need her to believe me. My
hands over hers doesn’t make me feel as closed in as if she put hers on
mine, but even this brief contact is only possible because it’s her,
Emily. I soften my voice, which also indicates concern. “They’re getting
closer.” I look into her eyes. “They almost caught me at a coffee shop
in New York.”
She
nods. She knows Mom’s detectives are pretty motivated. “I told you
coffee was your Achilles’ heel.” A skinny tear drips down her cheek, and
part of me considers what it means to cry thin tears versus big fat
ones. Has anyone done a study on the size of tears in relation to the
emotional load they bear? I look away, mostly to contain the smirk I’m
sure is on my face since I’m depersonalizing the situation, as usual.
She pulls her hands back. Uh-oh. She noticed.
“Damn it, Dylan. Stop playing me.” She sounds sad, and that makes me feel bad.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper.
She
stares at me. She can count the number of times on one hand that I’ve
said that two-word combination to anyone. Actually, I remember each and
every time. Two before this. The last one when it was too late.
I
lean back. “I’m not playing you. If I stay here, Mom’s guys will find
me. In six months, I can make my own decisions. Do you know how long it
takes to hike the Appalachian Trail? Six months. That means something.”
It’s hard for her to argue with Dylan logic. “Okay, that does seem coincidental, but you’ve never hiked before.”
I
break out the book I bought about hiking the trail and slide it across
the table. “First line, ‘So you’ve never hiked before? No problem.’”
She raises her eyebrows but can’t keep from smiling. “That’s a stupid first line.”
“I thought it was kind of catchy myself.”
“The wilderness isn’t some kid-invented adventure,” she says. “What if something happens to you?”
“It won’t,” I say. Because bad things can’t happen to you after the worst thing already has. “I just need time. And I always considered doing this anyway.”
“Liar.”
True.
That was a lie. This is the kind of thing Dad and my brother, Brad, and
maybe my cousin, Christian, would do, planning for months, needling me
because no way I would ever want to join them. “But I feel like it makes
sense.”
“You could get lost.”
I almost choke on my biscotti. “It’s a trail.” I trace an imaginary straight line on the table. “I mean, point A to point B.”
“People get lost. They’ve gotten lost on the trail before. There’ve been people—”
“I know. I realize that, but, Em, the thing is, I’m trying to get lost, aren’t I?”
“Only for six months! Not for—”
“I’ll come back. I have to. We’ve got Max’s revenge. You know I wouldn’t miss that.”
Max
hated Halloween with a passion. Barked his little head off. So, we’d
have an anti-Halloween every November 1. We’d hang out on the floor with
him all day, no matter what day of the week it was. Take off school.
Cancel all plans and do what the dog liked best. Which was to lounge
with us while we watched movies. Usually the Harry Potter ones, which
never got old.
“Every November,” she says solemnly. “So, when are you going?”
“The normal time. When most people do.”
She looks at me like I’m confusing her. Or annoying her. Or—
Then she whacks me on the arm with her spoon. “When?”
“Next week. April 15.”
This
time, fat tears fall down her face, and she swipes them away fast.
Those are the kind of tears that sting. But she knows she can’t argue
with me now. That detail was my wild card.
“You’re such a dick.”
“I know, but I’m a dick with a profound sense of irony.”
Other Works by Stacie Ramey:
Book Info:
The Sister Pact
Author: Stacie Ramey
Release Date: November 3, 2015
Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire
Summary:
Who holds your secrets?
Allie
is devastated when her sister commits suicide—and it’s not just because
she misses her. Allie feels betrayed. The two made a pact that they’d
always be together, in life and in death, but Leah broke her promise and
Allie needs to know why.
Her
parents hover. Her friends try to support her. And Nick, sweet Nick,
keeps calling and flirting. Their sympathy only intensifies her grief.
But
the more she clings to Leah, the more secrets surface. Allie’s not sure
which is more distressing: discovering the truth behind her sister’s
death or facing her new reality without her.
Buy Links for The Sister Pact:
BooksAMillion- http://www.booksamillion.com/p/Sister-Pact/Stacie-Ramey/9781492620976?id=6538300475571
Indiebound- https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781492620976
Book Info:
The Homecoming
Author: Stacie Ramey
Release Date: November 1, 2016
Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire
Summary:
They say you can never go home—and John’s about to find out just how true that is.
John’s
mother kicked him out of the house when she couldn’t handle his anger,
and John’s spent the last few years bouncing between relatives. But
after his last scrape with the law, there’s nowhere for him to go but
home.
Starting
senior year at a new high school and fitting into the family that shut
him out is a challenge. And it’s all that John can do to keep from
turning back to bad habits. Lacrosse training helps him focus. As does
Emily, the girl next door. She’s sweet and smart, and makes him think
his heart may finally be healing. Maybe he’s ready to trust again. But
tragedy has a way of finding John…and this time, it’s more than just his
future on the line.
Buy Links for The Homecoming:
BooksAMillion- http://www.booksamillion.com/p/Homecoming/Stacie-Ramey/9781492635888?id=6538300475571
Indiebound- https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781492635888
Stacie Ramey learned
to read at a very early age to escape the endless tormenting from her
older siblings. She attended the University of Florida where she majored
in communication sciences and Penn State where she received a Master of
Science degree in Speech Pathology. When she’s not writing, she engages
in Netflix wars with her children or beats her husband in Scrabble. She
lives in Wellington, Florida with her husband, three children, and two
rescue dogs. Visit www.stacieramey.com.
Social Media Links:
Website: https://www.stacieramey.com
Twitter: @stacieramey
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/stacieramey
(2) Copies of The Secrets We Bury
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