Free No One Needs to Know by Amanda Grace Page A

that.”
    “Whatever,” she mutters under her breath, but her anger has clearly fizzled out. Now she just sounds resigned “Let’s just work, okay?”
    “Sure.” The room falls silent and I stare at my empty notebook. “Uh, were you really not going to let me see your notes, though? I’m not sure where to start.”
    “I didn’t write them with anyone else in mind,” she says. “They were for my eyes only.”
    I stare right at her, and she meets my gaze. And I get the feeling she’s afraid to show me her papers. Like I’m going to laugh at them or judge them or something.
    And it’s the strangest thing, but as I stare back, I realize that I want Zoey to trust me, that it’s suddenly the most important thing. I want her to see there’s more to me than the things she keeps mocking. I want her to know that I know she’s kept my secret—what little she saw of it—and I’m willing to keep all of hers.
    Without breaking eye contact, she slowly lets go of the notebook and I slide it toward me.
    The notes don’t appear to be organized, and her writing is frenetic, angled, scribbled in haste. Like she was taking notes about a movie without taking her eyes off the screen.
    Dawn to Dusk. Research working environment—hot like Burgerville? First Aid kits?
    Hierarchy—supervisors also lower class like Rita is at Burgerville? Is that what they are destined for in 1790, too—no ability to claw up? Lower class for life?
    Any way to escape future—opportunities? Or are they stuck like me?
    RESPECT—any from upper class? Or are they all like Olivia?
    I swallow as I keep scanning the notes. This one page is like seeing her innermost thoughts.
    It’s like seeing how she sees herself. The down-trodden, the trapped, the stepped on.
    “I just got an idea,” I say.
    “And?”
    “Instead of writing our parts as factual essays, we should write a fictional account from two people.”
    “Like, a short story?”
    “Yeah. And our characters should know each other,” I say.
    “Why would they know each other?”
    “Because the factory where your character works is owned by my character’s family,” I say, for some reason getting excited. “So my character can visit the factory, and she’ll actually see your character working.”
    “And mine would see your character, too … ” Zoey says, her voice trailing off.
    “Exactly,” I say. “So not only do we, as writers, compare and contrast the characters, but they’ll see the differences between them themselves.”
    “And we could alternate the narrative. Start big picture, the basics of their day. The luxuries or lack thereof,” Zoey says, warming to the idea. “And then once they actually get to the factory, they’ll see each other from afar, and make assumptions about one another. And then we’ll slowly boil it down, from those first impressions to the dreams and desires of women back then.”
    I grin. “Exactly. Almost like a feminist approach to everyday life—these two girls, trapped by who they are, taking control of their own lives. We could cover a single, fictional day, going back and forth between their points of view, ultimately building toward the moment when they realize they have more in common than they ever thought.”
    She sits back in her chair, staring at me like she can’t believe I thought that up. “I like it.”
    “I thought you would,” I say, pushing her notebook back toward her. “It’ll delve much deeper than what we’d originally thought. The papers will no longer stand alone as comparisons; they’ll be pretty intertwined.”
    “Then I guess you’d better quit slacking and start putting together some notes.”
    “I will. But this is going to take more collaboration. You know that, right?” I say.
    “You start brainstorming, and I’ll write my first scene and email it to you,” Zoey says. “If you think it works, you add yours and send it back. Each scene should just be a couple of pages, and we’ll each have to