Chapter Thirty
THIRTY
“Silas,” says Will. “Get your ass out here, bro!”
You’re all standing around his tent now, which is zipped closed and looks hastily pitched.
It shows none of the care and expertise you saw at the beginning of this trip, when there was an educational purpose to his every gesture.
There’s no sound from inside, and you all eyeball one another, daring somebody to make a move.
Finally, Fran steps forward and slowly unzips the flap.
It ripples in the breeze for a second, then she yanks it open and you all peer inside at a wadded-up sleeping bag and a few food wrappers. Fran searches for something uneaten but comes up empty-handed. She does, however, find another empty pill bottle.
“Case,” she says, and tosses it to you. “This one’s you, dude.”
You catch it and look inside to find a small residue of orange pill dust that you’re thinking seriously about licking right then and there.
Surprisingly, seeing your full name and the name of your pharmacy on the bottle makes your whole body ache with homesickness.
You wouldn’t have thought a pill bottle of all things would do this, but the way your mom would pick up your script after a shift and set it on your dresser without judgment or fanfare made you gradually lose the shame you felt at using it.
“The island can’t be that big,” says Troy. “He’s here somewhere, right?”
“Unless he took the boat…,” says Will.
“Boat’s right over there!” yells Fran, who has wandered a bit.
And sure enough, nestled in some brush, not far from the tent, is the third canoe. You walk over and check it for gear, but it’s empty save for a pool of dirty water in the bottom.
“We’ll split into groups,” says Diana. “If we each head one way around the island, we’ve got to find him.”
You nod. Fran reaches out a hand to Diana, but this time, Diana, ever unpredictable, walks toward you. Will and Troy join Fran instead, and she pretends to be okay with that, staring at you all the while.
“Meet back here either way,” says Will.
“Okay,” says Diana.
“Good luck,” says Troy.
“Good luck,” you say.
Then you take off in opposite directions, following the coast of the small rocky island.
The gradually dissipating fog cloaks the treetops and makes them seem a hundred feet tall.
You and Diana walk side by side, seeking out patches of sand amid the chunks of blue-gray slate and snared driftwood.
The roots that twist through your path are as thick as pythons.
“I miss him too,” she says after a few minutes of silence. “I hope you know that. I just wasn’t ready to shout it from a boat.”
The water pools around the rocks, and you step in a shallow puddle, feeling the cold soak your dirty socks.
You take in what Diana says, but you also scan in a cursory way for Silas, hoping to catch sight of his clothing, even just a blur in the woods.
You don’t know what you’ll do if you see him, but you know your chances of survival increase if he shows.
Even if you can talk to him, things will feel possible.
Diana watches your face all the while; you can feel it.
“Do you blame me, Case?”
You instinctively look down at your feet.
“Can we please just look for Silas?” you say.
She shakes her head.
“No. I need to understand where you’re at right now. It’s been too awkward for too long.”
Whether you blame Diana is a question you try not to think about, and one you wish you could say you’ve never considered.
“No,” you finally say. “Maybe at first, but not anymore. That’s the truth.”
She looks you over and seems satisfied with your answer.
“So then you were serious earlier?” she says.
“About what?”
“You think it’s your fault.”
You’re not sure why you’re so quiet now. You were willing to list all the reasons this was true before, but now to say them out loud seems impossible. You peer through an opening in the forest, and a hint of movement quickens your pulse, but it only proves to be a bird.
“Why haven’t we seen any loons?” you ask. “Have you thought about that? I thought this was supposed to be loon central. I thought you couldn’t spit without hitting a loon up here.”
Diana stops to tie one of her yellow boot laces. And you wait patiently while she does. When she’s finished, she walks directly in front of you and blocks your path. She looks you in the eye.
“Case,” she says. “I’m serious. Do you blame yourself for Sean’s death? Yes or no?”
“Loons are, like, the only thing I looked up before I came here,” you say. “I thought maybe I’d see one. Did you know they can fly seventy miles per hour? That seems oddly fast to me. They’re actually really beautiful.”
Diana picks up a stick. She’s not even looking in the woods anymore. She’s looking out toward the lake.
“The thing is, you don’t even know the whole story,” she says.
You turn toward her, and you feel your face going hot with anger.
“I know that I betrayed him,” you say. “I know he never did anything to me, at least not on purpose, and I betrayed him. I made everything fall apart. I tipped the first domino.”
“It’s not that simple,” she says.
She throws her stick and watches it rotate in the air and land on the water, where it floats on the choppy surface.
“What do you mean?” you say.
You both peer into the woods again, but see only the gnarly limbs of a few island trees. No counselor. No savior. No one to get you out of this conversation.
“He wasn’t who he pretended to be,” she says.
“Oh. You knew him better than me. Is that it?”
You’ve had enough therapy to know that you’re probably not angry about this specific thing. But being aware of that doesn’t help you stop it. You kick at a nearby stump, and it feels good to connect with something, to feel the jolt of pain in your toes.
“Calm down,” she says. “I’m not claiming that. But maybe just in this one way. He knew you looked up to him, so he didn’t always show you everything.”
A small memory then: the sound of Sean crying after a diving meet his freshman year where he was disqualified for taking too much time.
His door was open a crack, and when you tried to go in to comfort him, he slammed it in your face.
Then later at dinner, he smiled like nothing had happened.
When you brought it up, he seemed befuddled, like he had excised it completely from his memory.
“Okay,” you say. “So … what didn’t he show me?”
“There were two people,” she says. “There was Sean, and then there was Sean the destroyer.”
You can’t help it: You laugh a little bit.
“Sean the destroyer?”
“That’s what I called him. That version of him.”
“Okay…”
“Things would be fine,” she says. “He’d be totally good. For months sometimes. Confident. Charming. Then some other part of him would come out. Some compulsion to tear everything down. He’d do risky, dangerous things. Mess up his life. You didn’t really know this part of him, I don’t think.”
You traipse forward. The island isn’t huge, and you wonder how far you are from meeting up with the other half of your group, and what you’ll do if there’s no sign of Silas.
You try to look through the trees, but they’ve gotten too thick to see through now.
You think of Sean ripping down all his mantras and quotes.
“That’s why it’s not your fault, Case,” she says.
You don’t respond. But she is not done talking.
“It’s mine.”
You stop walking.
“I knew what he was capable of,” she says. “I knew he needed help. But I didn’t do anything. I was too angry. And because I couldn’t get over my anger, he…”
The scream doesn’t come right away.
It feels like it does, but there’s probably a five-second pause, give or take, where you’re waiting for Diana to finish her thought.
To hear why she blames herself. But then, suddenly, there’s the sound of Fran shrieking, and before you and Diana can even look at each other, you’re running again.
Straight through the woods. You’re bone tired.
Your head hurts. But you find enough adrenaline to race toward your screaming friend.
The woods are thicker in the middle of the island.
There isn’t much space, but there’s also no real path.
Just dense vegetation, all of it up to your thighs.
The group is somewhere toward the other coast, at a different point of entry.
And when you find them, they’re huddled close to one another.
Troy is holding Fran. Will is leaning against a tree.
They’re all looking down, and you know what you’re going to see before you see it.
But you have to look anyway, just to confirm that it has happened.
Blue lips. Open eyes. Foam around his mouth. Vomit on his shirt.
His T-shirt is ripped, and his legs tangled in a strange way.
There are bugs flying around him.
You look away.
“We found these,” says Fran through sobs, handing a bag to Diana.
It’s filled with thick white pills that don’t look like any benzo you’ve ever seen. They’re clearly something different. Something stronger. Diana takes one look and hands them back.
“Opioids,” she says. “Probably fentanyl.”
She doesn’t break her stare down at Silas’s body.
“They’re really dangerous, let alone if you combine them with sedatives,” she says.
She finally looks away. She walks slowly over and hugs Fran.
You’re not sure what to do, but you know enough to know that people who have just seen a dead body are probably not okay.
You reach out and put a hand on Troy’s shoulder.
Then, gradually, Will heads over and puts an arm around both of you.
You stand like this for thirty seconds. Maybe a full minute.
And when you start to cry, you’re not fully sure what you’re crying about.
Some of it is for Silas, to be sure.
He put you in grave danger. He did something unforgivable.
But there was something about finding that mantra he dropped that altered your thinking.
He was trying to get sober. He wanted a better life.
He just couldn’t get there. Of course, he shouldn’t have been leading you, but you are also no stranger to self-delusion.
How many days of constant panic attacks did you tell yourself you were fine so you wouldn’t have to get on medication and confront the fact that you had a disorder?
Silas made a terrible mistake, and his timing might get you killed, but he didn’t deserve this. No one does.
Also: You are so tired and so hungry and so confused.
Your head feels like it’s caught in a vise.
And the last time you saw a dead body was the absolute worst day of your life.
You sit down, and a few others join you.
And there’s no worry about judgment anymore.
You let yourself cry, and you wipe your snotty nose with your dirty T-shirt.
Then, after a while, you stand up and you pull off Silas’s shirt.
It isn’t easy to get it over his stiff limbs.
But you pull it off and drape it over his face so you don’t have to look into his vacant eyes.
If anybody was in denial, they aren’t anymore.
You are completely alone.