Chapter 54
The Party
“I wasn’t going to let him come alone in the middle of the night,” Ethan said, stepping closer. “You wanted to talk to him, so here I am.”
Billy shook his head. “Unbelievable.”
“Why am I here?” Trevor asked.
“I want you to stay away from Erica,” Billy said, trying to keep his voice firm.
“That’s really not up to you.”
“I get a say!” Billy said. He was screaming now. He couldn’t help it. “If she’s going to be the mother of my child, I get a fucking say.”
“What?” Trevor said, stepping closer.
“Billy…” Ethan started. “What are you talking about?”
“She’s pregnant, and it’s mine, and we’re going to have a life together. You’re just a placeholder. You’re nothing.”
“Dude, calm down,” Ethan said. “I don’t think that we should—”
Trevor threw a thumb over his shoulder, pointing toward the water. “We’re leaving.”
“Fine!” Billy called. “Get out of here! Just know that tomorrow, Erica is going to come running back to me.”
Trevor was shaking as he climbed over the edge of the boat, and Billy was pleased. He should be shaking. He should be terrified.
“This couldn’t have waited until morning?” Ethan asked.
Billy stared at his best friend. It was so obvious he had known about Trevor and Erica and hadn’t told him, had kept his brother’s secret.
If he was ever going to draw a line in the sand and say I choose you, he’d done it now, and he’d picked his brother.
Billy should have known. Though they had been loyal to each other their entire lives, it wasn’t like that loyalty had ever been tested.
Not like this. But now that it had been, Billy would never trust him again.
“Get out of here,” Billy said. “Just go.”
“I’m pissed as hell at you right now, but I’m not a monster. Do you want a ride home? It’s almost morning,” Ethan asked.
Billy gave him the middle finger. “Fuck you. Olivia’s going to pick me up.”
Ethan paused but then headed over the ladder, following his brother.
Billy shuffled to the side of the boat and was surprised to see at the base of the ladder, bobbing in the water, the Silver boys’ kayak.
Trevor sat with his back hunched over, and Ethan scooted in beside him.
But there was also a third person. Someone whose hood stayed up, whose face turned away.
Without saying a word, the three of them dipped their paddles into the water and started inching away from the boat.
“That’s right. Leave!”
They heard him. Billy knew they heard him, but they didn’t stop. Didn’t turn around.
“All you Silvers are assholes!” Billy called, leaning further over the ladder until…
All of a sudden, the water that was once beneath him was now above him, and all he could see was the blackness of the Sound before he crashed right into it, water filling his ears, his lungs, his throat.
Billy pushed to the surface, gasping for air, flailing around as he looked for the Silver boys on that stupid rinky-dink kayak. He saw them, so close, but none of them turned around, and in the distance, the boys got smaller and smaller, farther away.
After all this, he had fallen into the Sound.
How dumb was he? Billy started breaststroking to the ladder.
He was an excellent swimmer, and the only reason why he wasn’t a lifeguard was because he refused to take a drug test. But why wasn’t the ladder getting closer?
Suddenly, his mouth was full of salt water, and he gurgled, spitting it out just in time to get another mouthful.
The current was strong, and Billy was exhausted all the way down to his bones.
The water was freezing and salty, like a shock to his system every time he swallowed a gulp.
And he was swallowing many, many gulps. Soon he felt like he was drinking the sea, like if only he could reach the bottom of the glass, he would be able to stand up straight in the dirt, in the sand, and scream at the top of his lungs that he had won.
He had beat the Sound. Who else could say that? !
Except Billy could not drink the sea.
He could not reach the bottom of the glass.
He would not stand up on dry land and scream or claim victory.
Instead, he was going. And then he was gone.