Chapter Thirty-Nine
THIRTY-NINE
Rocky
Ten Years Ago
The Fuckup
Somewhere Outside of Boston
Deep into the woods at nine p.m. I can only see in front of my feet thanks to a full moon and fireworks blasting overhead. The pop of color lights the darkness in reds, blues, and greens. Each step forward, the muddy ground splatters my loafers and the hem of my khakis.
I’m sixteen.
I’ve always felt older, probably because I’ve pretended to be an adult more than once, but today—I couldn’t feel less like a teenager. Because what person my age has to deal with this?
Rain has stopped. A storm from this morning left the earth soft and uneven. I hear a babbling stream nearby. My angered, dense breaths dry out my throat, but I hurry.
We’re hurrying.
My biceps scream as I adjust my grip on a heavy black tarp. Carrying the weight of…well, a body. “You’re going too fast,” I grunt out to Oliver.
He’s holding the other end, and his long legs outpace mine. “We don’t have much ti—”
I step into an ankle-deep hole. Tripping forward, I drop the body, and a splitting, excruciating pain shoots through my knee. I bury the scream between my teeth. “Fuuuuck.”
“Shit, shit .” Oliver tries to help me up.
“I’m fine. I’m fine.” I push him off me. Nausea roils as I pick myself up and set slight weight on my knee. Fucking Christ. I don’t look at it. I try to pop the kneecap back in, and stars flare in my eyes. I cough out. Holy fuck.
“Can you walk?”
“Grab your side,” I say, spitting onto the ground as the urge to throw up pummels me. “Grab it, Oliver.”
He stops hovering, and we resume course. Granted, each foot forward feels like a new blade and bullet in my leg. Pain radiates through my whole body, but I concentrate on my breath and focus on a critical task.
We follow Nova’s coordinates to an area of fallen trees. He’s already digging a ditch in the wet earth around the oaks. My ten-year-old brother sits on a tree trunk and picks at a chunk of rotten bark in his hands.
Oliver and I throw the tarp-rolled body to the side, then go grab the two extra shovels Nova brought.
“Should he be watching this?” Nova asks me quietly, as I stake my shovel into the ground.
“I think it’s a little too late for that.” I hack up and spit a loogie behind me, and I rub at my runny nose with my wrist.
Nova grimaces. “What happened to you?”
“I tripped.” I toss dirt behind my shoulder. “Just keep going.”
“Fucking A,” he grumbles under his breath, digging with more intensity. Nova is strong for fifteen, and we’re making good work of the ditch.
Sweat pours down my temples, and I glance over at Trevor. I can’t believe this happened. We were at the mark’s lake house. Hell, we are still here. Only maybe a couple miles away from their vacation home—likely still on their property.
An enormous Fourth of July party is going on. Friends of friends of friends—all invited. I was back at the house. A half hour ago. Kids were running around everywhere with sparklers as fireworks started to shoot off.
I couldn’t find Trev.
I kept searching.
My responsibility. To protect him. I checked everywhere, trying not to draw attention. Trying not to be suspicious.
I walked farther from the house. Down the sloped hill. Closer to the lake, but away from the gathering crowd of people who ooed and awed over the bursts of color in the sky.
A shingled shed sat several feet away from the bank of the lake. It stored pool chemicals. Weed killer. Yard tools. Tarps.
I walked in to find Trevor sitting close to the door. He barely rotated to look at me. He was staring at this frat boy fuckhead named Hollister. He was a friend of a friend of a friend of the mark’s daughter. Lydia, a sophomore at Brown.
Hollister had pruning shears stuck in the side of his neck. His eyes were wide open. Unmoving. Still as can be—his whole body.
“Trevor,” I said his name in a single breath.
He held his knees, not taking his eyes off Hollister as blood pooled beneath his dead body. “He was hurting her.”
Lydia was out cold on the floorboards. She had on a red ruffled sundress, and her underwear was at her ankles. I checked her pulse. Hollister must’ve roofied her. There were blue Solo cups on a shelf, like they snuck in here together. His pants weren’t down or even unzipped. My mind was spinning.
So I called Nova.
He came in seconds. We rolled the body in a tarp. He poured bleach on the shears, washed the slats of the floorboards with other chemicals around the shed. He called Oliver, and the two of them snuck the body into the woods. It was dark. No one saw.
Nova brought shovels from the shed to go scout a gravesite.
I scooped Lydia up and brought her back to the main house. “I found her outside, passed out like this,” I told her mom, who clutched at the Tiffany’s necklace at her throat.
“Oh no. How much did she drink?” Her eyes darted cautiously to her friends. She laughed a little, embarrassed, then said, “Would you be so sweet to put her in her room for me? Thanks, hun.” She sipped her martini. “College these days,” she prattled to her friends. “I swear, even at dry campuses, the kids find ways to drink themselves silly.”
Wrath seared through me, and acid slipped down my throat with each swallow. Because she didn’t know me. Didn’t know my name. Didn’t know my age. She only saw that I was a teenage boy at a party with hundreds of all ages in attendance.
She had every reason to doubt me. Yet, she never questioned a thing. Na?ve. Vain. It should’ve made me happy—to gain trust so effortlessly—but I would’ve rather she cared enough to ask if her daughter was breathing. At the minimum .
I would’ve rather not had to walk into my kid brother staring at a dead body.
I would’ve rather not had Trevor walk into an act of violence, only to feel like he had to be violent to end it.
I would’ve rather not have been apart this long from her.
From Phoebe.
I would’ve rather been playing horseshoes with her and pretending she was a girl I hated at school.
I would’ve rather stolen glimpses of her as her big brown eyes looked up into the firework-lit sky.
Instead, my kneecap is shrieking. Splinters dig into my palms from the old wooden handle of the shovel. Mud continues to splatter my pants and button-down.
“Can we take his eyes?” Trevor suddenly asks from the tree trunk.
Oliver stops shoveling, sharing a disturbed glance with Nova. “Sure, that’s a reasonable request.” He pants hard. “You want to pluck them out, Nov, or shall I?”
Nova shakes his head so hard and stakes the earth more aggressively this time. “I can’t fucking believe this.”
“I’m serious,” Trevor says.
“You don’t say?” Oliver says lightly, then cocks his head at me like something is wrong with your brother, man .
Yeah. “Why do you want his eyes?” I groan out.
“I don’t think he should have them.”
Great. I spit to the side again. “What’d you see, Trev?” I finally ask.
“I was watching them. Through the window of the shed. She was drinking with him, then she passed out. He caught her in his arms, but…he didn’t help her.” His frown deepens. “I thought he’d help her.”
“Is that all?”
“He was messing with her clothes.” He scratches his nail over the bark. “He didn’t see me coming…no one ever sees me.” His gray eyes lift to mine. “I got him in the neck.”
I nod a ton, my lungs roasting alive with each heavy breath. He’s ten . I think our mom has taught him about sexual assault, seeing as how we’re walking a minefield of shitty people doing shitty things. She wanted to ensure the people we screw over don’t rub off on any of us. I don’t know if she mentioned rape. I don’t tell him he might’ve prevented that. I don’t give him kudos for killing.
I just say, “This stays here. With the four of us.”
Nova hesitates. “Your dad should know—”
“ No ,” I snap back. “How is he going to help the situation? We shouldn’t even tell our sisters. You want to put them at risk of being an accessory to…?”
Murder.
I say out loud, “Self-defense. And that’s what we’re going with if this all blows up. I can talk our way out of it.”
Nova relents, then throws more dirt onto a pile.
“We should cut off his ears, at least,” Trevor says.
“You think the dead can hear?” Oliver muses, as if my brother isn’t currently imagining butchering a body.
“Next time,” I tell Trev, “run out and call an adult. This isn’t the way.”
Trevor just nods. “Sorry, Rock.”
I want to hug him. Ditch. Body. Bury. No time. Once the body is packed beneath dirt, we all head back to the lake house. Fireworks still pop in the sky, and with my enflamed knee, I limp my way toward the docks.
As soon as I’m in view of people, I walk normally. I even run—and I leap into the dark water, plunging deep. Then I breach the surface and wipe a hand against my face. Dirt—I’m washing off the dirt.
I laugh and holler out like I’m having the time of my life.
It entices half the student body to rush down the hill. Seniors begin cannonballing and splashing into the lake. Causing raucous, chaotic noise. Nova and Oliver join like they’re part of the pack, but they’re doing it to get clean, too.
Trevor dives off the dock in a perfect arc.
The only relief in my body is from the water. And seeing Phoebe jump in after me.
The laughter in my chest is real now. It expands in me like a balloon as she swims closer, as her pissed-off eyes sink into mine, as I tread water around her, circling.
“ Peggy ,” I taunt.
“Kieran.” She scoops water in her mouth and spits a stream at my face.
I fight a smile. “Mature.” I splash her back.
“The most mature.” She splashes me, then I dunk her, and we’re wrestling in the lake with dozens of happy-go-lucky, oblivious teenagers swimming around us.
For a minute, I feel her holding on to me. Hugging me. I cup the back of her head, more affectionately, and I consider kissing her. I would if I knew it wouldn’t ruin our positions in the job, which would infuriate Phoebe.
Then she ends the embrace and plants two hands on my head, trying to dunk me. I have her by the waist, and we’re fighting all over again. On repeat.
Over and over.
When she slows, water beads down her face and catches in her lashes. Her lips dip beneath the surface of the lake.
I’m so in love with her.
I can’t control it. I just feel it growing, intensifying, devastating me.
And I hope it obliterates me.
Every single day of my life.