Chapter 2
Heath
I have never seen her get squeamish. She baits the worms or the small fish without a flinch and yanks the catch from the hook like a salty old seaman.
“Do you gut them, too?” I ask her.
I wouldn’t be surprised at all if she does.
Kat lost her mom long enough ago that her father raised her as one of the boys.
Kat is a wild, untamable thing, and God help the son of a bitch who tries to reel her in.
Her beauty and grace stand in constant contradiction to the wildness that lives right under her skin.
She gives me a dirty look and grabs the largest flounder from our cooler, chops off its head and tail with single blows of her cleaning knife. Kat splits the body and tears the fish apart, her short half-moon fingernails filling with blood.
She tears out the guts with her nails and tosses them over the side of the bridge, then filets the meat with the practiced hand of a surgeon.
I nod, impressed. “You ought to become a merchant marine, join a commercial fishing outfit.”
She’s clad in old jeans rolled to the knee and waders in case she has to get in and “untangle lines.”
“When the zombie apocalypse comes, I definitely want you on my team,” I tell her.
Kat’s cheeks are pink from the sun, and her eyes are shining bright.
She loves to spend the day outdoors, running, exploring, and catching fireflies in the moonlight.
If she could have it her way, she’d probably camp the whole summer outdoors, away from the creature comforts of Wainscott Hollow.
While most of her contemporaries like collecting Chanel purses, Kat likes risking her life by swimming in the strong currents in the channel.
Or tracking animals, looking for starfish in tide pools, finding little-known constellations, or building a fire from nothing and dancing around the flames that leap into the night like a mad woman.
This is her favorite fishing spot, and I’m almost embarrassed to say that Kat’s the one who taught me to fish.
But, as it turns out, I’m pretty fucking good at it.
We spend hours on this bridge, riffing and joking, insulting one another until the tension runs high, and we have to change to another activity—like jumping off the edge a few feet onto the craggy, rocky bottom below.
Kat always jumps first, and it’s a wonder neither of us has ever broken a limb.
She climbs the protective rail in her waders, unfazed as usual.
But this time, as she balances on the edge, a gunshot erupts, and she startles and falls, flailing to the creek bed below.
A host of startled field sparrows lifts off from the tall wetland grasses at the sound.
“Kat!” I yell, leaping to her rescue. I don’t care where the shot came from, only whether my friend is all right.
Gunshots in my old neighborhood always spelled trouble. Here in Montauk, they often signal grouse or pheasant hunters or some wealthy gun owner doing target practice on their estate grounds whenever they want.
I skirt the edge of the bridge and run down to the ravine below, wading into the water to aid Kat, who’s recovering from her fall. She’s cradling her arm, but it doesn’t look broken, and she spits blood into the water.
“I’m coming!” I yell.
“I’m okay. I think I bit my tongue. Who the hell is out here grouse hunting on their lunch break?”
It was true. We’d stowed the equipment in the four-car garage and skipped the second half of the school day to go fishing.
It wasn’t the first time. Usually, we were so alone out here, we’d forget the rest of the world existed.
It was just Kat and me, the buzzing of large insects, and the occasional rustle of wind through the cattails.
Our whoops of joy at a bite or a decent catch would echo through Long Island Sound like the whole world belonged to us.
“Well, well, well, if it isn’t the little match girl and her poor beggar friend fishing for their dinner.”
We look up to the bridge to see Henry and some of his nasty friends ransacking our fishing spoils.
Henry dumps our cooler full of baitfish, and they writhe and flip, suffocating on the wooden planks of the old bridge.
Then he flings our catch back into the stream.
Some chubby towheaded loser grabs our poles and breaks them over his knee like the prototype of a school bully.
“Hey, stop!” Kat screams. She does her best to stride toward the shore, her waders full of water and more of a hindrance than anything now. “Assholes,” she mutters as she struggles to climb out of the water.
“It’s not worth it,” I say, keeping my voice quiet so the bullies don’t hear us.
“That was my favorite pole!” Kat protests.
“Even the dead fish can’t cover up your trash smell,” Henry taunts.
His goon breaks my fishing pole, too, and Katelyn audibly moans.
Katelyn likes to believe we’re all on equal ground and attempts to climb out like she’ll go toe to toe with Henry Shaw.
But I understand there is no even ground beneath our feet, and while my fear will always be an excommunication, Henry’s only worry is saving face.
I have a lot to lose, while Henry is ever-protected by his privileged circumstances.
He won’t lose anything, no matter how atrocious his behavior.
Kat charges up the hill, sopping wet and shaking with rage. I scurry behind her, readying myself to jump in and keep her safe from assholes who aren’t afraid to throw punches at girls.
“Remember they’re armed,” I tell Kat as she passes me.
“I can’t believe you’re such a low life that you’ve got to leech off my family for everything. Catch a hint. Leave! Go get a job and live your own life, you loser. We’ll never get your stench out of Wainscott Hollow!” Henry taunts me.
“Don’t listen to him, Heath. If anything, you’re the glue that keeps this family together,” Kat says loud enough for them to hear her.
“Come on, Shaw, they’re just fishing. Let’s go. It’s not cool to fuck with your sister like that,” one of his friends says.
I recognize him as Eddie Lind, a guy Henry hangs around with at Fairmont Academy, one of the only ones who doesn’t seem like a total idiot.
I barely know the guy, but he usually goes out of his way to greet Kat and me in the hallways.
He doesn’t act as entitled as the rest and therefore stands out in a sea of wealthy douchebags.
“Fuck off, Eddie. It’s none of your business.” Henry turns his ire on his minion.
“Like, you think this is having a good time? Harassing your sister and your step-brother or whatever? I’d rather husk corn, to be honest.”
Henry’s rage is uncontainable. He turns it on Eddie, forgetting momentarily about tormenting us. He attacks his friend, throwing punches like a tornado and catches the poor guy off guard.
“Henry, stop!” Kat screams at her brother.
Eddie is on the ground, blood gushing from his newly broken nose.
He backs away from Henry, pushing his sneakers into the gravel to create distance between himself and the psychopath as he slides along the gravel.
The Lind kid is loaded like the rest of them, and I’m sure his parents paid a pretty penny for the nose.
Realization dawns on Henry’s thuggish face, and he summons his remaining brethren away from the scene.
“Fuck these losers. Let’s get out of here!” His remaining trio of friends throw conflicted glances our way before taking off running.
Kat is kneeling by Eddie, offering a clean fishing rag his way. She gets right in and pinches the bridge of his nose, telling him to tilt his head back. Blood doesn’t scare her. “My brother’s a jack-ass. A first-class moron.”
Lind just rolls his head and moans.
I kneel beside her, and up close, I can see that the poor, rich jock’s nose is broken.
When I try to sit him up, he’s dead weight in my arms, and his eyes roll back in his head.
Probably a concussion to boot. Henry is an idiot.
What’s he thinking, turning on his own? He’s about to be in a butt load of trouble.
The task at hand is to get this kid to a hospital. But Kat and I came on bikes, so there’s no chance we can get him back to Wainscott Hollow ourselves. What would we do, carry him?
“I think we have to call an ambulance,” I tell Kat.
“What the hell are we going to say happened to him? We can’t do that because they’ll think it’s you, Heath.
Cops are biased, and Wainscott Hollow still sees you as an outsider even though you’re legally adopted.
What if they throw you in jail? It will be your word against Henry, and he’ll no doubt throw you under the bus. ”
“What other choice do we have?”
“Leave him here and report it anonymously when we get home?” Kat suggests. But even she doesn’t seem convinced by her plan. We both know he could pass out and suffocate in his own blood.
“He stood up for us. It doesn’t feel right to leave him bleeding out on a bridge. What if they can’t find him?” I’ve already got my phone and Kat nods in agreement. Just because Henry is a soulless coward who only knows how to lash out in anger doesn’t mean Kat and I can’t do the right thing.
“Hello, this is Heath Clifton and Katelyn Shaw. We’re out on Millcreek bridge, and we need an ambulance for a friend who’s suffered a broken nose and possibly a concussion.”
Kat looks at me with so much trust and appreciation in her eyes that my heart swells with pride.
Waiting for help to arrive seems like hours. Kat sits on the ground with Eddie’s head in her lap. I know it’s purely functional and platonic, but my gut twists in jealousy. I mentally scold myself about her being my sister, though Kat has always been more than a sister to me.
I’ve cleaned all the remaining fish, packed the filets away in a cooler, stored all of our gear, and left the site cleaner than we found it, except for the crimson stains of Eddie’s blood on the dusty ground.