“Nate?” Miles still uses his name to call after me.
But I don’t turn around because now I’m wondering if maybe Easton didn’t want to be bothered burying his brother. I walk toward the bottom of the uprooted tree. The ground divots where the tree once grew. Grass and ivy spill over the top of the hole into the ground.
As I move around the roots, I see the basin of broken earth. At the bottom is a tattered blue sneaker.
And there he is. The body is small and withered with time. The T-shirt and shorts Nate wore when he died are dirty and threadbare.
“What is it?” Miles joins me, but before he can look, I turn away from Nate’s body and stop him. Nate was his best friend, and only a few hours ago he was saying he wasn’t prepared to find the body. Shit. He’s also been trying to get me to give up on this. He might have even felt relieved not to find it.
“No,” I say. “Don’t.”
“Did you...” Something changes on his face. Panic or fear.
I nod. The boy I’ve been pretending to be for the past few weeks. His life cut short by his heartless, psychotic brother.
“No.” Miles pushes me out of the way. I call after him but he stops short at the roots of the tree.
Miles falls to his knees. I leap forward to catch him, worried he’ll fall into the open grave that Easton was so sure no one would find that he didn’t bother to cover it. But Miles leans back on his heels instead.
His body shudders under my grip and at first I think he’s laughing. Like the ridiculousness of this day has caught up with him. But thenthe silence-shattering sob he releases sounds like a dying animal. It sets my skin on fire and my heart rate quickens. I don’t know what to do so I let him cry.
He falls into me, reaching for my arms to pull them around him. He tries to speak through his sobs and he looks at me with wide, horrified eyes. His face wet with fat tears.
“It’s really h-him,” he manages before falling into another round of sobs. It hurts, watching him realize this. That his friend, after all these years, really is dead. Not only that he’s dead and has been, but that his brother murdered him and left him here to literally rot.
Because, yes, everyone who knew Nate may have believed he was dead, but this is the proof. Now it’s all real. Miles spent the last ten years hypothesizing and maybe even fantasizing. Finding ways for his best friend to still be alive. But he’s not.
He’s been here all along. A short row across the bay.
As suddenly as Miles started crying, he stops, wiping his cheeks violently and steeling his face.
“Come on,” he says. “Let’s go back.”
He gets to his feet and goes back to the fort to grab our shovels. “Are you okay?” I ask.
“I’m fine,” he says in a way that means he absolutely isn’t. “But I want to get this over with.”
I follow him out to the kayak and he places it at the edge of the water, climbing in the front without looking back. I push it into the bay and climb in the rear as he hands my shovel back to me. He doesn’t speak the whole way to the Beaumonts’ dock and I’m afraid to ask him again if he’s okay.
He definitely isn’t. I honestly have no clue what to do.
When we reach the dock, Miles stands quickly and the kayak rocks as he jumps onto the dock. I cry out, but Miles is already halfway to the backyard when he drops to his knees and throws up in the bay. I toss the shovels on the dock and jump up to follow him. I remember to pull the kayak up so it doesn’t float away. But when I reach Miles, he’s sobbing again.
There’s nothing I can say to make him feel better, so I sit down next to him and rub his back.
His sobs continue but they grow quieter. Soon, it’s just sniffles. And when he speaks, I startle at the sudden sound.
“We used to play house.” He sniffs and wipes at his nose. “When we were little, in daycare together. It was innocent stuff—we pretended to have kids and played with this Fisher-Price kitchen set. And then sometimes we’d playThe Wizard of Oz.” He laughs and turns to me. “He found this pair of sparkly pink jellies that fit him in one of the toy boxes and he said they were the ruby slippers. So he was Dorothy and I was Toto. Which, by the way, kinda fucked that I had to be thedog. I would have totally killed it as Tin Man.”
“Not Scarecrow?” I try with a smile.
He shakes his head. “I’m too smart for Scarecrow.”
“Oh, so you’re heartless.”
“Clearly.” His voice sounds snotty and sad.
“Well, I think that’s all kind of adorable.”
