Jack shook his head, his voice low. “You’re going to regret it, Em. He’ll give you millions, but that’ll be nothing compared to what it’ll cost you.”
Then he walked out, the door slammed, and then the only sound was my mother’s sobs.
Chapter 35
Xander
A few days after the funeral, I trudged down to the Academy marina for row practice. The season’s last regatta was coming up. I couldn’t have cared less. But since Dean’s death, my body felt hijacked, alternating between shocked numbness and crippling grief. Going to school full time no longer made any sense, but I could lose myself in the physical mechanics of rowing, even for an hour or two.
But as soon as I arrived at the dock where the coaches and the men’s eight were gathered, I realized just how slow my thinking had been. Rhett Calloway stood with Tucker, apart from the others but dressed in his workout gear, the same as the rest of us.
They both looked at me warily. I stared back, trying to make sense of what I was seeing. Then Orion was there, turning me away as Coach Daniels gathered us around.
Coach clapped his hands without enthusiasm, going through the motions. “I know this is going to be a tough day. We’ve lost one of our own, and as hard as it is…” He broke off, then cleared his throat. “We have a season to finish, and I’d like to think that Dean would want usto finish strong. To make him proud.”
The icy cold numbness wrapped around me started to crack. We all shuffled to the shell, and I climbed in at stroke seat. The rest of the guys followed, Rhett taking his seat at the bow. I gripped the oar in my hands, the rubber, textured handle digging into my palms. The boat gave a final sway—the cox taking his seat—and I raised my eyes, expecting to see Dean’s green ones looking back, that familiar grin on his face. A wink and a smile and he’d murmur, “Give ’em hell, my friend.”
A stranger stared back. One of the guys who rowed quads. It wasn’t Dean. It would never be Dean again.
And then the numbness broke off completely and fell away. Rhett Calloway was behind me, ready to row, his privilege sparing him from consequences. The whole team, this entire fucking school, needed the win more than it needed the truth.
“Jesus fucking Christ.”
I tossed the oar aside and climbed out of the boat. I sloshed through waist-deep water to the shore.
Coach Daniels held out a hand as I passed him. “Now, hold on, son…”
“Don’t fucking touch me.”
“Xander, wait,” Orion caught up to me, his eyes shining. “Talk to me…”
I spun around, and behind Orion was Rhett. A white-hot rage fell over me, and I surged forward with a splash of water.
“He killed Dean,” I said, my voice hollow. Then the truth of it found me, and I wanted to scream. I leveled a finger at Rhett, my voice rising. “He sold him some poison with no fucking thought to the consequences, and we’re all just going to pretend like nothing happened? Business as fucking usual?”
“Now, hold on, man,” I heard Tucker say while Rhett bowed his head and looked away.
It took both Orion and Coach Daniels to hold me back, bothspeaking soothing words, my eyes blinded by tears. For a few moments, there was chaos, and then I stopped fighting.
“Get off me,” I snarled, and tore away from Orion and Coach. They made a wall between me and Rhett, but the rage had drained out, leaving only grief and disgust.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” I demanded of the crew. The coaches. The whole fucking school. “Did he meannothingto you? Whatever it takes, huh? Win at all costs. Put him back on the boat like nothing happened. As if Dean were never here at all.”
“Now, son—” Coach began.
“I’m not your son. I’m not on this team. I’m done. Done with this fucking place.”
I sloshed through the water up onto the shore, hollowed out by grief—that horrible sick feeling of nothingness. Absence. There had been someone there—a whole person—and now there wasn’t. Echoes of my mother’s abandonment. Of my father’s illness. And Emery…
And what was it all for? Opening myself up had been such a mistake. I’d been better off as a loner with no friends. Safer in science, studying the cold vastness of space, where all of this hurt was theoretically meaningless. A Planck length of insignificance, 10-35in size, which is as close to nothing as you can get.
In the locker room, I changed, and then I drove away from Castle Hill Academy for the last time.
The Experiment was over. Result: complete and utter failure.
***
I drove home under a gray sky through the forest-like Bend and turned onto my street. A lone figure walked along the edge, dressed in pajamas. Bare feet. Hair askew.
