Then she walked out of the room, and you heard her going up the stairs and shutting the door to Sean’s room. This left Sean holding a butcher knife in the middle of the kitchen. Slowly, he turned to you. For a moment, you wanted him to stab you. Just in the arm. Nowhere fatal. But enough to make things even. Instead, he wandered over to the sink and let the knife clatter in the basin. Then he walked out, shouting her name.
Something seemed to change after that night. Diana still came over sometimes, but the mood was different. You wouldn’t see her for days; then you’d find her sitting in the living room after everyone else had gone to bed, reading one of your mom’s books from nursing school. When you entered the room, she might look up just to give you a fact or two. (“Did you know that every second you produce twenty-five million new cells? Like, who even are you right now, Case?”) And if Sean came down to try to engage her, she often couldn’t be bothered.
One night, desperate and guilty, and looking for any kind of lifeline, you asked if she wanted to go to Perkins. For a second, the suggestion seemed to throw some life in her eyes. But it wasn’t long before they dimmed again, and she shook her head.
“I’m going to miss it here,” she said. “It’s so…”
“What?” you said.
“Even,” she said, and smoothed a hand in front of her.
“Is that the only thing you’re going to miss?” you asked.
She looked up at you then, and for a moment she seemed tosee you differently. She looked intently at your face, studying you. You thought about sitting down next to her on the couch, but you were sober this time, and the distance seemed untraversable. Like she was already gone.
She stood up and put a hand on your cheek. Then she smiled slightly and walked out of the room.
“Good night, Case,” she said.
It was the very next night that she went upstairs and said something you couldn’t hear, and Sean started crying. You were standing in the hallway when it started, so you heard a few other things beyond his plea not to let things die. He promised to be better. He said she was the only person he had ever loved. And he quoted something from Ram Dass, which caused Diana to start laughing. It got too painful to hear at that point, so you left to go sit with your parents. But when you came back up, you watched her storm out of the room. She walked past you without even acknowledging you. Then you turned and saw Sean standing in the doorway sobbing. He looked devastated, and the full depth of your betrayal made you nauseous.
Had Diana already known about the girl? Maybe. But the way you were acting around her after Sean told you might have been a part of how she figured it out. Could you have convinced her that Sean was innocent? Possibly. But was there also a part of you that wanted them to break up? If this was ever true, it’s not what you wanted now.
As Diana disappeared from view, and you heard her footfalls on the staircase, you watched Sean again. He held absolutely still for ten seconds or so, waiting perhaps to see if she would come back. And then, when it was clear that that wasn’t going tohappen, he turned around and looked at his bedroom door, covered in his mantras and quotes—all the instructions for his moral change. He choked on a sob and then started attacking them like an animal.
He tore them off his door, his face bright red. You watched as the scraps drifted to the ground like flurries, settling on the dusty wood floor. Then you watched him sit down among the shards of his former wisdom and slump to the ground. After a moment or two, he went back into his room and grabbed the keys to the Toyota and sprinted down the stairs.
You finally came back to yourself then.
You said his name. You yelled it.
But he was already gone.
TWENTY-SEVEN
“I’m not killing anything that’s not actively trying to eat me,” says Troy.
He’s sitting on the ground right by you, and his breath smells like burnt dandelions. Diana takes a sip from her water bottle, but like most of yours, it’s running low and you haven’t tried boiling any water yet. At least you’ve gotten a little better at building fires. Will found some driftwood near the shore and combined it with a few downed branches from the storm to get something more consistent going for cooking. There’s a cold wind blowing again, so it’s good to have something bigger. Keeping warm almost makes up for the lack of nourishing food.
You’ve been staring up at the trees in a famished daze for what feels like a small eternity. The site you’re on has the tallest pines you’ve ever seen in your life, and they all seem to bend around you like a cage that sways and creaks in the breeze. The canopy lets in some sky here and there, but it’s only when you peer out over the lake that you can see just how vast the horizon is. Normally you’d find the sky imprinted on the lake as well, but the wind is rippling the water.
“Killing is kind of against my belief system,” adds Troy.
You can’t tell how much time has passed since he last spoke.
“And what’s that?” says Fran.
“I believe in the Four Noble Truths,” he says. “Specifically: ethical conduct. I also think killing animals is, like, super messed up.”
“Have fun eating grass, bro,” says Will, sharpening a stick on the side of a rock. “You ain’t gonna find any tofu dogs out here.”
Troy rolls his eyes.
“That’s Buddhism, right?” says Fran. “What does the Buddha say about starving to death and dying in a canoe?”
“Leave him alone,” says Diana, shutting the argument down.
She plucks some wild grass and tosses it into the fire. Then she motions to the churning water.
