Page 20 of Barefoot Lake

“Alice!”

His voice booms far too loudly for the morning after a late night. Next thing I know, he’s thrown his arms around Alice, and she’s laughing. Scott’s always been an affectionate guy but seeing him wrapped around Alice makes me feel something I do not care to analyze. Instead, I come up behind them and clamp a firm hand on Scott’s shoulder. Pulling him back, I maneuver past him and then Alice on the staircase, which has never felt narrow before but suddenly feels far too small.

“Let’s go, Ace,” I grunt and stomp around the house to my truck. Would it have made more sense to just go out the side door?

Who’s to say.

I hear Alice asking Scott about his eye, which has been progressively darkening all morning, and him casually brushing off her concerns, insisting he’s fine. She appears around the corner of my house a minute later. I’m standing by the passenger side of the truck, holding her door open.

“Thanks,” she mutters, as she hops in. It’s hardly the greeting that Scott got, but at least she didn’t tell me not to call her Ace.

The car ride starts just as silent and tense as it had earlier this morning. Alice stares at her hands in her lap and picks at her nails.

I can practically feel the “don’t talk to me” vibe I’m emitting and remember my conversation with Eli yesterday. Alice really has done nothing to deserve me being such an ass. I take a deep breath.

“I’m sorry about your mom,” I say. The words rush out of me on my exhale, like they need to escape before I lose the nerve to say them.

Alice looks at me, likely surprised that I spoke. I peek at her out of the corner of my eye when she doesn’t respond. She’s opening and closing her mouth like she doesn’t know what to say.

Finally, she settles on, “Thank you. And thank you for looking out for her.”

I shrug. “It was nothing. She looked out for me, too.”

“That guy last night, uh, Troy? He said some stuff to Scott about your parents dying…” She trails off in a way that’s not uncommon when people bring up dead parents. “Can I ask what happened?”

I rub my hand on the steering wheel as I think of how best to tell this story. It’s been a little over a decade since they died, but it still hurts to talk about it. Their death was sudden and violent.

“They died in a freak accident when Scott was just a kid. They went to some old bed and breakfast for a weekend together while Scott was with a friend. There was a real nasty storm, and a tree fell on the building. It wasn’t good.”

I say it quickly and mechanically, disconnecting myself from the details as much as I can. I don’t like to dwell on it. Instead, I focus on Scott.

“After that, I moved home, and it was just the two of us.”

There’s silence in the car long enough for me to glance over at Alice. She’s looking at me with true sorrow in her eyes, and it doesn’t seem like she knows what to say. I look out the windshield again and let the quiet settle around us.

“I’m sorry,” she eventually says, barely above a whisper. There isn’t pity in her voice. Instead, it’s the honest sympathy of somebody who might understand my pain.

I only nod in response, knowing she’ll see it. I can feel her eyes on me still. Once the dead parents conversation starts, there’s only so much to say. I feel an itching need to say something else.

“What did Troy say?”

“Jake… I’m not sure it’s worth repeating. I know it’s not.”

“Please, Ace?”

She looks down at her hands again. “He said they died to get away from Scott. Some people are truly evil.”

I tighten my grip on the steering wheel so hard that the leather squeaks against my hands.

“That’s an understatement. Thank you for being there for him.”

This is an attack that Troy has used before, harping on the fact that they were on a trip without Scott. The comment makes no sense, but it’s cruel and vicious anyway.

The remainder of the ride is quiet again, but it’s not so tense anymore. When I get there, the Corner Post lot is empty other than Alice’s car, so I take up two spots next to it, leaving enough room between the cars to deal with her flat.

Alice is unbuckled and has her door open before I’ve turned off the truck.

“Thanks for the ride!” she says, overly cheerful after our somber discussion earlier. “I’ve got it from here.”