

### Scenes of Winter

### Season 1: Episodes 1 through 7

Copyright 2020 Chris McAuliffe

Published by Chris McAuliffe at Smashwords

Smashwords Edition License Notes

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Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

Notes on Scenes of Winter

Episode 1: Where's Julie?

Episode 2: Rough House

Episode 3: Me But Not Me

Episode 4: Elementary School

Episode 5: Tools of the Trade

Episode 6: Repercussions

Episode 7: Party to a Disaster

About the author

Other books by the author

Connect with the author

Acknowledgements

Learning the craft of writing has been a never-ending quest, and I would have long ago been lost without the companionship and education provided by the Northern Connecticut Writers Workshop and the Windsor Writers Critique Group. Thank you to all.

Special thanks for wading through the first drafts to Sarah Gilligan, Annalisa Deal, Shannon Kalahan, Kay McAuliffe and Anne McAuliffe. There's a lot of tangles to be untangled before the second draft can begin to make sense.

Thank you to everyone who has taken the time to download and read any of these episodes. Encouragement is the food that nourishes writers. Every tick of an additional download was a spicy bean patty for my writing soul.

And a very special thanks to the Vegan Book Club for choosing Season 1 of _Scenes of Winter as_ one of their 2020 (pre-pandemic) selections. As a writer, my dream is to be read. For a group of people to read my story and then get together to discuss it goes beyond imaginable.

Cover art, as always, provided by Tom McAuliffe (Contact at @mcletters or mcletters.co)

Notes on _Scenes of Winter_

_Scenes of Winter_ is a story that grew out of my reaction to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee's 2018 hearings on the Supreme Court nomination of Brett Kavanaugh. This story is not about the hearings specifically, but focuses on how the issues raised--sexual violence, toxic masculinity, and gender roles--intersect in our day-to-day lives.

The first seven episodes of season one compiled here were first posted online about every month during 2019. Each episode is essentially a standalone chapter which fits within the overall arc of the main story.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places and events are either products of the author's imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

Episode 1: Where's Julie?

Julie crouched behind Eric's prized Tesla, struggling to secure her left foot into her snowshoe.

"A foot of snow in November is a gift from nature." Her boyfriend scrambled on top of the three-foot-tall roadside snowbank and peered into the woods. "Remember, only got an hour of daylight."

"Just hold on." She twisted the knurled black knob to tighten her binding, but it slipped in her mittens' grip. This past Sunday—their one-year-dating anniversary—Eric gushed when he presented her with a pair of black and red Garneaus: "These are high-end _running_ snowshoes—same as mine. We'll get outside and, you know, get some exercise together." She gave him a sideways look for that.

Gun-metal clouds threatened from above, and snowflakes drifted onto her eyelashes. She flicked them away. "Hey! Are you sure about the weather?"

"Twenty percent chance of snow." Eric jumped off the snowbank, landing in the foot-deep snow.

Julie found his tone patronizing. She stood to make eye contact. "The danger is that—"

"The danger is what? It's well known that weather services over-report." He took off down the trail, each thumping stride kicking up a clump of snow in his wake. His voice came back muffled, "Come on. You'll love this."

"Whatever." She knelt on one knee, slipped off her mittens and laid them down in an inch of snow. She was surprised that anyone bothered to plow a dead-end road that lay five miles from nowhere. It would probably all melt in a week; there were still leaves—the brilliant reds, yellows and oranges of peak foliage—hiding on the trees. And who needed to cram in a trail run on the way home from work? Initially, she'd been attracted by Eric's adventures, but lately he'd turned more critical. The evening of their anniversary, in bed, he had pressed how work was going, but his questions threatened to expose her shame.

Do I need this?

They were both second-year engineers at Spurion Futures, but she'd seen more of the world than he gave her credit for. She had taken two years away from engineering school to train and work as an EMT. She'd enjoyed the challenge but engineering's potential for advancement drew her back. Eric, two years younger, was outspoken and forward, unlike her and the others in the Structural Analysis group. There was already talk that he was up for a promotion. _Good for him._

Her hood, hanging loose, fluttered in a cold gust. She flipped it on and secured her snowshoes. She pulled on her mittens, stood and, taking care, climbed the snowbank; the metal cleats on the snowshoes' underside did grip well. Standing on top, she spotted Eric's tracks, oversized footprints that ran twenty yards downhill before disappearing into tree branches bowed with wet snow.

As he'd reminded her: it was a forty-minute burner up to the Metacomet Ridge, one minute to enjoy the view, and a twenty-minute downhill sprint back to the car to beat the sunset. They'd done this hike once before, on a warm August evening. The view of the Farmington River hundreds of feet below, winding across fields lit by the setting sun, was spectacular. The downhill run back and the satisfaction that came with the final sprint to the car were a bonus. She never considered letting him win but did half expect him to pout about being "beaten by a girl." Instead, he'd been impressed. That moment of shared contentment seemed alien to her now.

Julie clapped the pockets of her black Gore-Tex jacket; phone but no keys. _Fuck!_

She called out, "Eric, you've got the key fob."

Only the wind in the trees answered with whispered threats. She cupped her mittened hands to her mouth and yelled at the top of her lungs, "Hey, you've got the fucking fob!"

#

Eric stopped thirty yards into the woods to wait for Julie. Snow-laden tree branches arched downward. He slapped the closest one, showering himself with wet snow and revealing a splash of multicolored leaves. No tracks ahead, hushed silence all around. For just a second, his mind cleared.

This is what she needs—to push past whatever's bothering her.

"Eric, you've got the key fob," Julie called.

He patted his pockets. S _hit! I do have the fob, but who's going to steal the car way out here?_ She was so capable—smarter than him and a better athlete—but lately, her heightened paranoia puzzled him; any threat of weather—rain or snow, or even dark clouds—was sufficient excuse to hide at home. She surprised him when she agreed to this spontaneous outing.

"Hey! You've got the fucking fob!"

Eric headed back downhill, using his own footprints to speed his passage.

#

Her boyfriend slipped out of the woods, a moving shadow in his matching light-gray Gore-Tex jacket and pants across an all-white landscape; only his black and red snowshoes stood out. Dressed all in black, Julie felt exposed. He stopped twenty yards away.

Perched atop the snowbank, she motioned to his car. "You didn't lock it."

He pulled off his glove, extracted the key fob from an inner jacket pocket and pointed it at the Tesla. He clicked it with his thumb with exaggerated emphasis, as if to make up for the considerable distance.

"It didn't beep," she said.

He threw his hands up. "Seriously? Nothing's going to happen." He headed back into the woods.

She folded her arms across her chest. _Bad things do happen._ She pulled out her phone. Discovering she had reception in this remote area, she tapped the weather app: thirty percent chance of snow increasing to fifty percent in the next hour. Her battery, already in the red, gave out and her screen blanked. _Shit! Do I need this?_ But sitting it out in the car invited more questions.

_Fine_. She clambered down the bank and worked through the snow, parallel to his footsteps. Her footing was secure, but the effort needed to stomp Sasquatch-size holes startled her. By the time she reached the trees where the trail turned upward, her lungs were pumping and her thighs burned.

She stopped with her hands on her hips, fighting to catch her breath. She'd run cross-country in college on scholarship, but two bouts of stress fractures had worn her down. The time away working as an EMT had helped her get over the crushing disappointment of ending her running career. She drew three deep cleansing breaths. Ahead, pairs of small paw prints, pressed an inch deep in the snow and spaced a rabbit-leap apart, ran from her right and disappeared into one of Eric's footprints.

The rabbit's using Eric's tracks, leaping one to the next.

Julie stepped into one of Eric's footprints and then another. On a few, she landed off-center and stumbled, but quickly, she found her rhythm and picked up the pace. Her breathing quieted as she power-walked her way up the trail. She caught a hint of the good feeling from their August hike.

#

Working uphill, Eric made good time retracing his original steps but ratcheted up his effort when he encountered fresh snow, breaking trail one stomp after another. He regretted being short with Julie but turning back to check on her would send the wrong message: that she wasn't capable when she certainly was. Even if, as she bemoaned that night last month, she was fifteen pounds over her racing weight. She was slender now; he couldn't imagine how lean she must have been. Julie rarely opened up, but that night she told him how lost she'd been when she stopped running. Only her time as an EMT, taking on a whole new challenge, had shaken her out of her doldrums. He told her he envied her successes in running and working as an EMT and engineering; all he knew how to do was read bosses and spin out explanations that kept them happy.

He slept soundly that night, believing that a door to new possibilities had opened. The next morning, they laughed on the twenty-minute drive to work, but on the ride home that night, Julie was silent in a way he couldn't crack.

She'll catch up to me, like she did last time.

#

Pushing on, Julie hit Eric's footprints squarely as the trail wound to her right, always climbing. She swept her sleeve back with a mittened hand to uncover her watch: ten minutes had elapsed. She locked into a rhythm, with her arms swinging and her lungs pumping in time. Lulled by the steady whoosh-whoosh of fabric on fabric, she achieved a once-familiar meditative state. Worries slipped away and effort became an easily solved mathematical formula. She flew up the hillside, focused on a single purpose: the awoken desire of the hunter to claim the hunted.

She glanced at her watch again, surprised that another fifteen minutes had passed. Breaking trail slowed him; she'd definitely catch him before he reached the ridge. Raw fears bubbled to the surface; she pushed them down. Instead, with her gaze fixed on the trail, she anticipated the wave of satisfaction that would come when she spotted Eric struggling up the hillside, hoping to escape her and knowing he couldn't.

She heard rumbles, like far-off freight trains. Treetops swayed, releasing scattered cloudlets of snow that drifted downward. In the distance, muffled by the snowy woods, a gunshot-like crack sounded, scratching the surface of her awareness. A sharper report followed closer by. With heart pounding, she snapped her head up. A large branch plummeted through the canopy, smashing smaller branches and releasing plumes of snow as it crashed earthward. She gauged that its path would miss her. Then the branch kicked off a stout tree and spun directly overhead. Dozens of feet above, it clipped another branch, deflected away and drove itself into the ground, ten feet ahead. Its impact resonated through every cell of her body. Her breath came in shallow bursts. She took in the deadly majesty of this broken tree, planted with hammer-of-god-like intensity directly in her path.

She approached the dead tree branch. Unlike the surrounding woods, its upraised arms and willowy fingers were blown clean of snow and held not a single leaf. From the main trunk, she peeled away a loose piece of bark to reveal the rock-hard core of the immense arrow. Doused in adrenaline, a single thought consumed her.

Why didn't you kill me?

She nudged the trunk of her death tree. That's how she thought of it: her death tree. It refused to budge, staring past her, denying her existence, as if she was a weightless mote in the vast wilderness.

Why?

She slapped her death tree. Once. Twice.

I deserve this?

She balled her fists tight and pummeled her death tree, losing herself in a flush of primal anger. _He's my fucking boss's boss._ She punched. _He_ _said he'd mentor me._ She punched again. _I'll never wear that fucking dress again._ She unleashed a flurry. _Why did I sit next to him?_ Her fists complained, and she balled them tighter and punched. _Why?_ Her shoulders ached, and she pushed past the pain, striving to eradicate the memory of his fingertips sliding along her thigh—

I froze. I let it happen.

She stopped, with fists still clenched. Her lungs puffed ragged breaths like inconsequential accusations. She still saw the old man every week at the program review. He always smiled at her.

Why didn't you kill me?

Her death tree didn't acknowledge her.

She stepped back, soaked in sweat. With arms hanging heavy at her sides, she gazed skyward. Could another branch kill her? Gales uncoiled and rolled through the forest. She cried out, and her pain was lost on the wind.

Can lightning striking twice? For me? Please.

_A_ bove her, the immense dark mass of trees swayed and moaned. Lit in the failing gray light, ghost trains rumbled through the canopies, sounding wind-blown crescendos. Some hinted of lurking dangers, others roared full-throated threats of destruction.

Callous. Unrelenting. Exhausting. Same as every other day.

Slowly, she became aware that beyond her death tree lay an unbroken series of snowshoe tracks, climbing up the hill and disappearing around a bend in the trail. Driven snow eroded the edges of Eric's footprints. This wasn't a twenty or thirty percent chance of flurries. This was a full-on storm.

#

Eric's goal—their shared focus—was the view from the top. As he climbed, he swatted snow from low limbs to clear the way for her. Unweighted, they sprang back, exposing dull oranges and reds. The trail leveled off and opened into the clearing for the power lines that slashed north-south through the forest, a familiar landmark that lay minutes below the ridge line. Ice particles driven by the north wind stung his face. He pulled his gray hood down low on his brow and snugged his zipper tight under his chin. With a hand shielding his eyes, he peered northward along the tree-high structures of angled metal. An advancing snow shower obscured all but the three closest towers. Cables strung between, energized by the wind, swung wildly. Maybe there was a more than twenty percent chance of snow.

Where's Julie?

A branch cracked nearby, out of sight. Then another. Or was it just branches clattering against branches—shadow threats? Thousands upon thousands of trees stood in the forest; same as every other day. The likelihood of him being targeted was so remote as to be laughable. Looking back down his path, his footsteps retreated into the woods toward Julie. Gusts blew down the man-made meadow, filling in his tracks. The heightened energy level exhilarated him; winter was coming early this year.

We're so close to reaching the top.

Last month something had slipped with Julie, and she'd gone from being adventurous to practically a shut-in. He liked her, a lot. He wanted the best for her but couldn't fathom whatever was bothering her. Even at work, she just sat at her desk, talked to no one and worked. He _was_ surprised that she'd dared to venture out today. The wind lessened. Snowflakes ceased their sideward drive and drifted downward. The residual hum of the high-voltage lines overhead became the loudest voice in the meadow.

See. Not a problem. Storm's over.

"Hey, Eric! Are you okay?"

Between gaps in the snow-laden branches, about twenty yards downhill, he spotted a dark figure in the white woods. He sensed an edge of panic in her voice. _Of course, I'm okay._ He stomped westward across the meadow and re-entered the woods for the final ascent to the ridge line. _Focus. She needs this._

#

With quads burning and senses on full alert, Julie sped through tall trees in full foliage groaning under heavy blankets of snow like spring-loaded traps—as dangerous as any other day, except this forest had defined borders. They should head back; let this storm pass from the sanctuary of home.

Shit! I almost died.

Before her, the darkness of the forest abated, suggesting a clearing. From their August hike, she recalled a grassy meadow strung with high-voltage power lines running parallel to the ridge line. Through the lens of the upward path, the dark gray sky outlined a familiar form.

"Hey, Eric! Are you okay?"

He turned and disappeared from view.

_What?_ She climbed the last stretch and entered the clearing. His tracks crossed the meadow and disappeared into woods beyond _._

"Eric, wait!" No answer. _Shit! He's too focused on his plan._

Overhead, the motionless power lines hummed with current, and snowflakes floated downward. Warm from her exertions, she pushed her black hood off.

Maybe the storm has passed.

A refutation rumbled toward her out of the north, pulling a bruised cloud down from the darkening sky. As the storm built in volume, it obscured the metal towers and animated the trees edging the meadow. Above, the power lines swayed, hurrying to find a rhythm. Snow pelted her, and she pulled on her hood. In the distance, an even larger freight train thundered, speeding to overtake the first, indiscriminately cracking branches as it came.

Fear resonated deep in her chest.

#

He continued up the final approach to the overlook.

"Eric, wait!" he heard her call. Come on, Julie, he thought. Focus.

He grabbed a stick from the brush and poked it into the snow: more than two feet deep. Slow going, he thought. She'll catch me, and we'll share the view together: the setting sun peeking out from under the passing storm clouds. A beautiful sight. A reward. That's what he'd tell her: rewards go to those who are willing to take risks.

Doubt flitted through his mind: maybe life wasn't that simple.

A volley of cracks sounded overhead, snapping him from his reverie. He glanced up. A cascade of branches and snow multiplied as it accelerated toward him. Immobilized with shock, he couldn't comprehend the world-altering view: the forest folded down on itself, seemingly intent on attacking him. A shower of snow blinded him. He twisted, staggering back. A thicket of branches flattened him to the ground. More mass pounded him, squeezing the breath from his lungs. He attempted to pull his legs under him, but they refused as if fixed in concrete. Panic invaded him as more weight piled on, forcing his head down. Cold snow masked his face, pressing into his nose and mouth. He attempted to bring his hand up but was refused. Craving oxygen, he inhaled sharply, sucking a large leaf into his mouth. He coughed hard to no effect. With his tongue, he forced the leaf partway out of his mouth.

I'm going to suffocate? You've got to be shitting me. This is how I die?

The thumping of branches abated for a moment, and then a sledgehammer blow drove his face further into the snow. He was dimly aware of the impact as consciousness fled.

#

Every cell in Julie's body screamed _Get! Out!_ but she left the safety of the clearing and followed Eric into the woods. A barrage of cracks sounded above. Thirty yards ahead, branches and snow showered down, thumping onto the ground. From higher up, a second wave descended and pounded on top of the first, raising a plume of snow.

"No! No!"

She rushed forward, stopping short of the mound of debris, fifteen feet in diameter and too tall to see over. Flakes clung to her jacket like fallout ash from an explosion. His tracks led directly into it.

"Eric?"

She edged closer, fearful of the threat from above. Through a ragged window in the swaying canopy, she viewed a patch of roiling gray clouds. In this one place, everything that could fall out of the trees had fallen.

"Eric! Answer me!"

She sped to the right, breaking trail for the first time since she'd started uphill. On the far side, she found only clean snow. She circled back, surveying the huge mound and resisting the inescapable conclusion that Eric was trapped beneath.

#

Where's Julie?

#

"Eric!"

Blood pounded in Julie's ears. _God damn it._ She gripped an arm-thick Y-branch and heaved back, driving with her legs, but stopped when she thought she heard a groan. _Am I dragging it across him?_

"Eric!" _No answer. He's... probably unconscious._ She imagined herself trapped underneath, the limbs touching her, pressing against her. Claustrophobia rushed in. She took three deep breaths.

_Think_. On the downhill side of the jumble, she sighted along his tracks. He was headed for the overlook. Like constructing a 3D structural model, she visualized him stretched out on the snow under the mound of branches, adding their tracks up the hill to orient it, and snapped a mental picture. _His feet must be on this side, and his head is on the uphill side._

She hurried on the freshly compacted snow to the uphill side, dropped to her knees and sank into the snow. Peering into the confusion of branches, she pictured Eric face down in the snow just three feet into the pile.

_The danger is that a human brain deprived of oxygen for more than five minutes will begin to sustain permanent damage. How long has he been in here?_ She checked her watch. _Two minutes. Cold temperature is a mitigating factor; small blessing._ She knew emergency medical care, but that would do Eric no good if she couldn't get him out. She tugged on a small branch; it was firmly rooted but yielded to the side. So did others.

Maybe I can get to him.

She peered through the layers of branches matted one on top of the other, determining what she hoped was the path of least resistance. She secured her hood and tightened the Velcro straps on her wrists. With balled fists stretched out in front, she squeezed her eyes shut and dove into the pile. Branches scraped her face and banged against her as she jammed waist-deep into the tangle. She opened her eyes. Total darkness met her. She attempted to inch back but was constrained in every direction. Claustrophobia swallowed her rational mind.

#

Images from Eric's life flew by, and he grasped at those most dear.

"There you are," he said.

"Hey," Julie answered.

He sat next to her on the rocky ledge overlooking the Farmington River and leaned into her, soaking up her presence: her smell, the touch of her bare shoulder on his, the sound of her breath. She wrapped her arm around his shoulder and squeezed him, gently. He slipped his arm around her waist just as the August sun winked out of sight. From beyond the horizon, the last rays of sunlight bent to paint the clouds in warm tones of red, casting shadowless diffused light across the landscape.

"Can a moment last forever?" he asked.

"A memory can," she said.

So much love.

#

With a fierce burst, Julie jerked herself free and sat back on her heels, conscious of her snowshoes' tails pressing into her lower back. She brushed snow off; she hated being trapped.

"Oh, my god, Eric, couldn't you wait for two seconds?" He blew past every warning sign like they were invisible. _That's the thing, danger doesn't care whether you see the warning signs or not._ She remembered being delayed by her own brush with death. _Shit! Why are we even here?_

A warm glow lit the pile of wood. She glanced over her shoulder. Up the trail to the ledge, the sun's rays peeked beneath a bank of gray clouds. She turned back, within the coarse tunnel of bent branches, sunlight glinted off a straight edge.

_Oh, my god._ She scrambled back in and tugged on a snowshoe. _Eric's!_ It was still attached. _He turned back._

#

More memories flashed past. By denying one, Eric drew unwanted attention to it.

At the conference table, he made small talk with his coworkers, aware of the empty chair across from him. His boss and the director sat at the head of the table, enjoying an inside joke about the executives.

"Are we ready to get going?" asked the boss.

"I hope so." The project lead fumbled with his laptop, attempting to sync it with the projector.

"Hope is not a plan," retorted the boss. The director smirked like he wished he'd said it.

"Of course not." The project lead's desktop flashed onto the screen: a beautiful sunset. He opened the presentation file to reveal an agenda. "Structures will start us off." He glanced at the empty chair.

"Where's Julie?" the director asked. His eyes darted to Eric and then away.

Last year Eric had heard rumbles about the director when an engineer, a young woman, quit suddenly. _But I'm just a second-year engineer._ Responsibility soured on his tongue.

#

Waist-deep and flat on her stomach, Julie worked by touch in near total darkness, clawing snow away and tearing off handfuls of leaves to reveal Eric's entire snowshoe. She stretched around and found the knob, twisted it counterclockwise and released the binding. She tugged it free and tucked the snowshoe, cleats down, under her chest. She pulled a mitten off and reached past his hiking boot to push his pant leg up, exposing his ankle. Her fingertips found his tibialis posterior artery and sought his pulse.

#

After the meeting, Eric found Julie at her desk hunched over her keyboard.

"You didn't show," he said.

With shoulders rounded and arms pulled tight across her chest, she stared at her monitor which displayed a 3D structural model—the one she was supposed to present.

He continued, "You know, you can't let these opportunities slip away or else—"

"Or else... what?" She tugged at the hem of her light summer dress, covering her knees.

"You okay?" She seemed defeated; not like herself at all.

"You're so good at reading people, you tell me." Swiveling her chair toward him, she made fleeting eye contact.

The flash of pain in her eyes drove him back. So she missed a meeting; it wasn't the end of the world. She was getting noticed; their director, the old man, knew her by name— _Wait. No. Did something happen?_

In his most reassuring voice, he said, "Julie, it's probably not that big a deal."

She rocked back in her chair and tilted her head to one side like she wanted to say, "You've got to be fucking kidding me." Instead, she said, "I didn't think so."

Crushed, he closed his eyes and couldn't open them.

#

At least he's got a pulse. I hope he's breathing.

Julie backed out, dragging Eric's snowshoe along, and sat on her heels. Even in the waning light, it was obvious that the passage floor had compacted several inches. _Shit! That's a lot._ Gripping his snowshoe with both hands, she shoveled down a foot, two feet and more, to scratch at frozen dirt.

_The whole freaking mess sits on more than two feet of snow. I can't pull the pile off of him, but I can dig under to get to him. S_ he ducked back into the tunnel, located his other snowshoe, slipped it off and backed out. She hopped up and stomped around to the downhill side of the pile. _From here, I can slide him out headfirst._ She slipped off her snowshoes and knelt. Using one, she shoveled down more than two feet, revealing the frozen ground, and cleared an entryway wide enough for herself.

She stepped down onto the exposed dirt and glanced at her watch: _Shit! Already five minutes. Think. From here, he's three feet in._

She burrowed under the pile, mindful not to dig too wide and destabilize it. She pushed loose snow behind her, scooting back to clear it from the entryway when needed. Her arms and lungs burned with the effort. She'd created a two-foot deep hollow when an arm-thick branch blocked her path. _He's above me, another foot or so in._ She carved out another clump of snow and bumped the branch. It folded as if jointed in the middle. _Oh, my god._

She ripped her mittens off and, using bare hands, brushed snow away from the limb covered in—in fabric, not bark. _Oh, my god._ She rolled onto her back looking up to where Eric lay encased in branches and snow. In the decaying light, his left arm hung free, but his right arm and shoulder were pinched between heavy branches. She uncovered his upper chest and neck. Snow showered down on her, and she plowed it toward the entryway, obscuring the remaining light. In darkness, she reached up to place her hand on his chest and waited several agonizing seconds.

"Eric," she whispered.

#

Immense pressure bore down on Eric. He was aware of the stillness of his body: no breath, no pulse. He should breathe, but he couldn't. He was in his body, but he wasn't a part of it.

He thought of Julie at her desk, withdrawn and hurting.

You needed me, but—I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.

#

No heartbeat. No breath.

Julie knew that with CPR training came the responsibility to act; she'd never be a bystander. _Think. Check his airways._ Working with cold-deadened touch, she plucked a leafy branch away and brushed snow from his face. She parted his lips and extracted a large leaf; he must have sucked it in. She blew on her fingertips to warm them and carefully examined his mouth. _All clear._

In the dark, something traced across her cheek, freezing her in place as panic squirreled down her spine. _I'm trapped. The old man's fingers slide along my skin. My blood's pounding in my ears—s_ he swatted at her face, grabbing what she knew was a leaf, yet her heart hammered.

Does it ever end?

Still shaking, she lay back on the frozen dirt, reached overhead to place her hands on his chest and pumped out thirty chest compressions, cringing as he shifted with each effort. _Not good._ He should be on a firm surface, her training told her, not suspended above in snow and branches.

But I'm his only chance.

She worked in the womb-like darkness that engulfed them, but the sounds were born from her exertions alone; she compressed his chest, pushing his blood through his arteries and forcing air in and out of his lungs while the branches holding him creaked denials. Over hundreds of compressions, cold soaked into her shoulders and chilled her hopes. Minutes slipped away. She rallied and fought against the exhaustion that wrapped her in a smothering blanket.

A thought flitted through her mind: _I'm already alone_.

She stopped the chest compressions and checked his carotid artery.

_No pulse. Nothing_.

With arms heavy with fatigue, she collapsed onto the frozen ground. _It's been too long._ She glanced at her watch; the illuminated dial confirmed that twenty minutes had passed. Blindly, she searched the chamber floor for her mittens and found herself convulsing with sobs. _He's gone._ She had loved him—still loved him. _He's gone._ She pressed her face into her bare hands and rolled onto her side, curling into a ball, and wept with abandon. She loved him, he was special; she thought of the August sunset they'd shared, of the talks they'd had. They were happy, trying to connect, they were connecting—until the old man—

She lay shrouded in darkness, anticipating another replay of the old man's prying looks and unwanted touches; that torture which had stripped away her life. The events that had brought her to this desperate impasse were staggering and inevitable; like this absurd misadventure—whose boyfriend insists on going snowshoeing on a day like this? She reached up, molding her hand to Eric's face.

You knew something was wrong, and I was too ashamed to tell you—that I'd been powerless to stop on old man.

Yet, would Eric have shown more than sympathy? Would he have dared to be more than a bystander? Would he have risked his future for hers? As a member in the old man's regime, he'd been tempted by the bounty of privilege. But now he was dead, and the old man, safe from any accusations, was riding off into his career's sunset. He preyed upon Julie, and... and others? There had to be others.

You old fucker, you don't get immunity.

For the first time, she said aloud, "No more."

The pile creaked in response, and her claustrophobia ratcheted up. She threw her hands up in defense. Eric's body had dropped several inches as the pile shuddered and shifted. Her tunneling and hundreds of chest compressions must have weakened its structure.

The danger is that—I'll be crushed. I'll die here, with my boyfriend.

She took a deep breath.

Fuck that!

She twisted around and scrambled out as the pile descended. In the entryway, a branch struck a parting blow across her shoulders. She shook it off and stood free of the collapse.

"I fought hard for you, Eric." Still sobbing, her mind raced over her last hour's efforts: snowshoeing into the woods, averting her own death, racing to warn him, tunneling under the pile and performing CPR—she'd risked everything to rescue him.

At the top of her lungs, she shouted, "How hard did you fight for me?"

The woods answered with silence.

"I didn't think so."

With a mixture of sadness and urgency, she donned her snowshoes and descended the trail to the power lines. Through scattered clouds, a full moon shone, revealing that the storm's last gasp had erased their footprints. She patted her pockets: one dead cell phone and no key fob—and no clear path home.

Nothing about this is going to be easy.

She turned south, trudging under the power lines with her arms and shoulders heavy with lactic acid. She knew she'd miss Eric deeply, but later, not now. Miles away, this trek intersected a road; from there she would find her way home. After a minute, her labored breaths smoothed, her arms lightened and her legs warmed. She picked up her pace, kicking up clumps of snow behind her, and found her rhythm as determination set in: she knew what she had to do, and she ran toward it. The slope fell away, impossibly steep, and a valley of grayness stretched out below her.

The danger is that—

Instead of slowing, she lengthened her stride, amazed at how sure each foot fell and how fast she moved. She wasn't running, she was soaring, and for a fleeting moment, she soared free of fear.

The danger is that I am dangerous.

Table of Contents

Episode 2: Rough House

With defroster blasting and wipers clapping a frantic rhythm, Worthington steered his black Mercedes S560 off the interstate and down the snow-packed exit ramp. At the intersection, through waves of snow, he peered left for several seconds, deciphering how to merge into the oncoming stream of headlights.

Behind him, a car horn blared several times.

"All right, asshole." He punched his radio off and squinted into the snow. He didn't need Storm Team Alpha hyperventilating the obvious for the fiftieth time: Winter Storm Blah-Blah-Blah had taken a U-turn and dumped another foot of wet snow—

Another horn blasted.

Spotting an opening, he spun the wheel right and stomped on the gas. The oncoming car yielded to him, and his Mercedes's collision avoidance system prevented him from tapping the bumper in front of him. Worthington owned the best: autonomous-safety-everything. And if the car behind him so much as grazed his bumper, his insurance company would crush theirs.

Traffic lurched along to the disparate rhythm of brake lights. Attempting to shed the stress from the day's wrong turns, he lightened his grip on the wheel and rolled his shoulders. Millennials had overrun the company; they thought that deadlines were suggestions at best—not like when he'd worked his way up. Worthington held people to their commitments. His boys knew that; he'd raised them right; Connor was off to college, but Mike, a high school senior, still needed work.

Snow filled cones of street lights, and plowed mounds lined the way. Another right and a left, and he was on his street. Heavy snow bent tree branches and compressed the shrubbery into oversized molars. He rolled into his driveway, coated with less than an inch of fresh snow. _Of course, Connor took care of it. He's home for the weekend._

Worthington punched the remote, the garage door pivoted up, and the interior lights brightened. Toward the back sat the snowblower, hot and dripping, next to Connor's heavy boots. _Good man._ Worthington rolled into his bay, parking alongside the wife's silver SUV; its windows framed in chipped ice, and the roof capped with a layer of snow. Apprehension gripped his gut as he slid from the car and made his way inside; lately she'd been hard to read. He hung his overcoat up in the mudroom and straightened his dark jacket. The suit defined his form and substance. It was the armor he wore into battle every day—even Casual Friday. He never conceded, no matter what the charity.

In the family room, Mike lazed on the couch, wearing those skinny black jeans and a snug garish-red Niners jersey—number seven—and flipped through his phone. He was too thin, and his hair too long and stringy with sweat. He must have just come home from basketball practice. He got good grades—Worthington demanded nothing less—but his indulgent social media habits annoyed the man no end. _Get off the phone. Get a haircut. And eat some real food, not that tofu crap._

"Hey, Dad." Mike smiled, pulled his hair back tight and secured it in a stubby ponytail.

The man dropped into his burgundy leather recliner. "Mike, get me a drink."

"Sure." The boy drew out the single syllable in a way that confused Worthington, but he tucked his phone away, hopped up and padded into the kitchen. He grabbed a tumbler from an overhead cabinet. "Whiskey on the rocks, of course."

The man grunted an affirmative as the boy pressed the glass against the fridge's ice dispenser. Two frosted cubes clattered into the glass. Mike uncapped the ever-present bottle and poured out two-fingers worth of the honey-colored liquid. His phone buzzed. He drew it out and stared at it as he delivered the man's drink.

_The boy's addicted to the damn social media._ The first sip evaporated on Worthington's tongue. The second slid down his throat, warming his stomach. He drew a deep, satisfied breath.

Mike settled back onto the couch, folding his lanky frame and tucking one bare foot under him. He dropped his phone on a cushion, leaned forward and plucked a large leather-bound book off the coffee table.

Worthington appraised the boy's burnt-red shirt. "So _now_ you're a Niners' fan." _This family has always pulled for the red, white and blue Patriots._

"Same old suit?" Mike flipped through the pages.

"Don't be a smart ass."

The boy smirked about something. "Never mind."

Worthington took another sip. "Your brother's home."

"Been upstairs for a while."

"Your mother—"

"Just went upstairs."

The man caught a whiff of Thai and surveyed the kitchen. On the slate-capped island sat a familiar brown bag with the top folded over and a menu stapled to it. "Take out. Again."

"Yes, and yes. Mom let me order."

Worthington hated Thai—too many noodles and not enough meat—and the wife knew it.

"Hey, that's right!" Mike pointed to a black and white group photo in the book spread open across his lap. "You wrestled in high school."

"Hey." Worthington hadn't seen his yearbook in ages. He put his hand out. "Give me that."

"What? Got something to hide?" Mike flipped through more pages, grinning.

The man drained his glass. He stood up straight with shoulders back, towering over Mike. With a steel edge, he said, "Give it. Now!"

The boy shut it and thrust it toward him. Worthington grabbed it and slipped it behind him, uncertain where it belonged. Mike hopped off the couch and, mumbling a cadence of curses, slipped past his father into the kitchen. Worthington tipped his glass back and ice cubes slid to his lips as he sought the last drops of alcohol. Through the prism of the tumbler he caught the boy staring at him. The man lowered his glass, dropping his gaze.

Mike opened and slammed one cabinet after another.

Worthington tucked his prep-school yearbook under his arm. He hated boarding school. He stared out through the double doors into the backyard, his view filtered through a wind-blown haze of snow. Security lighting revealed the depression of the in-ground pool and the rounded lumps of deck chairs and tables. This year, no one had bothered to bring them in; they'd been abandoned to the elements. Beyond the fence, the yard lay blanketed in more than a foot of snow. The urge came to him, however impractical, to bury the book in a deep hole in the backyard. He flipped the switch to kill the outside lights. In the black sheet of the door's glass, hollow eyes stared back at him.

The boy slammed another cabinet.

"Hey. Stop it," Worthington snapped. _I work hard, and this is the thanks I get._

"What?" The boy faced the man with hands on his hips and shoulders back.

"You're not the least bit intimidating." With his slight frame and dark hair pulled back in a short ponytail, the boy was too girly to scare anyone. Still, lately he seemed bent on challenging everything. Worthington loosened his neck tie. "Stop acting like a brat."

"Really?" the boy pressed.

The man jabbed an index finger in the air. "You have no appreciation what I do." The extra hour of his snow-clogged commute had eroded any tolerance for the boy's antics.

"Yeah." Mike rolled his eyes. "This is paradise."

The man lurched forward, feeling as if his head would explode. He thumped a beefy hand on his chest. "I, me, I make all this possible."

The boy slid around to the far side of the island. "Mom works, too."

"Seriously." Worthington smacked the book onto the slate island. "She's a _librarian_. And she's only been back to work for a couple of years. My money paid for all of this."

"Why's every conversation with you, like, not a conversation?"

"Be more like your brother."

"You're always telling me that."

"Then do it." Worthington clanked his glass on the stone countertop.

Mike shook his head. "Do you know that, in conversations, often people _listen_ to each other?"

_So much entitled bullshit._ Worthington pressed his thick hands onto the island's cold slate. Next to his empty glass lurked the old yearbook. _Resurrected from goddamn where I have no idea. High school was fucking torture. But it didn't kill me._ He had more than survived, he'd proven himself and taken the first steps toward becoming the man he was today.

"Can I ask you one question?" asked Mike.

Worthington moved to the counter and poured himself another drink. He half expected Mike to circle away, to keep the island between them, but he held his ground. Connor's too big for me now, Worthington thought, but I've got size on Mike. I can still take him.

"Fine." The man planted his full glass on the island, sloshing some whiskey onto the slate. "I'll give you one."

"You wrestled. What was that like?"

"That's your question." The man snorted.

Mike held his gaze.

"Your generation doesn't understand hard work." Worthington drew a deep breath and exhaled, and then regretted his slip; it could be construed as an admission of weakness. Neighborhood scraps, his older brother's beatings and his father's occasional but well-deserved strap had fallen short of preparing him for Squiffy's unrelenting humiliation. After the first practice, after every practice, he'd wanted to quit. "My father taught me that, 'If you say you're going to do something, then you do it.'"

"So, what was it like?"

Worthington stared at the center of the island, the clear slate that lay between the father and his son. "You wouldn't understand. It was _real_ hard work."

The onslaught started on the first minute of the first day of wrestling: a captain's practice, no coaches. He and Squiffy paired up, both freshmen competing at 110 pounds, the lightest weight class. Worthington had never wrestled before, but goddamn if that Squiffy wasn't all wiry muscle with explosive speed and an iron grip. _He tied me up in my own arms and legs, and dragged me around, smearing my sweat all over the mat, and he pinned me, over and over. And everyone knew it._ Some laughed. Eventually, everyone laughed. It was one thing to get beaten, it was another thing to be dominated.

"The hardest thing I ever did." Worthington stared into the bottom of his glass.

Squiffy's taunts were a constant in his ear. After five minutes, Worthington's heart hammered in his chest, he gasped for air; he experienced depths of exhaustion he had no idea existed. Squiffy said, "You're weak, Worthless." After thirty minutes, he thought he'd pass out. He conceded any resistance, and Squiffy whipped him around like a rag doll. His stomach roiled with acids and burned his throat. "You're such a pussy, Worthless" He thought Squiffy had eased up, maybe out of boredom, but then Squiffy lifted him up and slammed him into the mat so hard that Worthington blacked out. When he came to, kids were laughing and high-fiving Squiffy. Worthington sprinted for the door. In the hallway, with his hand clamped over his mouth, he spewed vomit everywhere, soaking his T-shirt. His sweatpants were twisted, and his balls hurt. He stumbled away, tugging at his briefs to gain some relief, and came away with handfuls of elongated underwear. Feeling violated, he ran into a bathroom stall, stripped off the evidence of the wedgie and buried it at the bottom of a trashcan, one of the big janitor ones.

"So, I don't understand hard work?" Mike asked.

"Ha. Your generation expects trophies for just showing up."

Mike leaned across the island and took the book. He opened it and flipped through until he found Worthington's headshot. "Huh. 'Team first.' That's kind of a nice motto."

"Team." Worthington sensed a wide chasm between the boy's ideal and the man's reality. That difference glimmered of understandings that he couldn't bring into focus. And not being able to firmly grasp the meaning, it threatened him, so he dismissed it. "Haven't thought about that in years."

The team caught him after he discarded his underwear and jammed him into a locker. Two other freshmen got the same treatment—not Squiffy; his humiliation of Worthington had earned him immunity. For an eternity, stuffed amid the suffocating odors, Worthington fought to suppress sobs. After the locker room cleared, it took another five minutes of fumbling in the dark to joggle the release mechanism. That's when the team pounced on him again, laughing and congratulating themselves on their stealth. They yanked Worthington's sweatpants down to his ankles, covered his bare ass with adhesive tape and left him curled on the floor as they popped the other two freshmen out of their lockers and did them. _A lot of skin came off with that tape._

"I never quit on them." _I wanted to. I begged to._ That night, he found a payphone in a remote corner of the dorm, and holding back tears, he told his father he was quitting and coming home. His father said, "No and no."

For three years, he suffered an endless stream of "Worthless" taunts from Squiffy. Even as they grew, they continued to go head to head in each successive weight class. Worthington endured; Squiffy no longer dominated him as he had those first few months. Still, Worthington never beat him.

"Who's Squiffy?" asked Mike.

"What?"

"Is this your handwriting? It says: 'Prove Squiffy wrong.'"

"—that's not me." He hid behind another sip of whiskey. For some reason Squiffy didn't show up for senior year. There were rumors, but Worthington didn't care. Squiffy was gone; that was what mattered. Worthington made varsity and won more matches than he lost. In practice, he dominated, and life began to make sense. He rested his glass on the slate.

"What weight class did you wrestle at?" asked Mike.

"Senior year, 145 pounds."

"Hey, that's what I weigh."

"Well, I was a solid 145." Despite his best efforts, this son failed to grasp the vital importance of establishing dominance.

"Really?" Mike smiled.

Worthington barked a laugh. "Anyone ever call you 'Worthless?'"

Mike cocked his head to one side and raised an eyebrow.

"My senior year," Worthington continued. "Between classes in crowded hallway, a freshman called me that. Probably hoped I wouldn't know who said it, but I did. I caught the little smart ass in a cross-face cradle, folded him in half and stuffed him into a garbage can, butt first." The man looped his arms in front of him and locked his fingers together, pantomiming a lift and dump to prove to his son he was still capable. "It was one of those big cans that the janitors used."

"You sure you got the right kid?"

That possibility never occurred to Worthington. "I made my point. No one ever called me that again. What if it happened to you?"

"It has."

"And you take it?"

"I tell them that's not my name."

"What if they don't stop? You let them?"

"No." Mike considered the book laying open in front of him. "If they don't stop, then I ignore them."

"That doesn't work. They'll just—"

Mike brushed past his father. "I got to take a shower." And he was gone from the room. His footsteps pounded up the stairs, and the muffled rush of water followed.

He's hopeless.

Worthington stood in the kitchen with a half-full tumbler of whiskey and the sweet and sour odors emanating from the brown bag of Thai food—a dinner he didn't want.

Where is everyone? Am I supposed to serve myself?

He topped off his glass, grabbed the book, crossed the hardwood floor and dropped onto the couch. An old fear clawed at his insides, one that usually only surfaced during sleepless late nights: maybe Squiffy was right. Over his career, Worthington had built up an impressive resume of accomplishments and promotions, yet something had shifted out of place. What he'd perceived as unrelated slights—rolled eyes, snide remarks and abrupt exits—were coalescing into a broader insurrection. It was as though, despite his years of hard work and sacrifices, his life had been taken apart behind his back and reassembled somewhere else—and no one wanted him to know the new location.

_Ridiculous_.

He tossed the book onto the table, grabbed the remote and flipped on the TV. An unsettling alien image flashed on the screen: an all-encompassing deep blue bisected by a vertical gray line. With arms extended, a dark figure wearing a dim head-mounted light stretched downward along the taut cable. A single undulation swept the length of the body, resolving with a sluggish swish of a wide tail. The form stilled, yet specks of something—small fish—accelerated upward. The diver was being sucked ever deeper, ever faster, into nothingness. Worthington's heart skipped and scattered an uneven rhythm, and pain stabbed into his chest.

_So alone._ He clicked the TV off. _I'm so alone._

His breaths came rapid and shallow. Ringing filled his ears. His old litany of fears flooded his brain. Weak. Alone. Worthless. He would die. Right here, right now. Worthless. The pain burned and blossomed. _Am I supposed to feel guilty about something?_ Thoughts raced in circles, yet every escape plan morphed back into the same predicament. His chin pressed into his chest, and he rocked back and forth with eyes squeezed shut. Pain crescendoed and consumed.

"Hey!" Mike's voice.

Worthington caught a note of concern; a concession? He became aware of the couch. He balanced his glass on his knee with a loose grip.

"Dad, are you okay?"

"Yeah." Worthington leaned back and swept his free hand across his face. "Of course." He pressed his shoulders back into the couch, widening his chest, and spread his feet to establish position. He denied the urge to rub his chest.

"You sure?" The boy sat close by in an easy chair, leaning forward.

"I'm fine." Worthington fought off a fleeting fear that Mike might touch him. "Where's everyone else?"

"I don't know." The boy's phone buzzed, and he checked it.

Worthington grabbed the remote and clicked on the TV. A foaming glass of beer glistened to a snappy jingle. He punched in the channel for the game.

Two men in knotted ties and sport coats, the play-by-play and the analyst announcers, sat shoulder-to-shoulder with brows furrowed, miming concern. The banner at the bottom of the screen displayed the score: Patriots zero, Cowboys zero. Only eight seconds of the first quarter had elapsed. A reassuring comfort set in as Worthington's last echo of panic receded. He thumbed the volume up.

"—terrible hit. Full speed. Helmet to helmet," said the analyst, a former player and future Hall of Famer. "Unfortunate. Hate to see that. Both talented young players showing a lot of promise."

The view cut to a mono-hued green field with white lines defining a perfect grid. Stretchers and carts parked nearby as two huddles of medical personnel hunched ten feet apart over two motionless bodies. Players from both teams surrounded the scene, each on a single knee with head bowed.

Worthington found football's power and speed and drama, combined with TV's precise presentation, a satisfying addiction; the promise of superhero-like feats of athleticism, immortalized with replays from all angles, enthralled him. But he hated dwelling on this part: unconscious players threatened to destroy the illusion.

"Shit," Mike said. His phone buzzed, but he ignored it.

"Opening kickoff," play-by-play said. "Let's take a look at what just happened."

The screen showed a wide view of the field with both teams lined up for the kickoff. The Cowboys' kicker strode toward and booted the ball, arcing it down the field. The view zoomed into the Patriots' return man, one yard deep in the end zone. He caught the ball, hesitated for a heartbeat and then sprinted upfield behind a phalanx of blockers. The crowd screamed. Cowboys and Patriots, attackers and defenders, converged on the ball carrier. Bodies collided, grappled and fell. Amid the chaos, a seam opened, and the carrier shot through with breathtaking speed. A single attacker hurtled toward him. The two lowered heads and crashed, helmet to helmet. A gunshot-like crack sounded. Carrier and attacker dropped as energy spilled from their bodies, and they sprawled in graceless heaps like lifeless crash dummies. Though unconscious, the carrier clutched the ball to his chest. Referees' whistles screeched, and players ceased their battle.

Hard hit but clean, thought Worthington.

"Bang. Bang. Eight seconds elapsed," the analyst said. The scene cut back to medical personnel working over the prone bodies. "But you do hate to see that happen. Changes have been made, specifically for players' safety, but the very nature of the game is physical."

"Oh, my God." Mike seemed stunned.

"Oh, they're probably fine, just being cautious." Worthington knew the routine. He thought, get to the thumbs up; in a few minutes, they'll strap the player to a board, hoist him onto the stretcher and cart him off; before he's rolled into the tunnel, they'll show a close up of the player—well, two players this time—flashing a thumbs up.

The man anticipated a flush of relief and the crowd's cheer. And the game would go on.

"Okay, we're going to step away for a moment," play-by-play said.

Pounding tanks and screaming fighter jets and hulking aircraft carriers filled the screen with the allure of video-game graphics. Worthington found the strength projected by these vignettes validating. Distracted, he massaged his sternum with his free hand.

"This is sponsored by the military?" Mike asked.

"It's a free country." Worthington dropped his hand. "Somebody has to defend us."

Mike stared in silence at the screen. Beer and truck commercials and a pitch from a former president for an erectile dysfunction drug followed like floats in a parade.

"Can we watch something else, instead of commercials?" Mike raised his eyebrows and stretched for the remote laying next to Worthington's free hand.

Worthington snatched the control. "No." The game came back on. "See."

Viewed from above, medical personnel leaned over one of the downed players strapped onto a board, his helmeted head restrained on both sides by orange padded supports. An EMT loosened the last screw securing the player's face mask and, with care, lifted it away, revealing closed eyes and slack features.

For Worthington. a cloud of doubt lingered a moment too long and crystallized into a question: Why? In a spasm of revulsion, he drove the thought away.

"Well, the situation here is unchanged," play-by-play said.

"Of course, at times like this," analyst said, "our thoughts and prayers go out to the players and their families."

"They are getting the best medical attention," play-by-play said. "So while we give them the time they need, we're going to cut to our New York studios for highlights from last weekend's games."

"Oh, crap." Worthington had seen the highlights already.

"Remote?" Mike asked.

"Fine." Worthington flipped it to him.

Mike snatched it out of the air with his left hand and, without a downward glance, keyed in a new channel.

A sickening irritation rooted in the man's gut. It was a diver. A different one with muted gold trim running the length of his dark suit, but with the same deep blue surrounding him, the same accelerating downward trajectory. "What the hell is this?"

"Free diving," said Mike. "It's so cool. Mono-fin. World record is over 100 meters or, you know, yards."

"I know what a meter is." But the image of a football field of water piled on top of him sent his heart racing. He craved a deep breath, but his chest tightened. "Why would anyone do this?"

"For the challenge."

_This is absurd. How does anyone make money off of this?_ "How does he breathe?"

"She. She's Alesha Zeephan. And she doesn't." He pointed to the corner of the screen. A stat box displayed her name next to an Italian flag icon with the elapsed time and a depth readout: past two minutes and ninety meters and counting. She kicked once more and glided. A small circular platform ringed with tags came into view. The depth reading bottomed out at 106 meters. She snatched a tag, pivoted and kicked to begin her ascent.

Surprised he'd been holding his breath, Worthington exhaled. Was he worried about a woman who took such absurd risks?

"Now comes the hard part," said Mike. "Climbing back up."

"Hard part? She could just float up to the surface." The diver pumped her wide mono-fin rapidly but made slower progress than on the descent.

"Nope. Negative buoyancy. Do you know what that means?"

"Sinking..." Worthington's chest tightened.

"Yeah. Close to the surface, with a lung full of air, you can float easily. But if you dive down, the water pressure compresses your body, your lungs, your internal organs. Below ten meters, you're denser than water. So, you sink."

_He's never talked so much. Since when is he such an authority?_ Ringing filled the man's ears. _Stop talking._

"And the deeper you go, the greater the pressure, and the more you're compressed, the faster you sink."

_Stop talking._ The diver was alone. Deep, deep blue. _Alone_.

"And if you're down too long—four, five or six minutes—you get hypoxia. Do you know what hypoxia is?

_Yes. No. I don't know._ Pain stabbed his chest. _So deep. Too much._

"A lack of oxygen. It affects your thought process. You can't tell what's up or down. You forget what you're doing. You stop swimming. You don't even care if you ever breathe again."

Stop talking.

Stop talking.

Stop.

Table of Contents

Episode 3: Me But Not Me

"Morning, Dad." Michael approached the breakfast bar with his bowl of almond-milk-soaked Cap'n Crunch in one hand and glass of orange juice in the other. He put them down and sat opposite his father.

His father shook his head. "That soy crap."

_He never asks questions, just states opinions as though they're facts._ Still, Michael felt compelled to reply. "No. It's almond milk." Something was eating away at the old man. During last night's talk, even if it had been in the limited language of sports, he sensed his father loosening up a bit; maybe unraveling half a thread was more accurate. "You okay?"

"Figure it out." His father's phone buzzed. He slid it out of his jacket's inner pocket, studied it for a moment and stowed it. With his stone face a degree stonier, he focused on the black and white of the sports section spread out on the counter before him.

In the silence that followed, Michael scooped through his Cap'n Crunch and chugged his juice. The sweet-tartness dissipated on his tongue. Maybe someday his father would respond to a question with an answer. He checked his phone. After all, this father-son chat was Danny's idea. No messages from her. First thing at school, they were supposed to visit a third-grade class to read or play games or something: Senior Mentors program, another one of Danny's ideas. And despite last night's heavy snowfall, there were no school delays or cancelations.

He messaged Danny: Another silent breakfast \- owg seems worse than ever

A few seconds later, his girlfriend replied: Owg?

Michael: Old white guy

Danny: Lol that's ur heritage

Michael: Not me!

Danny: Where do owgs come from? Ywgs!

Michael: Humph ttyl

He suppressed a laugh. Clutching his empty bowl and glass, he shifted forward in his seat and prepared to stand.

"No," his father said. "I am definitely _not_ okay."

Despite the hostile tone, Michael sensed a small invitation. He sat back and put his dishes down.

"This nonsense." His father slid a hand inside his dark suit jacket and rubbed his considerable belly as he descended into another indecipherable silence.

A few years ago, the dark suit had become his father's costume of choice. Michael remembered when his dad had first confronted the dilemma of his expanding belly. Sometimes he'd position his waistband along his equator; forced to hitch his belt out to its last notch, he seemed irritated with his clown-suit profile. Other times, he tightened his belt under his belly; as if he could claim a narrow waist's youthful virtues along with a prominent gut's right to eat and drink heartily. Finally, he solved the problem by hiding in the padded frame of a dark suit. He'd gotten some big promotion around that time, too.

"Total nonsense. The Patriots should not, and will not, ever sign that Colin Kaepernick as a backup quarterback." His father smacked an open palm on the newspaper. "Stupid!"

The slap shocked Michael, a sonic flashback of childhood punishments. Grudgingly, he resolved to play the game. "Well, look at the stats, Kap's the best available QB out there. Even _Brady_ can't play forever. Aren't the Patriots all about winning?"

"Kap? Mike, listen up. Your Kap hasn't played since 2016." His father jabbed a meaty finger at him. "And your Kap is a major distraction. Understand this—it's not about the individual's stats; it's about winning. That's the stat that matters."

"But that's my point." Michael shook his head. Kaepernick had knelt during _The Star Spangled Banner_ to protest police killing black men. For his father, it was not the kneeling itself—if Kap knelt to support our troops _,_ his father would wrap Kap in a camo flag and declare him a hero. Allegiance to the message, that mattered the most.

"Morning, all." His mother crossed the family room and parted the door curtains. The fresh snowfall heaped on the deck shone white. Diffused sunlight lit up the room.

"Morning, Mom," said Michael. Her presence brightened his mood.

His father grunted a greeting.

"Michael, looks like we got a lot of snow." She moved into the kitchen area. "You don't have a two-hour delay?"

"No." He waved his phone. "I checked."

"Two-hour delay," his father said. "We never had snow days when we were growing up."

"I think I can remember one or two." His mom opened a cabinet.

"Maybe if it was a blizzard. Hey, where's Connor?"

"Must still be asleep." She poured herself a bowl of cereal. "You didn't talk to him?"

His father's reddening face said he hadn't seen Connor at all since he came home last night. Michael's older brother was the ideal son: bigger, stronger, smarter; his father always told Michael so. Connor played linebacker in high school—he _lived_ football—and he made his college team as a walk-on. Everything always went Connor's way, but last night when Michael saw him, he seemed distant. He mumbled he just wanted to sleep and disappeared into his old room.

"We talked," said his mother. "I'm surprised he didn't come down to say hello."

Michael glanced back and forth between his parents. She seemed unperturbed, but his father's anger was ratcheting up again. Once, the two operated like well-matched cogs of a parenting machine; the enforcer and the informer never conceded a sliver of doubt between them. But after Michael started high school, and she went back to work, differences surfaced. Even her clothes changed; no longer indistinguishable from all the other moms, she explored colors and adapted current styles in interesting ways. His father concealed himself in dark suits.

She went to the refrigerator and claimed her lunch bag. "Robert, you're all set for today?"

"Of course." His father pushed his chair back, stood and headed for the garage.

"Michael?" she asked.

"Thanks, Mom. I'm buying lunch."

His father slammed the door on his way out. A moment later, as the garage door ratcheted open, Michael caught a wince on his mom's face.

She recovered and smiled. "Do you need a ride?"

"It's kind of out of your way." His high school and her job at the library were a ten-minute drive apart. "Are you sure?"

"No problem. It'll give us a chance to talk."

#

Michael threw his backpack and basketball gear bag onto the floor of his mom's SUV and climbed in. He buckled up as she backed out of the garage. Lately, he enjoyed riding with her and the conversations they'd share. Only a dusting of snow had fallen since he'd cleared the driveway last night. They passed their neighbor, a retired guy, who stood in his open garage with hands on his hips, surveying his blanketed driveway. As they rolled down the street, the sun came out. Kids at the bus stop scuttled back and forth in sidewalk labyrinths, tossing snowballs. Warm sun, wet snow: it was the perfect recipe for snowballs.

"Ah. So warm. I need sunshine" She powered her window down and reached her hand out with fingers spread, feeling the air. "Sometimes, in the middle of a bad storm, it's hard to believe that the sun's ever going to shine again."

Michael sank back into his seat. Why had his mother married his father? This question had gnawed at him for a while. When Danny said that his mom was the only parent she knew who was neither boring nor embarrassing, the answer solidified: his father seemed determined to be both, and his mother—she used to be okay with that, but now she seemed determined to figure things out.

"So how are you and Danny doing?"

"We're good."

His mom smiled. "I like her." She stretched her flattened hand out to catch the oncoming airstream like a wing. She pivoted her hand; it climbed and dove and then swooped up again. She pulled it in and placed her hands on the wheel at ten and two.

"How long have you two been going out?"

"Since September," he said. "Almost three months."

Ahead, a snow-suited boy summited a snowbank while holding a gray-white boulder overhead. He heaved it out into the street, and it smashed to pieces. Others heaved snowballs into the mess. Michael laughed as they drove through the debris.

"Hmmm. You're both seventeen." She furrowed her brow. "Let's talk."

Her change in tone put him on guard. _Oh, shit_. He scooped up his backpack and, trying to hide behind it, slouched down in his seat. _She's not going to—_

"I hope you're both using safe sex—I mean, _if_ you're having sex."

Shit. She is—

"Of course, it's important to prevent unwanted pregnancies and STIs. You know how to use condoms and dental dams?"

"Geez, Mom. Yeah. Health class." He flipped his hoodie up.

"Good. And you know where to get them?" His mother turned the car right onto a quiet street.

"Yes." _The Planned Parenthood clinic near the library._ He was relieved no school children were in sight because anyone within a hundred feet would sense his embarrassment. He tugged his hoodie low on his forehead and slid down in his seat. He and Danny had fooled around some, but nothing serious. He hoped that was the end of the conversation.

"Good." She twisted her grip on the steering wheel, making a tearing sound. She continued, "I was once seventeen. I... I had a friend—"

_What?_ Michael stared at his mom.

"Consent is important."

_Oh, my god._ He glanced at her. She met his gaze. He peeled his eyes around to take in the empty street ahead.

"I know this is uncomfortable, but please listen."

"Oh, yeah. I'm listening." _I'm so embarrassed. No one can ever know about this. It's too hot in here._ He powered his window down. Now, a cool breeze rushed in through both their windows.

"People should talk."

He pulled one foot onto his lap and busied himself tying and untying his high tops. _Ten more minutes until school._

"Michael?" A harsh urgency in her voice cut through his embarrassment.

He sat up.

"Do you understand consent?" she asked.

"Mom, what are you saying? I'd never do anything like that."

"No. Not that. I'm not talking about rape." The last word, she said in a whisper. She took a deep breath and blew it out. "I'm just saying—

Snow exploded off the side of her face and sprayed onto him. Her left hand flew to her face. Beyond her, across the street on the sidewalk, stood two boys: a short one wide-eyed in panic, a tall one hooting in celebration. His mom stomped on the brakes. The SUV skidded to a halt. Michael unbuckled, popped his door open and dropped a foot onto the ground before he realized he'd reacted. "Mom!"

With eyes squeezed shut, she searched in her pocketbook, emitting a soft moan.

Propelled by an uncoiling rage, he flew around the front of the SUV. The two boys bumped into each other in a scramble to escape. The short one fell. The tall one sprinted away. Michael vaulted the snowbank and pounced onto the sidewalk, towering over the downed boy. Belly up with eyes white, the boy, maybe eight years old, scooted away on heels and elbows.

"I didn't do it!" he said. "It wasn't me!"

Michael grabbed the boy's parka and yanked him to his feet. The boy's arms swam wildly, grabbing for air. Michael swung his right fist. The boy swallowed a scream, covering himself with his arms. An inch from the boy's face, Michael's fist stopped as if it had encountered an invisible barrier.

"Michael!"

The boy slapped at Michael's left hand clamped to the front of the boy's jacket. Tears ran down his cheeks. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry."

"Let him go!"

_I never punched anyone before. Never even tried._ Michael, still holding the boy with one hand, turned to his mother. Framed in the driver's window, she stared at him with white tissues, blotted red, pressed against her cheek. Repulsed by his violent outburst, Michael released the boy, who fell to his knees.

Michael helped the boy to his feet. "Why did you do that?"

"I don't know."

A part of him wanted to blame the eight-year-old for his blunder, and the impulse shamed him more.

"We were... we were just fooling around," the boy stammered. "I'm sorry."

"Don't apologize to me." Something about the boy rang familiar.

With downcast eyes, the boy pivoted toward the SUV. "I'm sorry, Mrs. Worthington. We didn't mean to—it was an accident."

His mother waved and nodded as if it to assure the boy that his apology was accepted.

Michael grabbed his shoulder and spun him back around. "What's your name?"

"Gregory Browning." A bubble of snot grew from his nose, pulsing in time with his ragged breaths. "Austin. My brother. He's on your team. I've seen you play."

Michael shook his head. _Austin's an asshole. And Gregory's a little brother. Like me._

"I got to, I got to—" The front of Gregory's faded jean's darkened. "Oh, no." He fought to suppress his sobs, but the pungent stench sealed any lingering doubt.

"Hey." Michael knelt at Gregory's eye-level and patted the boy's shoulder. "Come on. Calm down. Catch your breath."

"But the bus... the bus is coming." Gregory took several hitching breaths and swiped an arm across his nose, smearing goo over half of his face and the length of his sleeve. "What do I do?"

Michael sighed. "Where do you live?"

"The bus! The bus!"

The large yellow box screeched to a stop a block away. "Gregory, tell me where you live."

Gregory pointed to a white colonial two yards over. Down the street, the bus's doors clanged shut, and it rumbled up to speed. Like a wounded animal, he wailed, "The bus is coming!"

"Gregory, hold still." Michael scooped a handful of fresh snow and scrubbed the tears and snot from the boy's face and jacket sleeve. He held the boy firmly by the shoulders and gave him a gentle shake. "Listen up. Are your parents still home?"

"Yeah." Gregory's head pumped up and down. "My mom."

"Okay. Tell her you missed the bus. And change your clothes. She'll give you a ride."

Michael nudged Gregory toward his house. The boy stumbled, looking over his shoulder at Michael, and then he must have caught sight of the approaching bus because he took off running hard for home.

#

What do I tell Mom?

Gregory raced down the sidewalk, pumping his arms and legs, fighting the stiffness of his new winter coat as his wet pant legs scraped his thighs.

What do I say? She's going to be so mad. Ethan and I were just messing around, throwing snowballs at cars. Why did that lady have her window open? Mom's going to be so mad. Worse than when I forgot my backpack.

He stopped and clapped his hands to his chest. No straps. He reached around and slapped his back. No backpack. He spun and spied the bus stop. In front of the squealing bus, Michael Worthington climbed the snowbank and headed for his mom's car. But Gregory couldn't see his backpack anywhere.

I forgot it!

_That's bad._ He raced up his sidewalk. _But not snowball-throwing wet-my-pants bad._

He hopped up his front steps and grabbed the front doorknob. _Can't tell Mom. But no way can I take the bus._ He twisted the knob, eased the door open and peeked in.

"No. Who watches the local news?" Near the stairs, his mom was putting on her coat with her phone shoulder-pinched to her ear. "He died snowshoeing? And she accused someone of what? And they believe her?"

Gregory thought she was already mad about something, but he didn't know what. _She won't notice._ He stepped in and slammed the door behind him. "Mom! I forgot my backpack!"

#

Relieved the boy was headed toward his front door, Michael crossed the street to his mother's open window. She had the rearview mirror pivoted toward her, examining her face. She seemed to have the bleeding under control.

The bus squealed to a stop, blocking Gregory's house from Michael's view. Its doors popped open onto the deserted bus stop. The driver, a wiry old man with shaggy hair and a pronounced slouch, appraised Michael and his mother through his open window. "Where's Gregory?"

"He said he forgot something," Michael said. "His mom's going to give him a ride."

The driver looked toward Gregory's house and shrugged. "Fine." He clanked the door closed, shifted gears and hit the gas. The bus whined and rumbled as it drew away. Halfway down its length, the taller boy, Gregory's accomplice, stared out of a window with owl-eyes and then slid down in his seat, hiding. Michael knew how he felt.

"Michael, get in the car," said his mother. "Now."

He hung his head, trudged around the front of the SUV, climbed in and shut the door.

"What were you thinking?" She stamped on the gas. The SUV accelerated away.

"He hit you—"

"Did you listen to anything I said?"

"Yeah, but—"

"Little boys make stupid mistakes. Should big boys hit them?"

"You know what? I wanted to hit him. But I couldn't." Michael pulled his hood down low over his eyes. Always the punching bag, never the puncher; that was the little brother's inheritance. It had been a few years since Connor had last hit him, yet Michael half expected it every time they were alone, even for five seconds.

In a quiet voice, he said, "I'm pretty messed up."

"What?"

"Forget it." He stared out the window. Why should he care? The cold wind blew across his face, and his eyes grew wet. He rubbed them and powered up his window. That's what he should do: seal himself in.

"Put your window up," he said. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her turn toward him; an implied offer to continue their conversation. Instead, he stated, "So you don't get hit again."

That's all he should have done: just say, 'Put your window up.' He slid his phone out, thumbed the white button and stared at the rectangles of text without focusing on the words; he couldn't take in any more. His mom's window swooshed closed.

He plugged in his earbuds and picked a playlist full of loud music. The subsonic bass line kicked in, and he settled into a rhythmic nod. The words brought focus to his anger. Tinny pop band music infected his private soundscape; his mom had turned on the car radio. He flipped his volume higher to drown her out.

In front of him, blue sky turned slate gray. Houses passed by full of other people's lives and other people's problem: other big brothers hitting other little brothers, other parents arguing, everybody yelling, nobody listening—why should he listen? Was he supposed to be the peacemaker? His family was messed up. Danny expected way too much of him.

But I didn't hit the kid. I never hit anyone. That's not me.

Still, he hated this floundering existence in the middle ground; not capable of attacking and not wanting to be a target. He should focus on what he knew: basketball, grades and Danny. But it was hard to think things through when he felt like this. He was a senior, and the new players had game; if he got dropped from varsity now, his playing days were over. And then where would he be? His mom turned left into the school entrance and merged into the drop-off line made narrow by last night's snowfall. He should hop out now and leave her sitting in the line all alone.

But he didn't.

She had tried to talk to him. Weird, but in her way, she was trying to help. He wanted to pull out his earbuds and push his hood back, but he couldn't because the part of his brain that made thoughts and the part that told his muscles what to do weren't talking to each other either. Their car inched up one spot and then another. In front of them, cars emptied. They were next in line, and he'd have to get out. He raised his right hand, the one further from his mom, and popped out an earbud, and his volume dropped. He heard her music: a peppy eighties song. He pulled out his other earbud and pushed back his hood. She turned the radio off.

"Talk to you later?" he asked, not looking up.

"Yeah. Always," she said.

He snuck a glance at her. She reached a hand out to touch his shoulder but stopped an inch away.

"Okay. Bye." He jumped out of the car with his backpack and gear bag and joined the press of students headed for the front doors, jostling shoulder to shoulder. Beneath his sneakers, rock salt powdered the cement. He pulled his hood up. He couldn't even remember what he had first period.

From behind him, a couple of boys shouted taunts. Michael spun about. Two alpha seniors, laughing, jammed through the crowd without apology, headed right for him. They bounced other kids aside as they came. Michael stared down the first. No middle ground: he wouldn't tolerate them even touching him. They blew by him, one on his right, one on his left, slamming him back and forth and spinning him forward. He dropped his bags. They didn't even see him. He wasn't a Connor. Was he a Gregory? He scooped up his bags. _At least I didn't fall down._

From behind, a girl shouted, "Hey, assholes. Stop acting like assholes."

Michael shuffled toward the building. The crowd thinned. At least someone said something, he thought. But it's easy for girls. Boys aren't going to hit them. Someone put a hand on his shoulder. He shook it off.

"Hey. Are you okay?"

He froze in place as some kids filed by. Danny replaced her hand on his shoulder and turned him with a nudge. He stared down at their matching black canvas high tops.

"Shitty morning," was all he managed.

"Wow," Danny said. "Things take a bad turn after breakfast with Dad?"

"Yeah." Michael raised his head and met her gaze. She brushed her dark hair from her eyes. With her signature jean jacket, baggy pants and lanky skater-boy looks, she was the mysterious new kid who had showed up the first day of senior year; someone with no history pinning them down. And the two of them had hit it off right away. _How have I not screwed this up?_

"So, what happened? You didn't text me back."

"I don't know. My dad's getting even weirder. And my mom wanted to have this heavy conversation. While she's driving me to school. And then this kid hits her with a snowball—"

"Oh. Shit. Your mom okay?"

"Yeah. I think so," he said. But she wasn't okay. She wanted to talk to Michael about sex and consent, and then he almost beat up a little kid in front of her. He was messed up. He wrapped his arms tight around his chest.

"You okay?"

"I'm fine." Why was she always asking? Like she could fix this. Late kids sauntered by, and the last car drove off. It was just him and Danny, standing there, facing each other.

"I'm late for class," he said.

"No, you're not."

"I'm not?"

"Nope. Senior Mentors. Remember?" She glanced at her wrist watch. "Short bus should be here in five."

"Oh, right." Danny had signed them up to play games with a third-grade class—they were supposed to be good examples of what the kids could aspire toward.

They stood sneakers to sneakers, and she smiled at him. Something about her seeped into him and warmed him in a way that made him stop hating himself for a minute—even if it meant spending that minute reading to third graders. He enjoyed being with Danny, but this feeling was more than that. She made him believe he actually wanted to read to third graders.

No one else was near. He said, "I'd like to... I like you."

She smiled again. "I like you, too."

He leaned toward her a bit, or maybe he hadn't. Maybe it was just this warm feeling sloshing around in his chest, pulling him off balance. He straightened up. _Don't mess this up._

Her smile widened. She took him by the arm and guided him toward a group waiting at the curb.

He slung his bags over his outside shoulder.

"So, what's so heavy?" she asked.

"Huh?"

"What you and your mom were talking about."

"Oh. Yeah. Nothing."

Danny's phone buzzed. As she read the screen her eyebrows rose. "Wow." She checked the other five Senior Mentors waiting for the bus. Most had their heads bent to their screens. She whispered to Michael, "He's not here yet. Do you know Louis Singer?"

"Yeah, he's on my team."

"This is messed up. His older brother, Eric, died last night in a freak snowshoe accident." She thumbed the screen to read on. "Ever hear of a Julie Creggan?"

"No. I don't know that name."

Danny said, "Says here this Julie tried to save Louis's brother. She was his girlfriend. Oh. Wow. There's something about her being sexually assaulted by her boss."

"That doesn't make sense."

"Maybe it doesn't, and maybe it does. Huh. She works at Spurion out by the airport."

Michael's stomach flip-flopped. His father worked there, had for decades, but Michael hesitated to offer that. Instead, he had this sickening sensation of rats racing in his belly. Other people said "butterflies fluttering" but that was far too pretty to describe this dread. This was rats. He'd felt it last night while watching his father's meltdown. He'd thought his father was on the verge of finally let his guard down, but maybe Michael had seen only what he wanted to see, denying the ugliness that was there the whole time. He'd just glimpsed that ugliness within himself: he'd wanted to punch an eight-year-old, a part of him still did; he had to own that. Yeah. Still. A fifty-three-year-old white guy crying in his whiskey while watching some random TV show didn't make him guilty, but it sure didn't make him innocent either.

"Doesn't your dad work at Spurion?" Danny asked.

He nodded, and she grimaced.

From across the parking lot, the short bus rumbled toward them, ready to deliver them to their destination.

Table of Contents

Episode 4: Elementary School

Gregory crouched behind the railing at the top of the stairs. He had on clean jeans now; the piss-wet ones, he'd stuffed under his bed. It wasn't his fault; Gregory thought Michael Worthington was going to punch his lights out, and he was in high school. Still, the jeans smelled bad, so he left a window open. It was really cold outside; it'd snowed a lot last night. His jeans, they'd be dry when he got home from school, and he'd put them in the laundry basket then. He spotted his mom down at the front door with her coat on, and a pile of bags at her feet. She had his backpack on her shoulder while she yakked on her phone, mad about something. He didn't care, as long as it wasn't about him.

She covered her phone with one hand. "Gregory, hurry up. You're making me late."

He pushed a hand through his hair to spike it and launched down the stairs, hammering his heels on the hardwood steps. The jolts in his legs felt good. He grabbed the railing, tugging on it with every foot-bang.

"Whoa! Slow down," his mom said.

"You said 'Hurry up.'" He jumped the last three steps, and pounded a two-footed landing. He snatched his winter coat from the end post and threw it on. "That's my backpack."

"Yeah. I know." His mom rolled her eyes.

"Wow! I bet you can see your brains." He took his pack from her.

She smiled. "I can't believe you're eight years old." She ran a hand over his hair, flattening his spikes.

"And I'm intelligent, too." He wanted her to be proud of him. He'd made it into the third grade's smart math group, same as his buds, Kev and Nick. He plunged his fingers into his hair to spike it, slipped past her and opened the front door. "Race you."

He leaped down the front steps, skidded on a patch of ice and raced past the snow mounds lining their front walk. He climbed into the rear seat of his mom's car. "I win."

He settled his backpack on his lap. It was last year's and looked used. Maybe his mom should get him a new one before someone made fun of him. Through the iced-over windows, he watched her baby-step down the front walk. Her long coat flapped open, showing bare knees. She carried a lot of stuff: a pocketbook, and a briefcase, and a lunch bag, and a shoe bag. He got all his stuff into one backpack, and he had only one pair of shoes: hiking boots, big and waterproof like Kev and Nick had.

She opened the rear door, tossed her bags onto the seat next to him and then plopped in the front. She started the car and pressed a few buttons. The radio came on. He reached between the front seats and turned it down.

"Mom, why do you have to carry so much stuff?" Maybe he should've helped her.

She shook her head. She did that a lot. She grabbed an ice scraper and climbed out and started cleaning the windows.

Gregory's attention drifted to the radio man's serious voice: "—died last night in a tragic accident on the Metacoment trail, a victim of Winter Storm Alpha. The deceased, Eric Singer, was twenty-four years old. I'm here with his companion, twenty-six-year-old Julie Creggan."

Mom and Dad know the Singers. They're going to be upset.

Serious man then said, "Ms. Creggan, you two were snowshoeing in the woods during Winter Storm Alpha. May I ask why?"

"We shouldn't have been. Eric wanted to—I guess he thought—I don't know what he thought—I'd been assaulted at work, by my boss—"

"Excuse me, Ms. Creggan. Do you mean sexually assaulted?"

_Sex you all salt? What the heck was that?_ The whole thing made him nervous. He leaned forward and flipped through a bunch of stations until he found a rap song he liked. His mom moved to his side of the windshield. He'd goof around and cheer her up. He cranked the volume and sat back, bopping his head and singing loud. The one word the radio dropped out he sang extra loud. Kev and Nick laughed when he did that at recess.

"Hey." She smacked her hand on the glass and glared at him. "Turn it off."

"What?" Gregory got hot. He knew his face was turning red.

"I said, 'Turn it off.'"

Even though he did, she shook her head and stayed mad. And then she stomped around the front of the car and got in. He felt her glare.

"I didn't do anything wrong." He kept his head down because she kept burning a stare at him. "I was just singing my song."

"First, it's not your song. And second, you can't say that word."

"Why not?" He didn't want to give it up. It was the word that Kev and Nick laughed loudest at, like they were all getting away with something. He crossed his arms. "It's just a word."

"It's more than a word. We're white, and we're not allowed to say the N-word, and that's that."

"Yeah, but—that's stupid. Words are just words."

She caught his eye in the rearview mirror and held up a warning finger. "I'm telling you, never say that word again. Got it?"

He nodded his head but kept his arms folded to hide his crossed fingers. It was a little kid thing to do, but it still worked, and he got to keep the word.

"Oh, my god." She sighed, shifted the car into reverse and backed out. "Put your seatbelt on." He did that.

On the way to school, she gabbed on her phone about work stuff, and it was all Julie Creggan this and Julie Creggan that, and how his mom didn't need this on a Friday, because Fridays were supposed to be her easy day. He thought it weird that she was talking so much about Julie Creggan; his parents knew the Singers, not the Creggans. And he felt bad about her yelling at him and him crossing his fingers and now her ignoring him. He wanted her to tell him that everything would be okay and give him a hug. But it was too late when they pulled up to the building entrance. If anyone saw them hug now, he'd look like a baby. He hopped out and shut his door quick.

In the hallways, he searched for Kev and Nick—they'd laugh about his mom and the N-word, that would make him feel better—but he didn't see them. Outside his classroom, he stuffed his coat and backpack into his cubby. When he went inside, kids were chatting up a storm, and the neat rows of brown desks and blue chairs were being broken up by some high-schoolers. One tall black guy brushed his head on last week's word mobiles hanging from the ceiling. Where were Kev and Nick? He finally spotted them in the library corner, laughing. Not at him? He realized he was standing with Tonya and Kalini, the black girl and the Asian girl. He got away, and hurried over to punch Kev and Nick in the shoulders. Bam. Bam. "Hey, man, what's up?" On the shelf behind his buds, next to a picture book on spiders sat a new Clifford book. Gregory kind of liked the Big Red Dog stories. He read them all the time before he got to be friends with Kev and Nick. Spiders were cool now.

"My mom said Senior Mentors from the high school are here to teach us about cooperation." Kev made air quotes around "cooperation."

"Huh?" Gregory wasn't sure if he should laugh or not. Nick scrunched his usual this-is-so-stupid face, so Gregory acted a little mad but didn't say anything. More kids came in and seemed to be as clueless as him.

"Hey. You missed the bus." Kev sounded like he'd caught Gregory making a stupid mistake.

"Uhhh." Gregory thought of the piss-soaked jeans that were Michael Worthington's fault. _Kev's the smartest. Does he know? Oh, man. Were he and Nick laughing at me?_ "I, I, I forgot my backpack. My mom had to give me a ride."

"So lame. Just like this." Kev waved at the room. Nick nodded while making his so-stupid face.

"Yeah, I know,' Gregory said. "We should do more spider stuff." He searched the pictures on the walls for new spider ones. Ms. Gibbons was always adding them.

"Good morning, class." At the front of the room, Ms. Gibbons raised two bunny-fingers and beamed her teacher smile. "Listening" and "Being Respectful" were at the top on the class rules poster behind Ms. Gibbons. Other kids raised their bunny ears high. Kev and Nick and Gregory weren't little kids so they barely raised their hands. It was good enough.

"Very good." Ms. Gibbons was happy about everything. "Our high school's Senior Mentors are making desks clusters. We're going to break into groups and play some fun new games."

The five high-schoolers scraped and skidded the desks into five islands spaced around the room. Then they joined Ms. Gibbons in the front, standing in a row along the whiteboard.

"I'll let our guests introduce themselves." Ms. Gibbons motioned toward the first.

The tall black guy said, "I'm Millard Haynes."

Millard towered over Ms. Gibbons. He had to be a basketball player. And he had thick sideburns. Maybe he stayed back a year. He made Gregory nervous.

"Millard, please write your name on the board." Ms. Gibbons handed him a black marker.

"Sure." Millard studied the marker. "Dry erase. Good." He wrote his name behind him on the board. He had kind of artsy handwriting. "I'm a senior. Duh." He made a goofy smile and handed the marker to the girl next to him.

"Hi. My name is Susan Wilson." She seemed nice. Gregory wondered if he'd get on her team. She wrote "Susan" with curvy letters and a smiley face tucked into the "a" and then handed the marker off to the next student.

"Hello, everyone. I'm Danny Woods." Danny clicked the marker cap on and off while scanning the room. This Danny didn't add up. Danny's a boy's name, but they sounded like a girl. Baggy jeans slid down on skinny hips enough to show striped boxers—not a girl. But that tight black T-shirt—probably not a boy. Still, they had muscle arms. And the haircut, long dark bangs in front and shaved in the back, could go either way. Gregory didn't know what to think.

Danny wrote their name all in capitals, and passed the marker along to a boy with long black hair hanging in his face. The boy tied his hair back in a stubby ponytail. "Hey, I'm Michael Worthington."

Gregory didn't hear anything after that except a pounding in his ears, and he caught a whiff of stale piss. _When did he get here?_ He squeezed his piss muscle hard. _I'm not pissing myself. Not again._ He wanted to cry, but he stuffed that feeling down. _Not doing it._ He checked Kev, who did a blank stare. Nick wore a low-level this-is-so-stupid face. They both seemed bored. Gregory was safe.

He's missed the last introduction. Everyone around him was yakking and moving. Some kids found seats at one of the clustered-desk islands; each senior was stationed at a different one. Other kids studied the whiteboard where Ms. Gibbons wrote lists of students under each of the seniors' names. He pushed forward to see the board better. The fifth senior was a Margaret— definitely a girl's name. He wasn't on her list. He scanned Susan's, nope; Millard's, nope. _Oh, man._ His name was on two lists: Danny's and Michael's. And Kev and Nick were on Michael's. _Oh, man._ _Why is my name on two lists?_

Kids were claiming seats, and Michael's island was full. Gregory didn't want to be anywhere near him, but he didn't dare get separated from Kev and Nick. He raced over. "Hey, somebody's in my seat."

Ms. Gibbons appeared. "Whoa, Gregory, hold on. We have two Gregorys now." She pointed to the new kid sitting between Kev and Nick. "Remember?" She placed her hands on his shoulders and nudged him toward the next desk island. "So, Gregory Neumann is with Michael's group, and Gregory Browning is with Danny's group."

"Heh-heh, you're Browning," Kev said. "Get it? Turning brown like toast."

Kev and Nick laughed, and other kids, too. Gregory felt hot, and his eyes got watery. He hated his last name.

"People! Best behavior." Ms. Gibbons steered him to the open seat next to Danny.

"Yeah, but—I got to sit with my buds." He panicked, on the edge of being left out. He spoke fast, even for him. "I got to sit with Kev and Nick." Ms. Gibbons left him standing behind the open chair and hurried off to another island.

"Kavanaugh?" asked Danny.

"Not Kavanaugh! I said. Kev. And. Nick."

"Oh, wow! Too weird. Well, come on. We'll have fun." Danny offered a fist-bump, but he left Danny hanging as slumped into the open chair. He couldn't believe this was happening.

"Everybody!" In the center of the room, Ms. Gibbons clapped twice. "Remember: do your best."

"Fine." Gregory glanced around his new island. "Oh, man." It was Tonya with her crazy braids and clinky beads, and Kalini with her shiny black hair, and Becky and a skinny boy he didn't recognize. In the center sat a box of Scrabble. "Really?" Not that he wasn't good at it. His parents made him play at home, and he always won, but it was boring. "We're playing Scrabble?"

"Not Scrabble," Danny said. "This is Scrabble X."

He hard-squinted at Danny and then scrutinized the game box. "It says Scrabble. We have it at home."

"It looks like Scrabble, but we're going to play a version called 'X.' To make it extra fun, there are a few different rules—"

"You can't change the rules."

"Sure, we can." Danny flashed a big smile, and the girls giggled. "So, in Scrabble X, the number one rule is: we all help each other—"

"Right. It doesn't matter whether you win or lose—"

"Good. We all—"

"It matters whether _I_ win or lose." He laughed hard. "My dad says that." He checked over his shoulder. Kev and Nick laughed, and Kev gave him a thumbs up. So, he'd won them back. On their island, Michael Worthington was setting up a game board with a world map on it, not a bunch of plain squares like Scrabble. Or stupid Scrabble X.

"Very clever." But Danny's face said that Gregory wasn't so clever. If Danny was so smart then what were they?

"Are you a boy or a girl?" Gregory asked.

"I feel like some of both." Danny lifted the lid from the box.

"Yeah, but—you got to be one or the other," said Gregory.

"Do I? Is that a rule?" Danny unfolded the board, placed it in the middle and handed out the wooden tile racks. "We'll share. Another important rule of Scrabble X."

Gregory didn't like that either, but there were only four racks for the six of them at their desk island. Danny went on and on about how the main point of the game was that everyone did well, but he hoped no one expected him to share his stuff—especially with the weird boy next to him. Becky said something to that boy and placed a tile rack between them. He was glad she was stuck with him. And Tonya and Kalini paired up, too. Gregory turned the board to face himself, like he did at home, so he could read it better.

Danny wrote something at the top of the scoring paper. Gregory noticed their arm veins stuck out. Danny said, "How about we go around and share our names? I'm Danny. And you are..." They raised eyebrows at him.

"Everyone knows me. I'm Gregory."

"Thank you. And you are?" Danny gave another eyebrow-raise invitation to the boy next to Gregory, but he didn't answer.

"That's Ronnie," Tonya said. "He doesn't talk much." She leaned toward Kalini with her hair beads clacking and whispered, "And he's not really in our class."

Danny acted like it was no big deal, but Gregory remembered that a few special-needs kids showed up for gym and art. That meant that Ronnie was going to lose for sure. Ronnie kept his head down while Tonya and Kalini and the other girl, Becky, introduced themselves. Becky was kind of fat.

"Oh, man." Gregory was trapped with Asian girl, black girl, special-needs boy, and chubby Becky, and whatever this Danny was. He knew what his dad would say. Under his breath, he said, "This table is like the United Nations."

"That's cool," said Danny.

Gregory scrunched his face like Nick did.

"Let's get going." Danny pulled a handful of letter tiles from the black bag and passed it to Gregory. He plucked out his seven, loaded them onto his wooden rack and handed the bag past Ronnie to Becky. She pulled out seven and placed them on their rack. Ronnie shuffled them all around, over and over. If she wanted to let him mess around, that was her business.

"Whoever has the longest word goes first," Danny said. Ronnie's hand shot up even though he kept his head down.

"Yeah, but—that's not the rule," Gregory said.

"Scrabble X. Remember? It's X for extra fun." Danny said. "Hmm. I've got a four-letter word. What about everyone else?"

Kalini said, "Three." Tonya nodded. Ronnie stretched his hand higher. Gregory wondered if it might shoot off and hit the ceiling.

Gregory stared at his letters and wished for a big word to pop into his head but only small ones dribbled in. "I got a three-letter word. I didn't get good letters."

Becky said, "We've got a big word." Ronnie dropped his hand.

"Go ahead," said Danny.

Becky whispered to Ronnie, "You do it." He placed six tiles on the board: LETTER.

"Ha!" Tonya said. "Your word is 'Letter.' Get it?

"That's kind of funny," Kalini said.

Everyone acted like Becky was so smart, but Gregory just said 'Letter' a bunch of times; she stole that idea from him. To top it off, Ronnie missed the center star, and his word ran the wrong way, not facing Gregory and not lining up with the double- and triple-score messages in the squares. Becky plopped her pointer finger on the L-tile and tilted her head different ways, but the tile stayed glued to the spot.

"Let's do this." Danny rotated the board away from Gregory and toward Ronnie and Becky.

Gregory grabbed at the board. "Yeah, but—"

"Seems fair," said Tonya. "We'll read sideways, and I bet Danny can read upside-down."

"Oh, man." Gregory sat back in his chair and crossed his arms tight. Becky arranged LETTER across the center star, now going the right way because the board had been moved to go their way. With the double word bonus, she—and Ronnie—were starting out with a big word and a decent score. At least they didn't get the fifty-point bonus for a seven-letter word.

Gregory peeked at the lone remaining tile in Ronnie's rack and clamped a hand over his mouth. Stupid. Special-ed boy had an S, and he'd missed an easy play.

"Oh, Ronnie, Becky, if you have an S," said Danny, "you can pluralize 'LETTER.'"

"Yeah, but—" Gregory shot back. "Their turn's over, and you can't help them." His parents did help him when he got stuck or missed something obvious, but that wasn't for everyone.

"What's the number one rule of Scrabble X?" asked Danny.

Gregory said, "Yeah but—"

"We help each other," Kalini said.

"Yes!" Danny high-fived Kalini.

Ronnie tapped his pointer finger on the lone tile, and Becky added the S to LETTER.

Danny tallied up the score. "Seven times two _plus_ the fifty bonus points. That's sixty-four from Ronnie and Becky. We are off to a flying start."

Gregory forced himself not to look at the scoresheet. He didn't want to see Ronnie and Becky's big numbers. He had to win, but he had lousy letters. His best word was bad. B-A-D. Only six points.

"Oh, Tonya, look!" Kalini rearranged the tiles on their rack.

"And we get the double-word bonus." Tonya placed JUG on top of Becky's S.

"Jugs. Heh, heh. That's funny." Gregory glanced over his shoulder, but Kev and Nick hadn't heard him. No one laughed.

"Why so funny?" Danny acted like Gregory had said something serious.

"I don't know." He slid down in his seat. He didn't know what it meant. It was Kev's funny word. Kev said it yesterday at recess, and all the boys laughed. And JUGS was a bunch of points. "Oh, man."

Danny counted up the score, "Twenty-four," and wrote it down. "Good job, team."

Gregory kept his head down to focus on his letters.

"Okay. My turn." Danny played GREW along the top of Becky's LETTERS. "GREW across, and EL and WE down for seventeen." Gregory's mom made three or four words going every which way, too, but her points never added up to that much. Danny wrote down the score. "That puts us over 100. Yay, team."

Gregory stewed in his seat. That's what his mom called it when he fumed. Everyone looked at him, and he felt hot. He should be able to beat these kids easy, but his brains wouldn't work. He scrambled his tiles around every which way and got: NOSDABA. If only that was a real word, then he'd be winning. Maybe it was. He used to win at home with that trick, but lately his dad started pulling out the dictionary to challenge him. No. Gregory had only one word, and that was BAD. And he didn't know where to put it.

"How ya doing, Greg?" Danny asked.

"My name's not Greg. It's Gregory." He didn't like it when people called him by the wrong name, but that gave him an idea.

"Sorry. My bad. Gregory."

"I'm okay... Dan." Gregory waited for some squirming. Instead, Danny smiled like it was no big deal. So, Gregory decided for himself that the boy-name didn't fit. Even though Danny wouldn't say so, she had to be a girl.

"So, need any help?" Danny-girl asked.

"I got it." But he didn't get it. Usually, his mom would point out something he'd missed, and he'd take her help, but she wasn't here. If only he was at Kev and Nick's table playing their game. Not stupid Scrabble X with the United Nations.

"Let us help. Do you have a word?" Danny asked.

"Of course, I have a word." But he wanted a winning one. Tonya had a big smile plastered on her face. Kalini switched their letters around. She seemed happy, too. Ronnie and Becky had another word ready. "Oh, man."

"Say your word."

Gregory stewed some more.

"Hey. Gregory," Tonya said. "The number one rule of Scrabble X is that we all help each other." She said it like she was practically singing, and she high-fived Becky, and everyone laughed like they were celebrating. Except Ronnie.

Gregory hated how happy they were and that made it harder for his brains to think. He was taking way too long, and it was their fault that his game was ruined. And this Danny—

"We'll help. Show us your word." She sounded safe like his mom, and that made him a little less embarrassed.

"But it doesn't go anywhere."

"Put it on the board and... we'll find a place for it."

He scrunched his face like Nick. "Yeah, but—it's not a lot of points." He dropped BAD on the board in front of him.

"Oh, this is so bad," Tonya said, extra sassy, and the other girls laughed with her.

"Come on, team," Danny said. "Let's work together." The girls quieted.

"It is a tough one," said Kalini.

"I got an idea," Danny said. "Stick it on top of the second E in LETTERS."

"Bad-E? Baddy? That's a word?" Gregory wanted it to be—it made BAD into a four-letter word and it looked better and was more points—but somebody would pull out a dictionary.

"Yeah. Like the knight _bade_ the lady a good evening." Danny acted it out with a flowery old-theater voice and bowed and offered her hand to Gregory like he was the lady and she was the knight. Everyone laughed—not at him, he didn't think—but like they all were having regular fun. Still, he felt a little weird as he positioned his word off of Ronnie's E.

"Nine more points for us and puts us at... 114." Danny scratched down the score.

Gregory fought the urge to check the scoresheet. He didn't want to be reminded about everyone else's high scores. Even with help, he was in last place. But he pulled three good letters from the black bag and added to his old letters, new good words were possible. Maybe he could catch up. How far behind was he? He peeked at Danny's paper, but it didn't make sense. There weren't four columns of numbers, one under each player, or pair of players' names. There was a _single_ name called "SCORE" with a _single_ list of numbers under that.

"Hey! You're doing it wrong," Gregory said.

"Why do you think that?" Danny calmed her face like his mom did when Gregory was supposed to figure something out for himself.

But there was nothing to figure out. "Where's everyone's scores?"

"All right here." Danny waved at the one list of numbers.

"Yeah, but—there can't be _one_ score for all of us."

"Are you sure?"

"Hey _,_ man _,_ " Tonya said. _"_ You need to get your elbows out of your ears. We're all in this together."

"Yeah, but—who's winning and losing?" Gregory asked. "Someone always has to beat everyone else. Everyone knows that."

"Really?" Danny assumed a deep-thinker pose. "And yet we're all playing Scrabble X."

"And X is for extra fun!" Becky stretched one hand high across the board toward Danny.

Danny flashed a smile and touched a high-five with Becky.

Gregory wouldn't admit it, but a part of him wanted a high-five from Danny, too. Still, he squirmed in his seat because he didn't get why everyone was so happy.

"And X is for extra intense." Danny resumed the thinker pose, but her smile stuck. "So, how about this? If—as a team—we hit 500 points, then we all win, but if we score under 500, then we all lose."

"We win or lose together," said Tonya. "That's so cool."

"Yeah, but—" Gregory scanned the table full of United Nation kids staring back at him. "We can't all be on one team."

Danny made a scrunch face, kind of like Nick's but not laughing inside, more hurting inside. "Whether we admit it or not, that's the way it is."

Gregory had no idea if Danny was talking about Scrabble X or something else, and he didn't think any of the other kids knew either. But everyone tightened their faces.

"Five hundred points," said Tonya.

Danny nodded. "It's a big challenge."

"Gregory, come on," Kalini said. "We can do it together."

"No way," he said. Nobody got 500.

Becky said, "I think we can do it." Ronnie didn't say anything. Becky rubbed her hands together. "We have a good word." Down from the T in LETTERS, she played UMOR.

Gregory scrunched his face. Becky and special-ed boy got lucky the first time, but TUMOR was definitely a funny word and one point worse than BAD. "That's so lame."

"Don't say that," Danny said.

"Yeah, but—it is."

Ronnie kept his head bowed as he traced his pointer finger down the side of TUMOR and then across the bottom of the board.

"Oh, I see," Danny said. "You're setting us up for a triple-word score."

"Whatever," said Gregory. So, special-ed boy got lucky again.

Across the middle of TUMOR, Tonya and Kalini played ADMIT. Danny tacked on an S to spell out SPOOF, making two words. One hit a double-word score, and people laughed and smiled.

The board did look different from what Gregory had ever seen. Instead of short words packed in tight around the center star, long words stretched out leaving plenty of room to connect more. It looked cool, like they were making a real crossword puzzle. He glanced at the scoresheet. Only 164. Nowhere near 500. Even through everyone was acting so happy, they were losing, and he wasn't going to be a loser with them.

"Gregory, your turn." Danny leaned toward him. "Do you need—"

"No. I don't need help." Help was for little kids. He pulled his tile rack close so nobody could see his letters. They were his, and he'd do what he wanted. He plunked his W and A on top of the R from GREW to make WAR.
"We'll get more points if you play that off of the J in JUGS."

If Gregory didn't have his own score, why should he care? "I want this word. Six points."

"Your choice." Danny tapped her fist against her chin, blowing on it.

"Gregory, do you want us to lose?" Kalini asked.

The way she said, "us," she seemed to be including him, too. That confused him. "I don't know." For a second—no, that was stupid.

"Okay," Danny said. "New Scrabble X rule: if you choose to, you may show your letters to everyone. See. Like this." Danny spun her tile rack around facing the board. "And accept suggestions from anyone."

"X is for extra helpful," Becky said.

Gregory wasn't fooled. Danny had bad letters: lots of As and Is. X was for extra desperate. Still, Kalini's question stuck to him. Did he want them to lose?

"We're next," Becky said. Ronnie swung their tile rack around. They had EVERY with a couple of other letters.

"Play it here." Kalini pointed to the A in ADMIT. "You can connect to it with AY. That's a short word." Ronnie took her advice.

"We don't we need these anymore." Kalini put her and Tonya's letters on the desk in front of them and tossed their tile rack into the box. Danny and Becky did, too. But Gregory kept his because he played the game the right way. Kalini made a sour face, and Danny looked at him weird.

"What do you want?" he asked her.

Danny shrugged. "What do you want?"

"I don't know." Maybe he did want to be part of the United Nations kids' team, and that scared him—a lot. He stared at his last word: WAR for six points. He'd stuck it to them—to Kalini and Danny and to himself, too. If they lost, and he didn't help, didn't he still lose? There were no take-backs because those were the rules—the real rules. But next turn, he'd get a big word and save the game.

He tried to come up with one while they yapped and yakked about how many points for this or that. For some reason, everyone—except him—had turned their tiles toward Ronnie. Special-ed boy didn't talk, but the others let him rearrange their letters to make new words. Gregory found that distracting. Tonya and Kalini played a five-letter word for 32 points. Danny said they broke 200, but then the big senior, even with help, only got 14 points. On Gregory's turn, he tried his best—not that he took any help—but only managed a measly 12-pointer. He'd score a big winner on his next turn.

Everyone got doubly serious, like they were trying to solve world hunger. Over at Kev and Nick's desk island, people looked super intense. He wondered what their game was. And Michael Worthington didn't look so scary scrunched into a third-grader's chair.

Becky and Ronnie hit a double-word. But Tonya and Kalini set down a five-letter word that wasn't worth much. And then Danny played a little word for only four points. Everyone seemed thrilled about it.

"Oh, man." Gregory slapped the desk. "Four is your best? You're a senior."

"We're closing in on 300," Danny said. "Our strategy could pay off."

"Yeah, but—the strategy is to score a lot of points."

" _Hey, man._ " Tonya snapped her head side to side. "First of all, Danny's following the plan. And second of all, why do you care all of a sudden? Such an idiot."

"Hey. No name calling," Danny said.

Tonya fumed.

There was a plan? Gregory shielded his tile rack with his hands and scanned the board. Then it hit him: the little words built the crossword puzzle out toward the edges of the board where the triple-word scores sat. They had three set up to go. Even his last word, by accident, fell only one letter short of setting up a fourth.

"Ohhh," he said. "I get it."

"Geez-Usss!" Tonya rolled her eyes.

"Wow!" he said. "I bet you can see your—" But he didn't say 'brains.' Because it wasn't funny. Not anymore. He read the other sets of seven letters strung around their desk island, reading them sideways because they all pointed toward Ronnie. People had lots of high-point letters. Five hundred points? That was a huge number but... if they hit all those triple-word scores, maybe they could win. And that was without him helping. He deserved the eye-roll. Because he hadn't thought that the United Nation kids had brains enough to win.

"We can do this." Danny hefted the black bag in her hand. "Plenty of letters left."

"Class!" Near the whiteboard, Ms. Gibbon pointed up to the wall clock. "Our seniors have to say goodbye in a few minutes. Get ready to wrap things up."

"Wow. We've taken longer than I expected," Danny said. "Let's pick up the pace."

"Gregory, it's your turn," Kalini said. "What're you going to do?"

"Okay, I'm in." He spilled his tiles onto the island and lined them up to face Ronnie.

Ronnie tapped on Gregory's T, repeatedly, and then the end of his last word: JOIN.

"That makes it into JOINT," Becky said. "And sets up another triple-word score."

"Yeah, but—only one letter? I can get a bigger word than that," Gregory said.

Ronnie tapped again on the T.

"Two minutes," Ms. Gibbons announced.

"Hey, we don't have time for messing around," Tonya said. "Just do it."

Gregory stewed but only for a bit. "Fine." He played the T like Ronnie wanted. It fell in the middle of two triple-word scores.

In rapid-fire, Ronnie and Becky played MAZE in one corner, a triple-word score for 54 points. And Tonya and Kalini played DEPTHS along the bottom, another triple-word score for 43 more points. Danny said, "Three hundred ninety."

A groan went up from Kev and Nick's island. Someone said, "And the whole world dies." Kids tossed handfuls of cards into the center in defeat. Some pushed their chairs away, making complaining sounds. Michael Worthington stood and pulled two desks away from the cluster and said, "Kids, please give me a hand."

"Ignore them," Tonya said.

"Oh, wow. I see it." Danny swapped her tiles around in front of her, making two groups

"One minute," said Ms. Gibbons. "People, let's clean up." Around the classroom, seniors slid game boxes from under the islands and filled them with boards and cards and tokens.

"Wait. Watch this!" Danny played QUIE of Gregory's T, hitting one triple-word score, and tucked ING under his T, hitting another, and making one giant word. "This has to be a world record. Nineteen times three, times another three, plus the 50-point bonus equals... 221 for a total of... 611 points!"

Danny smiled huge. Tonya's and Kalini's and Becky's mouths hung open. Ronnie kept his head down, but his clenched fists shook. Gregory felt a drool on his chin and slapped a hand over his open mouth. And then everyone burst out laughing. All together. A deep, from-the-belly, out-of-control, best-feeling-in-the-world kind of laughing, and Ronnie shook in his seat. Gregory felt warm and awesome. Tonya and Kalini danced in their chairs, saying "Oh, yeah. We won," over and over. Gregory danced with them but stopped when he noticed other kids staring. Danny high-fived everyone. Gregory had to do that.

"Can I keep this?" Danny showed the scoresheet to everyone. On top of "SCORE" and the long line of numbers that added up to 611, she'd written "All of us!" and circled it. Everyone nodded. With a "thanks," she folded it and stuffed it into her back pocket.

Gregory worried a little that they'd get lectured because they had a lot to clean up. But with one hand, Danny folded the board it into a V-shape, jiggling it so the words piled into the middle, and tilted it into the black bag which she held open with her other hand. As easy as a magic trick, all the letters disappeared. She dropped the board, black bag and wooden racks back into the box and placed the lid on top.

Kev and Nick came by looking bored.

Kev asked, "What's with all the whooping? You were playing Scrabble. Right?"

"Nope. Scrabble X!" Gregory still felt pumped.

Nick made his so-stupid face, shifting his eyes toward Kev. Around them, seniors and kids slid desks back into neat rows.

"You don't understand." Gregory didn't want his good feeling to slip away. "We had to make 500 points. And we didn't think we could. But we did. By a lot!"

"Ohhh-kay. So why 500?" Kev asked.

"Cuz Danny said that would be a big challenge."

"So, Danny made it up?" Kev smirked.

"Yeah, but—" Gregory caught Kalini watching him. He hoped she might help, but he pushed that stupid idea away. She was one of the United Nations kids, and he wasn't.

"You played Scrabble," Kev said.

"Well—"

Nick snorted. "Scrabble."

"That Danny seems kind of weird." Kev and Nick drifted off and slid into their desks.

Gregory hung near Danny and the United Nations kids, listening to them chat and laugh. Around him, the classroom retook its familiar shape. What was he thinking? He slipped into his old seat behind Kev and Nick. He pressed his fists over his mouth. "I'm so stupid. Stupid."

"Class," Ms. Gibbons called. "We need to move on. But first, let's say a big 'Thank you, seniors.'" The teacher waved her hands like the music teacher, and the class droned, "Thank you, seniors."

The five seniors, filing toward the door, stopped and waved. Danny and Michael held hands; Gregory knew it: she was a girl. An adult he didn't recognize tugged on Ronnie's hand, leading him away. Kev and Nick would definitely make fun of him for playing with Ronnie and Becky and Tonya and Kalini. He'd have to act like he didn't like them. "Oh, man."

He felt a hand on his shoulder and twisted around.

"Hey, sorry." It was Michael Worthington whispering, crouched at eye-level.

"What do you want?" Gregory peered at him, not feeling panicky, or scared, or anything. Just empty.

"I wanted to tell you that I'm sorry about this morning. I was wrong."

"Okay, fine." Gregory shrugged Michael's hand off his shoulder and faced forward. Kev and Nick slouched in their seats. He hoped they didn't turn around and see him.

"Listen," Michael whispered. "I thought it might be fun to hang out some time."

Gregory made the so-stupid face. "What would we do?"

"I don't know. Play a game?"

Gregory stopped making the face. "Will Danny be there?"

Table of Contents

Episode 5: Tools of the Trade

Dressed in his matching golden shorts and number-seven tank top, Michael dropped onto the wooden bench in front of his open locker. He scrounged in his gym bag for his new pair of high-tops and set them on the ceramic tile. Around him, nervous boys joked and jostled through last-minute preparations. After practice, Coach would post the final cut. That meant everything to Michael: if he made the cut then he had a full season of varsity ahead of him—a first for him. But if he didn't—because he was a senior—there'd be no dropping down to JV. He might never play ball again, at least not competitive ball. And yet, after enduring a day's worth of gossip and speculation on Eric Singer's death and Julie Creggan's allegations, he couldn't focus.

"Let's do this!" Austin Browning slapped backs and punched shoulders and head-locked a few smaller players as he plowed toward the door. Some pulled away, but most played along. New on the basketball scene, Austin was only a sophomore but big and strong enough to act like he'd already made the team, and people seemed to believe him. He slapped Michael on the back. "Hey, Mike, now's the time."

From the bench, Michael shook his head. Mostly, Austin was an unknown, a nobody freshman who'd grown into an imposing man-boy, but probably still an asshole of a big brother. _And now's not the time._ There were thirty minutes until practice, and Michael planned on using that time to warm up—and get his head together. He brushed one hand along the sole of his foot, wiping it clean, and pulled on a fresh sock, tugging it on just so. A speck of dirt or a crease in the wrong place could mean a blister and the end of his chances. Austin might be a bull who used sharp-elbow rebounds and a stiff-forearm defense, but Michael was a greyhound, all speed and agility with a soft shooting touch. He fit on his other sock and pulled on both high-tops, adjusting each shoelace's tension so that his sneaker and foot merged into one. His game was as much about his feet having a feel for the court as his hands having a feel for the ball—and focus; he had to get his head right.

The locker room was almost emptied out by the time he pulled his warmup ball out of his bag. With his hand spread wide, he palmed it with ease. He'd grown a lot in the last year, not heavy like Austin but lanky-long in every direction. And not clumsy like his father often accused him of, but more like his body was starting to make sense to him.

My father.

While cupping the ball with one hand, he stood, tossed his bag into his locker and jiggled his locker door's latch with the other.

Did he do it? Did he assault Julie Creggan?

"Kind of messed up. Huh?" It was Wyatt Easting standing nearby with his hands on his hips. Michael shrugged. He'd successfully avoided Wyatt since middle school after serving as his punchline too many times, but now no one was around to laugh along with Wyatt's putdowns.

"Seriously," said Wyatt.

"About what?" Michael's father had been acting extra weird lately. But weird enough to have something to do with Eric Singer's death? Besides, Spurion Futures had lots of bosses.

"About Louis Singer's brother. That's some messed-up shit. A tree drops on him. And he's dead? At 24?"

Michael hung his head and slammed his locker; the bang-crash snapped a jolt through him. Hesitant to supply Wyatt any ammo for future ridicule, he offered no response.

"Do you know Louis?" asked Wyatt.

"Uh—from basketball." But Michael and Louis had never connected off the court. His older brother, Eric, though, was something of a local legend; he'd taken the team to the conference finals two years in a row. "Yeah, it's messed up."

On the bus ride back from the elementary school, he and Danny had sifted through the early reports on their phones and pieced together what likely happened: Julie Creggan had been assaulted by her boss at Spurion Futures, where Michael's father was a boss; Julie had been depressed after the assault, so her boyfriend, Eric Singer, Louis's older brother, talked her into going snowshoeing; he convinced her that the storm had passed, except it hadn't.

"Well, good luck." Wyatt punched Michael's shoulder and left the locker room.

_Luck? Shit._ It was Friday afternoon. If Michael didn't make the team, he'd have to endure a whole weekend of I-knew-it's from his father. He followed Wyatt out, bouncing his ball, one hard, high bounce in sync with each step. Hoping to get his head together, he dribbled down the hallway that led to the weight room. Loaded with steel bars and iron plates and black benches, it was a foreign land into which he never dared trespass, but if the coast was clear, the hallway was his sometime sanctuary.

In each micro-second that the ball met his hand, his fingertips, palm and wrist morphed to the curve of the leather, and his concentration collapsed down to this finite knowable thing: his touch guiding the swooping, darting flight of the ball. He sent it to the floor. It returned exactly as asked. He jogged down the linoleum hallway, alternating hands and speeding up the rhythm: right catch, wrist-arm snap, thud; left catch, wrist-arm snap, thud. Back and forth. Over and over. At the end of the hall, he turned and came back, layering into the pattern a through-the-legs dribble. A smack-slap rhythmic pounding encroached on his awareness. He pushed it away, embracing the ball's weaving motion. Rows of red lockers and announcements on bulletin boards flew by, and his body warmed to the exertion. On the third pass he crouched lower, shifting to a behind-the-back bounce combined with a stutter-step. With each change in direction, he pushed higher the grip-release of his foot to the floor, adding a sneaker squeak to the ball's thud-thud. On the next pass, he added a spin move to the dance, thrilling to the swish of fabric from his tank top and shorts. Out of the corner of his eye, he spied a bead of sweat's tangential flight and smiled, satisfied. Summer camp and fall ball and months of practice had paid off. He felt ready.

The ball hit his toe, ricocheted off a locker and skirted away, declaring an abrupt end to their symbiotic dance. As he jogged after the rolling ball, the incessant drumming coming from the weight room persisted. Michael gathered the ball in, stopping in the weight room's open doorway.

Across the cluttered space stood a broad-shouldered, sweat-soaked kid, working beneath a circular platform that cantilevered off the wall, inches above his head. With elbows out and hands face-high, he pounded his fists into a head-sized ball pinned by a short leash beneath the wooden platform. The bag snapped back and forth between the limits imposed by the wood's underside and the tight blur of fists: the violent interdependence of two closed orbits. Michael hugged the basketball against his chest with both arms. Somewhere in his sports vocabulary, gleaned from faded images, like newsreel footage of a forgotten war, he found the words to describe what played before him: the percussive work of a boxer on a speed bag. But those sights and sounds came from a tiny screen held at arm's length. This real-world assault had the proximity of an imminent threat. The ball slipped from Michael's grasp, hitting the floor.

The fighter stopped, stilling the bag with an open palm. Michael caught his ball on the rebound and nestled it against his chest as the fighter turned toward him.

"Hey, Mike. What's up?" It was Austin Browning.

"Not much." Michael hovered on the threshold. Austin was an unknown.

Austin stared at him for a heartbeat and then turned back to the suspended leather bag and snapped a fist into it. The bag hammered back and forth and then, having spent most of its momentum, it creaked on its metal link in decaying arcs that fell short of the wooden restraint. Austin captured it two-handed. "You ever?"

"No."

"Want to?"

On the four mirrored walls the training equipment fanned out to four different horizons in ever-reflected realities: in each, a duplicate Austin, prepared to strike, stared at a duplicate Michael, framed in the doorway.

"Come on, Mike."

"I should warm up." He backed away. "And my name is Michael."

"Oh, sorry. Michael. I'll remember that."

Michael searched for a hint of ridicule in Austin's voice or expression but was surprised to find none. Austin was willing to respect him, to call him by his preferred name.

"Come on." Austin waved him in.

Michael stooped, pinned his ball at the foot of the wall just inside the door and drifted across the room. The speed bag was mounted midway along the far wall past the weight lifting equipment. To its left hung a black head-and-torso-sized heavy bag, suspended by a thick chain from the ceiling. To the right lay a maroon floor mat, probably used for wrestling.

"This is how you warm up?" asked Michael.

"Sure. I don't have your handles." Austin crouched with fists and forearms shielding his face and then jabbed the speed bag. "Got to work with what I got." He unleashed a flurry and then dropped his hands and allowed the bag to swing back and forth.

Michael stilled the bag with an outstretched hand. It was leather, similar to his basketball but smooth as skin, not textured. "I met your little brother today."

"Oh, yeah?" Austin stepped back. "Where?"

"Senior Mentors. We visited his class this morning." Danny actually spent a lot more time with Gregory, but Michael was grateful that he got a chance to apologize.

"Well, I hope he wasn't acting like a little shit. I swear, sometimes, that kid..." Austin laughed.

Michael regretted almost punching a defenseless third-grader that morning. He'd wanted to believe he was avenging his mother, and that was only possible because he'd refused to admit that he'd targeted the wrong kid. Yet even then, did the right kid really mean to hit his mother? That kid was probably just hoping to hit the broad side of an SUV and instead his snowball flew through an open window and—Michael couldn't imagine how much worse he would feel if he'd actually followed through on his punch. A protective instinct he didn't understand had stopped him.

"I mean, he's okay, for a little brother," Austin said. "Who wasn't a little shit at that age?" He threw his hands up. "I'm right. Right?"

"I don't know him that well." Michael considered his own little brother status. Did Connor make these same complaints to his friends?

"Seriously, Michael, what's to know?" Austin drilled two rights and two lefts into the bag and then caught it. "Want to try?"

"I should be warming up." He glanced at his ball parked on the floor near the door.

"Come on, Mike—sorry, Michael—you're a lock. Didn't you start last year?"

"Started JV." He felt insecure drawing attention to his JV status.

"Wow. I figured varsity."

"Yeah. Thanks." Michael warmed to Austin's appreciation of his talents. He hadn't hung out much with the other guys.

"I've seen you play. I mean, you're a total lock. Probably starting point guard."

"I wish." He'd be thrilled to make varsity and happy to get some playing time, but starting? He hadn't let himself dare that much. "So, how do you do this?" He swatted at the bag, and it fluttered back and forth.

Austin beamed. "I'll show you." He clenched his hands at chin height and went to work. "Left, one, two; right, one, two." His shoulders swayed in time with the pounding of his fists. He repeated the pattern. "Got it?"

"I think so." Michael understood the rhythm of Austin's hands and how they synchronized with the bag's flight, fast but simple and repetitive. He tried the one-two combination, but the bag didn't rebound off the wooden platform with enough energy to sustain the pattern. Instinctively, he opened his hands, caught the bag in one palm and flipped it against the board and caught it with the other and flipped it again.

"Stop. Stop. Oh, man, I see your problem. Make a fist. Real tight." Austin's knuckles whitened, and the muscles and tendons in his forearms popped. "And snap'em, snap'em hard, into the bag. Like this."

A bit intimidated, Michael marveled at the machinery of Austin's thick arm and shoulder muscles, all firing, driving piston-like fists into the bag, impact timed for the exact moment of arrival. The bag ricocheted back and forth between fist and board, blurring and elongating like a cartoon character's head, ever repeating, never escaping. A dark bib of sweat expanded on Austin's gray T-shirt as the exhibition proceeded long after Michael's initial interest had faded into a vague sense of unease. Austin let the bag skip free for two swings, wound up an overhand right and drove it through the bag, drilling a final crescendo.

"Now you got it?" Austin shook out his arms. "Come on. Do it."

"Hey, thanks." Austin was being friendly enough, but Michael couldn't do this buddy-buddy thing now. He should be warming up. "I appreciate the demo, but I should—"

"Wait. Wait. Try this." Austin shifted over, behind the nearby heavy bag. He wrapped his arms around it, bracing it against one shoulder, and peered around the other side at Michael. "Come on. Give me your best shot."

"I don't know."

Austin's phone buzzed. "Hang on." He retrieved it from his shorts pocket and tapped on his screen. "Wow. More about that Julie Creggan. Can you believe that she left Louis's brother out in the woods to die like that? That's some messed-up shit. Right?"

"Uh, that's not what I heard." Michael didn't want to gossip with Austin about stuff neither of them knew for certain—and which might implicate his father. He glanced at the clock over the doorway. "Fifteen minutes until practice. I should go."

Michael turned toward the doorway, but DeMarcus Jones walked into the room, wearing black baggy shorts and a loose white tank-top that contrasted with his dark brown skin and revealed defined shoulder and chest muscles. Michael knew him from his U.S. history class discussions. DeMarcus's initial guarded comments poked at the status quo, but last week, he'd made a wild claim that the U.S. empire currently ran 800 military bases around the world. Students laughed, and the teacher scoffed: "That's outrageous." DeMarcus's conviction left Michael wondering if it was outrageously true.

DeMarcus moved to the bench press setup and laid down on his back, sliding under the six-foot steel bar cradled by the two vertical uprights. Someone had left a heavy iron plate loaded on either end of the bar. He grabbed the bar with a shoulder-width grip, cleared it with ease and popped off a dozen reps. After the last, he clattered the bar back into its cradles, got up and added two more heavy plates. Michael hadn't realized that he was so strong. Impressed, he raised his eyebrows at Austin.

"DeMarcus Jones." Austin waved him off. "He's trouble."

"Okay, well, I'm outta here."

"Oh, come on, man. You're a sure thing." Austin pocketed his phone and reset himself, grappling the heavy bag and rattling its support chain. "Let's do this. Hit me hard. One time!"

"I don't know." He eyed his basketball laying against the far wall. At least Austin had dropped the Julie gossip. He seemed like he was capable of listening. And what would be the harm? They'd never hung out before. Maybe he could give him a minute and then get back to basketball. "One time?"

"One time," Austin said.

Michael stepped up to the heavy bag, clenched and cocked his right hand—feeling a bit silly, he imagined himself as a superhero who needed to blast a hole in a brick wall—and he threw his fist at the leather body bag. But as it closed the distance, Gregory's face flashed in his mind, and his fist flew wide, whiffing through the air.

Austin laughed from behind the bag. "Oh, man. Trust me. I'm not laughing at you, I'm laughing with you."

"But I'm not laughing." Embarrassed twice in one day, he thought. At least DeMarcus, who was working through another set of bench press reps, hadn't noticed.

"Come on. You know what I mean. Anyway, everyone does that their first time." Austin stepped alongside the heavy bag. Placing one arm around it at shoulder height, he assumed a philosophical pose. "It's like you're born with this barrier in your brain that won't let you slam your fist into stuff—which doesn't make sense, cuz you can totally learn how to do it without hurting your hands. You just got to rip out that brain barrier." He stepped behind and shouldered the heavy bag again. "And all that takes is a little practice. Come on. Hit me."

"What?"

"I mean, hit the bag. Just tap it."

"Ohhh-kay." Michael rapped his fist on the bag like he was knocking on a door.

"Yeah. Harder now."

Michael hit several more. Ramping up his effort, he popped his fist against the leather, making adjustments to land his knuckles flush. The contact felt satisfying.

"Yeah. Straight wrist. Put your shoulder into it." Austin snugged his face against the side of the bag and pulled it tight against his shoulder. "Now. Again. Harder."

Michael set his feet, torqued through his core and drove an overhand right into the bag, connecting with a resounding thud and a force he hadn't thought himself capable of producing.

"Ow!" Austin grimaced in response.

Michael felt thrilled, redeemed. _What would Connor think now?_

"Yeah. That's what I'm talking about. Now you're ready to ratchet up to wall-busting level."

"What?" Michael examined the knuckles of his clenched fist. Several sported scuffed patches of white skin.

"Seriously. It's like getting a super power." Austin bounced on the balls of his feet like he wanted to take flight. "You know Wyatt? His dad was doing some remodeling, taking out a wall. He showed us how to punch holes. Just hit between the studs. And put your weight into it. Bam! It's easy." He crouched, twisted and slammed a fist into the bag, lifting it. The massive bag settled on its clinking chain, swaying side to side. He steadied it. "Come on. Your turn."

"You're bleeding," Michael said.

"Yeah." Austin had torn patches of skin off of his knuckles, leaving bright red welts. "It happens. No big deal."

Michael examined the abrasions on his own knuckles and then stretched his right hand open wide, flexing it and turning it over. His hand didn't hurt, but was he sacrificing his feel for the ball for the fleeting satisfaction of pounding his fist into something? He remembered what Austin had said about the barrier in his brain. Had he torn that? Was he now capable of hitting Gregory? Or anyone else when his temper flared?

Austin's phone buzzed as voices sounded in the hallway outside. He scooped it out of his shorts pocket. "Hey. Wow. Practice cancelled. Final tryouts rescheduled to Monday."

"Huh. Why? What could be more important?" Purpose drained from Michael as Wyatt Easting and a half dozen of the rowdier kids from tryouts piled into the weight room, laughing and shouting Austin's name. Michael drifted toward the door. Danny called these guys the Bro Squad. He knew them all from way back, but lately, other than basketball, he kept his distance. They swarmed Austin. A few fist-bumped him. One lit up the speed bag. Two fell into a wrestling match on the mat; one got a headlock on the other, slung him over a hip and slammed him to the ground. This drew a chorus of insults directed at the victim mixed in with a lot of crosstalk about that night's rendezvous plans.

Michael felt partly relieved that Austin had forgotten about him, but overhearing their plans, he regretted another missed social opportunity. He'd drifted away from childhood friends, slipping through high school cliques, dipping a toe in here and there but never making a commitment. He kept an ear open for details: Wyatt's parents were out of town; they had a good sound system, no neighbors nearby _and_ a stocked fridge, a full bar and plenty of outdated prescriptions in their medicine cabinet. The Bro Squad had their issues but their parties generated more than their share of post-able train wrecks. Michael was a senior and hadn't made one yet. As he headed out, he considered that maybe he should forget his problems and live life a little.

DeMarcus sat on the end of bench with head bowed. Michael slipped past him and grabbed his ball.

"Hey, can you give me a spot?"

Michael was a half-step out the door before he realized that DeMarcus meant him. He turned back and sure enough, DeMarcus was waiting for an answer. "Oh. Sure thing." He tucked his ball back against the base of the wall and moved to the head of the bench. He noted that it was bolted to the floor. At waist height, the bar rested in the two vertical support cradles. So many plates. There had to be hundreds of pounds loaded on the bar. "How much is this?"

"Two forty-five." DeMarcus laid back on the bench, gripped the knurled bar with two hands and pulled himself under it. A country-rock tune blared from one of the Bro Squad's phones; the tinny music inspired cheers by promising to put a boot in some country's ass. DeMarcus shook his head. "I suppose that's for my benefit."

Michael stood over the bar. DeMarcus's comment about the 800 U.S. military bases flitted through his head but mostly he felt overwhelmed. How could he lift this much weight off of anyone? He tried to concentrate, but through the jangly country beat, he heard Austin mention that a certain girl would be at the party, and his friends laughed knowingly. Michael knew Susan Wilson from Senior Mentors.

"Hey, you with me?"

"Sure." From Michael's angle, the steel bar lay over DeMarcus's neck, and he realized the responsibility that he was signing up for. Behind him, the Bro Squad would probably laugh at him for even trying; literally laughing behind his back. "Yeah, but—I'm not sure I can—"

"You're fine. Just pay attention. I should be able to get five or six reps. I'll stall out on the last. That's when I need you."

"I'm not that—"

"When the bar slows, just take off a few pounds worth. Help me keep it moving."

DeMarcus pulled on the bar to lift himself up a few inches and then he dropped down to set his shoulders against the padded bench. He drew a deep breath, exhaled, drew another and then, with a grunt, hefted the 245 pounds from the cradle. It hovered above him for a moment—Michael would've been no more amazed than if he'd seen a small space ship suspended a foot in front of him. DeMarcus controlled its descent to his chest. With a burst of effort and a prolonged exhale, he powered the bar up. At the top of its ascent, he made a grunt that sounded like "One."

"Hey, Michael. Want to come to our par-tay tonight?" some joker taunted, not Austin. Fighting the urge to acknowledge the dubious offer, Michael waved one hand in the air.

"Yeah, but—should we?" another guy asked. "With what's happened to Louis Singer's brother?"

"Of course." The joker laughed bitterly. "Carpe diem."

Michael kept his attention on DeMarcus, who inhaled deeply as the bar touched down on his chest for a second time. Every muscle in his face tightened and his eyes seemed focused inward. With another exhale, he heaved the bar upward. Extending and locking out his arms, he grunted, "Two."

"Hey, Michael, you should bring your giirrrrlllll-friend." The joker hit his stride with a putdown worthy of a third-grader. Still, Michael's back stiffened as others snickered. "Seriously, is she even a she?" The joker was going all in.

Danny definitely wasn't a Susan Wilson-type girl; Danny was Danny. When they first met, he thought that she—that they—that Danny was a bit of a tomboy but still a girl. Only after they hung out some did Danny explain that they were neither female or male; they identified as gender non-binary. Michael was fine with that—even though he still got tripped up on Danny's pronouns. For him, Danny was Danny. Still, he couldn't imagine explaining that to this bunch.

"Nothing wrong with that," the other guy chimed in.

"What are you saying?" pressed the joker.

"Come on, man," the other guy said. "Whatever floats your boat."

A full-body whoomph sounded, inciting more whoops and jeers. Michael knew the joker had taken down his challenger because next he said, "Tell me, bitch, you floating a boat now?"

"Get. Off. Me," said the challenger.

Michael, worried that he might be targeted next, risked a quick glance over his shoulder. Eddie Rangles rolled away from Wyatt and scrambled to his feet. No surprise, Wyatt was the joker.

Wyatt asked, "You want me to get you off?"

"Shut the fuck up," said Eddie.

DeMarcus grunted, "Three," and lowered the bar back to his chest with unsteady arms.

Realizing that he'd zoned out, Michael attempted to refocus. How many reps was DeMarcus going for? DeMarcus's eyes darted at Michael and then back toward the steel bar that lay across his chest.

Eddie emitted a high-pitched laugh. "Anyway, what's up with that Julie Creggan? Can you believe she left Louis's brother to die like that? She probably panicked, just wanted to save herself. And now she claims her boss raped her?"

"I don't believe her," Wyatt said. "It's a total sham,"

Panic scrambled round Michael's stomach and whatever strength he had evaporated.

"And everyone knows it's a sham," Wyatt pressed on. "She's destroying a man's reputation, a man who's probably never been accused of anything, and she's going to drag him through hell and destroy his life."

"Right. And why did she wait 'til now to say something?" asked Eddie.

Although Michael felt relieved that neither was going after Julie's boss, a part of him wondered why they were so quick to assume that she must be lying.

"Because she wants everyone to feel sorry for her. She's got issues, probably a prude. Is she even that good looking?"

"Nah."

"She's got some kind of martyr complex."

The bar clattered into the upright supports, and Michael spun around in time to see DeMarcus sit up on the bench, shaking his head side to side. "Michael, it's really not that difficult."

"Hey, DeMarcus, I'm sorry." This social high-wire act was more exhausting than beating a full-court press.

"Why do you even care what those yahoos think?" DeMarcus got up and went over to the rack of dumbbells. He grabbed a heavy pair and starting doing curls with his back to the room.

"They're good to their friends." It was Austin. He'd distanced himself from Wyatt's gang to stand alongside Michael. "Sometimes they push it too far but..." He shrugged as if to say that's just the way it was.

Michael doubted they'd ever change.

"They're part of our team," Austin said. "And then there's the parties."

"And Susan Wilson?"

Austin gave a sheepish grin. "Yeah."

"You been before?"

"No. But you and I both got invites for tonight."

"Ah. No. I can't." Michael realized that hanging with the Bro Squad was a slippery slide into the worst side of himself. A side of him that was more interested in doing super-punches and scoring party invites than standing up for Danny or spotting DeMarcus or looking out for Susan. He asked, "So, why does Susan Wilson hang out with these guys?"

"I don't know." Austin shrugged. "She's popular. They're popular. One plus one."

"Yeah. Well, I'm still not going."

"Come on, man. Hey, you're dating Danny Woods. Right?"

"Yeah."

"Doesn't Danny know Susan?"

"Uh, yeah." Danny and Susan had talked on the bus ride back from Senior Mentors about Louis's brother.

"So, bring Danny. She'll have a good time. She knows Susan. Maybe she could help me out—"

"Stop." The female pronoun associated with Danny cut into conversations like broken glass under bare feet. Every "she" was another small cut, and every "she" Michael let pass was another denial of who Danny was. They deserved the decency of being addressed by their preferred name. "Stop."

Austin stared back at him. "Stop what?"

"Stop saying 'she.'" Michael took a deep breath. He'd never corrected anyone before. Never stood up for Danny. And how he dared to do it now, with the Bro Squad roughhousing fifteen feet away, he had no idea, but the word's rolled out of him. "Danny's not a 'she.'"

Austin's eyes shifted toward Wyatt and Eddie and the others across the room, still jawing and play fighting, but he furrowed his brow and asked, "What do you mean?"

Michael moved toward the door. "Danny's gender non-binary."

Austin followed after him. "Non-binary?"

"Yeah." Michael picked up his ball. "Not male. Not female. Something in between, I guess."

"Gender non-binary." Austin nodded his head slowly. "I think I've heard about this. But is it okay for you to tell people? Is Danny, you know, out?"

"Yeah, they don't usually make a big deal about it, but Danny's out." And Michael did the math, one plus one, that meant that he was out, too. As someone who was dating a gender non-binary person, people would wonder about him, too. He had fallen for Danny, hard, and now he had to figure out who he was.

"Okay. That's cool."

"Really?" Michael cradled the ball in his arms with one foot in the doorway.

"Sure."

"All right. Well, Danny uses gender neutral pronouns: they-them-theirs, not she-her-hers."

"Huh. They for one person? Does that make sense, grammar-wise?"

"Yeah. It does." Michael laughed despite his nerves. It sounded funny to hear Austin worrying about grammar, but he'd asked Danny the same thing so he knew the answer. "They is a singular pronoun, too. Just look it up in any dictionary."

Austin made a palms up, empty-hands gesture. "You know what? I don't see a dictionary anywhere, so I'll just take your word for it."

Michael felt a wash of relief. Austin accepted them.

"So, one question, are you going to ask her—sorry, I mean, Danny, are you going to ask... them to go to the party?"

Michael was half out the door. "I suppose I could ask."

"I'll take that as a yes."

Table of Contents

Episode 6: Repercussions

Robert Worthington pounded down the industrial-grade carpet of Spurion Futures' main aisle, his dark suit jacket flapping in a breeze of his own making. Clamped in a vise-grip, his oversized laptop swung at his side. Another exhausting day of firefights: more equipment test failures, more budget overruns and more missed milestones. With Project 404's months-long death spiral fueling rumors of execs prowling for scapegoats, everybody was clamming up and running scared. Even he could be out tomorrow. All in all, it was a typical late-Friday-afternoon panic.

Still, long nights on the family room couch binging on whiskey and TV left little in the tank. Last night, if he'd slept at all, it was in the hour of despair that came with every dawn. At the breakfast table, on top of his usual hangover, he had to fend off probing questions from Mike about the Patriots' backup quarterback options. Should the father have to explain to his son that nobody gives a damn about Colin Kaepernick because the Patriots always win, and winning was the point of the game? Mike still seemed discontented. Did that come from his wife? Kim and the rest of his family didn't appreciate the sacrifices he made every day so that they could live in comfort.

He closed in on the structural analysis and mechanical design groups' beige cubicle clusters. No engineer dared peek above the partitions; probably trying to evade responsibility and escape for the weekend like Singer, the project lead. The kid just no-showed his own presentation, leaving Worthington to dodge zingers thrown by his VP, Peterson, and the other execs. Singer's betrayal burned Worthington's tail. Singer knew the golden rule of the business world; short form: meet your commitments.

An odd pall hung over the office. Where was everyone? For a moment, thrown by a creeping sensation, he glanced back. No one there. He resumed his don't-fuck-with-me face, and hurried down the aisle to his office suite, back up to full speed.

His administrative assistant, Dolores, waved him down. "Robert, we need to talk."

"Not now. I need a minute to regroup." He closed his office door behind him and deposited his laptop on his desk. On his phone, a dozen voicemails clamored for attention. Doubt devoured him, and he slumped into his desk chair. For a fleeting moment, like an arm-weary swimmer alone and too far from shore, he craved surrendering to the current and slipping below the surface.

By force of habit, he drew a ragged breath.

Peterson had been pummeling Worthington mercilessly for Project 404's failings. This afternoon, when Worthington parried one of his attacks with: "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink," Peterson had countered with: "Of course, you can. You just have to force its head underwater." The VP pantomimed an armlock that left no doubt that he was willing to hold Worthington's head underwater for as long as necessary and then some.

Worthington's desk clock read four on the nose. Did he have to answer the bell one more time? He could stop fighting. Concede. Slip below the surface. But then what? Who would he be? No. Weakness condoned failure. He'd never concede.

Corollary to the golden rule: answer every demand.

He had minutes to track down that AWOL Singer, and get him and his crew to own this gob-stomping shit-storm called Project 404. He clicked the intercom on. "Dolores, get Eric Singer and the mechanical design and structural analysis team in my office. Stat."

She said, "Robert—" but he clicked the intercom off.

Management corollary to the golden rule: work people as hard and as long as it takes.

He wouldn't hold anyone's head underwater. Worthington wasn't some ham-fisted VP. As Director of New Product Development, he knew well that young engineers required enlightenment: this was their chance to prove themselves. He'd already worked over Singer, but others still needed to be initiated. He'd direct them to the water and hold their attention there with calm persistence, for five minutes or five hours—even-toned, unblinking and unrelenting—guiding their sensitive sensibilities to the only permissible conclusion: submit to the golden rule. If the dinner hour slipped by, for any holdouts' benefit, he'd mention that pizza and soda were available in the conference room next door—for after the meeting.

The golden rule's long form: job commitment was the altar upon which personal life was sacrificed: somebody else picked up the kids at daycare, date nights were cancelled, and vacation plans were thrown out the window. And their sacrifices should be as invisible to Worthington as the air he breathed. People had to get on board or pack it in.

Recommitted, he spun about, opened his door and addressed his admin. "Dolores, order food for ten—no, twelve—for the weekend. Get the usual." Coffee and donuts for breakfast, pizza and soda for lunch and dinner. Monday through Friday, engineers worked for dollars, but for late nights and weekends, the currency was pizza and donuts.

Worthington glanced about. "Where's Eric Singer and the team?" Singer had disappointed him. Disappointed. No other word for it.

"Robert, I've been calling you all day."

"No. Stop." As he'd given Singer's presentation, he'd been doubly annoyed, having to silence a string of calls, first from HR and then from Dolores, all while he fought singlehandedly to save the day.

"Robert, HR is trying to—"

"Dolores." Always interrupting. He held up a hand. "Listen to me." Although competent enough—she'd been around Spurion Futures forever—he'd only accepted her as his admin because Peterson, with no warning, had pulled alpha-rank and poached his attractive new hire.

Dolores said, "You need to—"

"Stop. Stop." He pulsed his raised hand toward her, but for some reason, instead of lowering her eyes, she looked past him. He checked behind him, but there was no one there. "What are you looking at?"

"Nothing." She opened her mouth to speak—

"Have you located Singer?"

"But Robert—"

"Get _somebody_ from that team in my office now!" They had a shit load of ground to make up between now and Monday morning.

"Robert, you need to—"

He pivoted, strode into his office and closed the door behind him. To get Peterson off his ass, Worthington would have to work the team harder than anyone thought possible. They should arrive in a minute. He passed his conference table, tossed his phone onto his desk and settled into his black leather chair. Food taken care of, he flipped open his laptop and reviewed the slide deck that he'd just spent the better part of three hours defending. Clearly, Singer was overdue for a wakeup call. Gaping holes riddled the presentation: test failures with no root cause, plans with no goals, problems with no solutions. The execs had drawn their daggers and sliced Worthington up pretty bad, but no one slashed for the jugular—not this time. He wasn't stupid enough to risk a second skewering. At least, he didn't have to report back until eight o'clock Monday morning.

First, he'd explain to Singer's team, in the most reasonable way, the depth and breadth of the hole that they'd dug for themselves. They'd almost think he was on their side until he'd ask for a detailed plan, three-shifts around the clock, from Friday afternoon to Monday morning. His demand for third shift coverage, the midnight shift, always put the doubters on their heels. They'd realize that their situation was as serious as a heart attack. Once he checked up on someone on third shift. Once was all it took.

He glanced at his desk clock: 4:03 and still no Singer. Another disappointing demerit against him. Worthington bolted from his chair and out the door.

"Dolores, where's Singer?"

In front of the admin's desk stood a black girl—with an _Afro_ —and she appeared about to cry. Not an attractive look, not that she was even Worthington's type.

Dolores shook her head and motioned toward the girl. "This is Gabby Todd from Structural Analysis."

"Why is she here?" She was a wreck—he'd definitely never put her in front of the execs. And a two on the diversity scale: one point for black and another for female; that was how hiring went these days.

"I... I... I'm the only one left," the girl said, with arms wrapped tight across her chest and hands stuffed into her armpits.

"What are you talking about?"

"Everyone's gone for the day," Gabby said.

"What? When?" His salvation hinged on the team pushing hard through the weekend.

"At lunch time. I don't really know Julie and Eric. I mean, I'm a new grad. I've only been working in Structural Analysis since September."

"Wait. Julie Creggan and Eric Singer?" Worthington's stomach roiled.

"Yeah. You must've heard about the accident?" She pulled her shoulders up to her ears. "Eric Singer died snowshoeing last night. Everyone was talking about it this morning. And a lot of other stuff." She glanced at Worthington and then away. "Obviously, Julie didn't come to work today. So, everyone went over Julie's and Eric's house. Well, Julie's house." She stared down at her feet.

Worthington thought... nothing. His mind was a troublesome blank. Where moments ago there had been a range of scenarios collated against action plans and names and resources, there was nothing. Again, he had the distinct sensation of being watched. Yet, both Dolores and Gabby appeared to have no interest in making eye contact with him. Singer couldn't be dead. The girl had to be wrong.

"It's supposed to snow again tonight," Gabby said to her shoes. "Real bad."

"No. You're not making any sense." She was wrong. Last night's snowstorm was an early November freak. Worthington didn't have to be a weatherman to know that couldn't happen two days in a row. Still, he felt a compulsion to check the full-length windows beyond Dolores's desk. The late afternoon sun descended, obscured by a threatening dark bank of clouds. Even more worrisome, through plowed snow mounds, cars streamed from an already half-empty parking lot.

He withdrew toward his office, said "Don't go anywhere," and slammed the door behind him.

He pressed his back against the door, seeking reassurance from his office full of hard-won trophies: the bookshelves loaded with award plaques and 3D-printed scale-models of past prototypes; his substantial desk with the family photo positioned just so; and the conference table where teams reported their problems and received his sage advice. Polished cherry wood everywhere. All threatened by Peterson, unless Worthington delivered.

One chair sat out of place, and he thought of Julie Creggan. He'd moved it from the conference table to alongside his desk so that Julie would sit closer to him. And she had. It wasn't like she hadn't sought him out for mentoring. She thirsted for feedback, but Acherski, plugged in recently as her supervisor, was more interested in racking up frequent-flier miles than developing new talent. Awkward at first, Julie stumbled through conversations. She was cute, good looking, she must've worked out. And as Worthington shared career advice, she warmed up. They even laughed a few times. They grew closer, and he looked forward to their weekly one-on-ones. Initially, she seemed grateful, but then she got weird. A draft of Julie's last presentation haunted the corner of his desk. He should file it—or hide it. He hadn't done anything wrong; they were both adults and understood how the world worked. Yet, the chair seemed out of place. No one would make anything of it, but to be safe, he slid it away from his desk and back toward the table.

A hard knock sounded on his door, and Dolores let herself in. "Robert, what are you doing?"

Stunned, he stopped halfway along his clandestine roll to the conference table, with his hands gripping the back of the chair. "What?"

She closed the door part way. "Why are you keeping Gabby here?"

"I got cut up bad at the Project 404 review. She's on Singer's team. They all need to own this and get to work like their hair's on fire." He fought the urge to jam the chair into its slot at the conference table. "Why am I explaining this to you?"

Dolores closed the door the rest of the way. "You need to meet with Lynn Browning-Smith."

"I do? Who the hell is that?"

"New Human Resources VP."

"Damn." Piling up more diversity points. "First of all, I don't have time for this bullshit."

"Did you listen to anything Gabby just said?"

"No." Gabby was a seat-filler, a number. She looked familiar, though he couldn't recall from where.

"My god." She put her hands on her hips. "How is this not getting through to you? But—all right, I'll put this into words that you'll understand—we have a major, I'll repeat, a major cluster-fuck on our hands. Eric Singer is dead. That's terrible enough. But Julie Creggan's been on the news saying that they went snowshoeing into a storm because she was sexually assaulted by her boss—her boss at Spurion Futures."

"That doesn't make any sense." Worthington felt exposed in a way he hadn't known since high school. He felt like his sweatpants had been yanked down around his ankles, and he was laying curled into a ball, butt naked on the cold locker room floor.

"For Christ's sake." Dolores shook her head. "It doesn't have to make sense. It's gone viral."

She seemed to imply that he bore some blame, which was absurd. Worthington never raped anyone. He stuffed his doubts down deep and recalled when his day had unspooled. After he stepped in for Singer, the presentation started smoothly with the usual glad-handing and inside jokes, but fifteen minutes in, Peterson checked his phone and darted a dark look to another exec. That's when the knives came out, and Peterson ratcheted up his attacks. Worthington understood now, and he had no intention of being anyone's two-for-one scapegoat.

Dolores wagged a finger at him. "You have a must-attend 4:15 with Browning-Smith. Comes from the top." She opened the door and turned to face Gabby who still had her hands clamped in her armpits. Gabby's eyes darted to the chair that Worthington held in front of him. She backed away a half step, seeming to shrink. If Worthington said so much as "boo," she'd probably fall over.

"Gabby, you should go home now," Dolores said in a mothering tone. "Isn't that right, Robert?"

"Sure. Wait. Gabby, do you have a cell number for anyone else on the team?" Singer wasn't dead. Who dies in a snowshoe accident? That was like drowning in a glass of water.

Dolores glared at him, but Gabby shook her head. Worthington waved her off with one hand, and she disappeared.

"Dolores, what do you mean 'from the top?'" Did she mean corporate?

"Robert, how do you not get this?"

"Never mind." Ridiculous. As bad a shape as Project 404 was in, the division's execs had taken pains to conceal the worst from corporate. This was all Peterson's doing. And to dodge the VP's machinations, Worthington needed to turn Singer's ship of fools around before Monday morning.

Dolores tapped her wristwatch. "Browning-Smith's office in five."

"Yeah. Right." As Dolores exited, he said, "Close the door," and she did.

With no intention of being on time for an HR meeting, he settled in behind his desk to assess the situation. He was sure that, any minute, Singer would come crawling back in with his tail between his legs. The kid's behavior was disturbing, though. He was no golden boy; he was where he was because of Worthington. He doubted if Eric and Julie understood how the world worked. And last night and at breakfast, Mike, his own son, poked and prodded him. No respect.

He glanced at his family portrait sitting left of center on his desk; the obligatory happy pose on display as evidence of his unspoken sacrifices. Taken years ago, on their last family vacation, the four of them huddled together, wrapped in towels after an August afternoon spent swimming in Cape Cod's cold surf. The sea breeze blew their hair across their faces. Connor, embarking on his freshman year in high school and full of promise, had a protective arm wrapped around Mike's shoulders. Mike played the adoring younger brother. Even Kim smiled as she leaned into Worthington. That detail surprised him. He checked his math: Connor was a college freshman now, so it was snapped only four years ago. Impossible.

His phone vibrated. He snatched it up. The screen said: the wife. She never called, not at the office, not anywhere, not anymore. It vibrated three times more as his index finger wavered between the red and the green buttons. Unnerved by his shaking—too little sleep and too much coffee—he decided to roll the call over to voice mail, but his finger brushed the 'Accept' button.

"Damn it." He stuck the phone out at arm's length.

As if from a great distance, her voice came to him, tinny and abrasive, "Robert, what's with these reports?"

He sighed and brought the phone to his ear. "And that's how you say hello."

"Julia Creggan and her friend. They work for you?"

"Kim." He cleared his throat deliberately, without covering the phone. "Hundreds of people work for me. I am Engineering Director of New Product Development for Spurion Futures."

"Robert, don't bullshit me. Are you involved in this?"

One betrayal too many. Anger welled up. A singular compulsion consumed him: smash phone.

"Robert."

He held the device over the corner of his heavy wooden desk and craved the satisfaction of slamming it down on the sharp corner. Over and over again. Breaking it into a hundred tiny pieces.

"Robert." Her voice distant, critical, unfaithful.

But people would notice; people who mattered: Peterson, other execs, possibly corporate. A broken phone indicated weakness, a loss of control. Concede nothing. He brought it back to his ear as his eyes drifted to the chair newly returned to the conference table. "Kim, I've told you: I got a lot going on here."

"Robert, Julie's interview—it's all over national news. My friends keep calling. Michael and Danny are here. They're worried." Her voice trembled. "Robert, did you do it?"

Concede nothing. "It?"

Her voice dropped to a whisper, "Did you sexually assault Julie Creggan?"

He gripped his phone. The yearned-for smashing impact pulsed through his muscles, but he required focus. Dolores, the meeting with HR, and now Kim—even that Gabby Todd—everyone pegged him as guilty. All that with Peterson set to pounce.

Worthington needed to know what they knew.

He took a deep breath and exhaled. "Kim, you're being emotional." He added a hurt note to his delivery. "What are you talking about?"

"Well, she said that she was sexually assaulted—by her boss, a few weeks ago." Worthington detected a sliver of a doubt. "She'd been depressed and withdrawn. Her boyfriend talked her into going snowshoeing last night on the way home from Spurion Futures—"

"I know. I know. I've been briefed." He had; three times: first Gabby, then Dolores and now Kim. Despite bearing the weight of everyone's judgement, he'd picked up a common weakness in their stories: "her boss." Julie had not named a name.

"You have?"

"Just a preliminary briefing at this point." He added a touch of earnestness to his voice to suggest that Kim had his full attention. "So, you know, she's never worked for me, not directly."

"Oh. And the boyfriend died."

"I know—I knew him. Yeah. So tragic." Worthington sensed the distant beeping of shit-loaded dump trucks backing up to the giant, whirring fan blades of chaos. So, Singer was dead. This really was going viral. Damn! He thought back to Peterson drawing his phone out during Worthington's presentation; the VP had pieced it together real time and had a three-hour head start on Worthington in the Project 404 blame game.

"Such an unfortunate loss," he said. "People are understandably upset. I let a number of them leave early today." Death could be wrapped in tidy bows of "thoughts and prayers," but allegations seeped any which way.

"And Julie..." He knew that, with Spurion's cross-matrix organization and the constant re-orgs up and down the food chain, "her boss" could be any number of men, and most of them had no interest in playing by anyone else's rules. It was as though someone randomly decided that the speed limit was actually going to be enforced, not just in a school zone with a cop car parked at the curb, but all the time. Nobody was that good. Worthington may have had a questionable moment or two. Worst case scenario, he'd get a slap on the wrist, but he was far from the most... exposed.

The phone connection crackled.

His head cleared like a capsule of smelling salts had cracked open under his nose—fog-piercing clarity. Project 404 had descended into a career-wrecking morass of failures, but for the first time in months, he spied a way out. This Julie-Eric thing would sweep a harsh light into dark corners. It was a game-changer.

And Peterson was vulnerable.

"Kim, I've got to go."

"Bob—"

"Don't expect me for dinner. With Project 404 and now all this extra drama, I'm looking at another late night."

There was a knock on his door. Dolores poked her head in, tapped her wristwatch and said, "Four-fifteen."

"I know." He waved her out. To Kim, he said, "I'm needed in HR for another briefing." Peterson wanted to throw Worthington under the bus, but now Worthington had cards to play. He clicked off the call and settled back into his black leather chair with his hands clasped behind his head.

Peterson had skeletons.

It wasn't the alpha-exec's faux-suave attitude toward young females: a kiss instead of a handshake, and a hug when girls didn't backpedal quick enough. He'd pulled that routine at this year's new-hire orientation: young men got handshakes and backslaps, and girls got kissed and squeezed. _That's_ where Worthington first saw that Gabby Todd. When Peterson moved on her, she'd looked scared, but before he could strike, she'd stuck her hand out for a handshake and kept him at arm's length even when he tried to pull her in. She was smarter than Worthington had given her credit for. There to represent recent hires, Julie had seen Peterson in action.

At the department's last Christmas party, Peterson had danced over the line. Slurring every other word, he'd asked an attractive 22-year-old in a tight dress to dance—to a slow song. As though clowning, he clutched her close—way too close— while her boyfriend stared on with a fake smile plastered onto his face. Peterson's wife laughed along, but the girl looked like she rather be shot. Julie was there with Eric.

Then there was Peterson's last trip to Brazil. Julie had been there for that one, too; Worthington had brought her along to get some face-time with the customer. Raising more than a few eyebrows, Peterson showed up at the business dinner at a São Paulo restaurant, drunk again, with a woman on his arm who was dressed much more casually than business casual. She spoke only a few words of English but laughed and jiggled whenever Peterson smiled at her. No one else knew her. But she didn't matter.

No. It was the girl who had quit without giving any notice. After a private meeting with Peterson, the first-year engineer returned to her desk, said nothing, grabbed her car keys and never came back. Worthington had heard this story from several sources. He searched for her name; she mattered now. Julie probably knew. Maybe Peterson moved on Julie, too. That had to be it.

His phone buzzed and displayed: Vice President of Human Resources.

A plan coalesced as he accepted the call. "Robert Worthington here."

"Hello, Robert. This is Lynn Browning-Smith. I thought you'd be in my office by now."

"Well, as I'm sure you've heard, there's a lot going on." She sounded shaky, like she was in over her head; probably coming up to speed on her first exec job at a major company. She'd need some handholding. "Project 404 has been one firefight after another," he explained. "I'm scrambling to coordinate staff to make up some ground this weekend. And, obviously, with Eric Singer's death—"

"Robert, you need to come down to my office so we can discuss an urgent matter."

"Listen, Lynn, priorities. I need to take care of this, and then I'm available. Let's use my office."

"Nope. Needs to be done in my office. And it needs to happen right now."

"All right, then." So, she was going to be a bitch about it and pull rank. "In a minute."

"Oh, my god." She sighed and hung up.

"Damn." Worthington dropped his phone onto his desk and scrubbed his hands across his scalp. This Lynn woman had sharp elbows. Well, however she got her job, she was the head of HR. Under the circumstances, with implications of Julie's accusation, maybe her pushiness made sense. Information was time-sensitive. A swift and comprehensive response to stave off speculation served the company's best interests. And with Peterson's head set to roll—

Worthington pocketed his phone and headed out the door. He passed Dolores at her desk. "Track down Singer's team." He was the master of keeping all options on the table. "No calls for me. I'll be in HR for thirty minutes or so." She gave him a weird side stare.

At the end of the aisle, he popped into the stairwell and banged down the steps. A major sea-change like Peterson's firing required, for the org's stability, an experienced hand to take the wheel. As Director of New Product Development, Worthington found bossing hundreds somewhat satisfying. But as VP of Engineering, he'd own a dozen directors overseeing thousands of heads. Now he'd set the agenda, and those directors would owe him solutions to their problems. Initially, he might be "acting" VP, but with his foot jammed in the door, he'd seal the deal by dumping blame for Project 404's flameout on Peterson. And the perks: bigger bonuses, more stock options, a better car and indoor parking. He hated parking outside, especially when it snowed.

He paused at the bottom of the stairs to collect himself; best not to look too eager—act confident and let the offer come to him. He drew a deep breath, exhaled and pulled the door open. In front of Browning-Smith's office, a dark suit paced back and forth. Close by, holding a cardboard box, stood a uniformed security guard wearing a short-sleeved, white collared shirt and dark blue pants. A walkie-talkie clipped to the guard's leather belt chattered. When Worthington neared, the suited figure sped off the other way with the box-wielding guard in tow. So, it was true. Worthington didn't worry about hiding his grin because Peterson never looked back.

He approached Lynn's admin, and she waved him through. To put his best foot forward, he knocked on the office door before he let himself in. While talking on her cell with a pair of reading glasses perched high on her forehead, Lynn pointed to the seat in front of her desk. He stepped toward the chair and stood behind it as he gave her office a quick once-over: it was bigger than his, everything one notch richer, mahogany to his dark cherry. But he'd top this. As VP of Engineering, he'd have a sizable budget to make over Peterson's old office to his liking. He pulled the chair away from her desk and plopped into it. He stretched his legs out and crossed them. While she gabbed on, he surveyed her desk: on an otherwise spotless surface sat a single stack of papers, stapled in the upper right-hand corner, and a closed laptop. Apparently, she didn't have much else to do. He leaned back, lacing his hands behind his head. In need of a lesson on priorities, she kept talking to her kid.

"Gregory, I have someone in my office now." She nodded several times and added a few uh-huhs. "I'm happy for you. This Danny sounds wonderful. I'm glad you made a new friend. Tell me about it tonight. Okay?" She pivoted her chair away from Worthington. "I love you, too. Bye."

She swiveled back around.

"Lynn." He sat forward, taking the initiative to stretch a hand out in greeting. "Good to finally meet you."

"Robert." Making eye contact, she gave a firm handshake and then pulled back. "I realize this is short notice, but this is a very pressing matter."

"Came as soon as I could." Worthington flashed a small smile. Despite craving confirmation of Peterson's demise, he reminded himself to appear patient. "Tragic about Eric Singer. So young. He was a talent, and he will be missed." She nodded. "And Julie, so sad that she has to go through all of this. She's showing a lot of promise. I've been mentoring her."

"I've heard." She placed her elbows on her desk and folded her hands together.

He couldn't hold back any longer. "As I came in, I saw Ben Peterson leaving with a—is there something I should know?"

"Yes, there is. With Eric Singer's death and Julie Creggan's allegations, I'm sure you appreciate that this is a high-visibility situation, which the company takes very seriously."

Worthington furrowed his brow and performed a slow nod to indicate maximum concern as his mind swarmed with all of the people who would view him differently as a VP. First on that list: Kim. The wife's support for his long, hard hours had eroded in the last few years. She'd be more appreciative now. And Mike might finally grasp how hard work translated into reward.

"Several women have brought forward grave allegations." Lynn paused. "There is sufficient corroboration to believe that these allegations are credible."

"So, it's Peterson then." He shook his head. "To be honest, I've been concerned."

She cleared her throat. "Ben Peterson has been placed on indefinite administrative leave, pending a complete investigation, and..."

"And there'll be organizational changes..." He circled his index finger, hoping to spool ahead to the payoff.

"At this time..." She pursed her lips. "I'm not at liberty to discuss that with you."

He leaned forward. "You have to. How else—"

"Robert, listen to me. These allegations concern the behavior of several men in senior management positions."

"Several men?" She didn't make sense. The scapegoat had been led off to slaughter. And a VP at that. That should more than satisfy anyone's thirst for vengeance.

"As Spurion Futures mission statement says: 'In addition to building world-class products, we strive to imbue a culture of respect into every relationship we have with our stockholders, our customers, our employees and our communities.'"

"What the hell are you talking about?" His heart hammered. Mission statements were a gibberish of kum-by-yah crap that nobody ever read, never mind quoted. What did "imbue a culture of respect into every relationship" even mean?

"I've reviewed your training records." She patted her closed laptop. "You have not participated in our Zero Tolerance workshop. In fact, you are 18 months past due and have ignored several reminders."

He shrugged. "I get hundreds of emails a day."

She shrugged back. "It's an employee training requirement, and for you, it's a contractual requirement."

He sat up straight.

"Also." She leaned forward. "You have chosen not to participate in our Reconciliation through Restorative Justice program."

He held his hands out, palms up. "Seriously. What is that?"

"It's an opportunity for offenders to—well, you'd know if you took our Zero Tolerance training."

"Come on."

Lynn brushed his objection aside. "Robert, serious allegations have been made against you regarding inappropriate behavior—sexual harassment."

"What?" Pain flared in his chest.

"These are credible allegations."

"Not me." He rubbed his sternum with the knuckles of one hand, then dropped that hand to his side. Must show no weakness.

"Effective immediately..." She slid her glasses down onto her nose, picked up the stapled stack and flipped to the last page. "... pursuant to the ethical behavior clause in your contract, you are being placed on paid administrative leave until such time as this matter can be resolved by an impartial arbitrator. If you are found culpable then you shall be terminated immediately without further compensation..." She peered over her glasses at him. "At that time, you would return your corporate phone and car. Your credit card has been frozen as of today."

He worked his lungs like faulty mechanical bellows. "This is absurd." The company hadn't invoked the ethics clause since Clint O'Nan, the last VP of marketing, got caught banging an intern in the executive parking garage. Worthington hadn't done anything like that.

Browning-Smith continued, "If criminal charges or a civil suit are filed then Spurion Futures will cooperate as appropriate." She flipped back to the cover page, dropped the bundle on her desk and parked her glasses on her forehead. "It's all spelled out right here in your contract."

Worthington slumped back in his chair, staring up at the ceiling. He was being dragged through a hell not of his making. This had to be a mistake. "Wait a minute. Tell me who's making these... these trumped-up allegations?"

"You'll know more when an arbitrator is assigned. We have a bit of a backlog right now."

"All right. Stop right there. No one's ever accused me of anything."

"Actually... not true." She opened a drawer, pulled out a thick manila folder and placed it on her desk alongside his contract. "You have several prior complaints. For whatever reasons, previous administrations declined to take action. Going forward, however, Spurion Futures will address these matters with all due diligence." She replaced the file in her desk drawer and closed it with a thud. "Any questions?"

He pulled himself upright and mumbled, "You can't—"

"Corporate's been briefed. They're fully on board."

"I'll get a lawyer."

"That would be wise, however—"

"I'll sue for wrongful termination."

"Again, pursuant to your contract." She put on her reading glasses, flipped over a page and traced her index finger down, stopping halfway. "Referencing the nondisclosure clause." She rattled through the reading as if well-practiced, "Regarding resolution of an ethics matters, other than related communications with signee's personal lawyer and the company's appointed arbitrator, or for testimony in a criminal case regarding the ethics matter, or if a civil suit is brought against the signee by a complainant, the signee shall speak of this matter with..." She pushed her glasses on top of her head and sat back. "Well, besides your lawyer, you shall speak to no one. Not the press, not a coworker, not a spouse, not a family member, not even a therapist. No one."

He held his belly in his hands as he rocked forward, bowing his head.

"Robert, should I call someone?"

The note of pity in her voice was the sharpest dagger of all. "No." He forced himself upright. He had no idea where to go. Not home. Definitely not home. Somewhere else. Anywhere else. "No. Don't call anyone." He pushed himself to a standing position.

"We're not through yet." She gestured toward his chair. "Sit down."

He dropped back into the chair, relieved that he didn't have to attempt walking on his shaky legs. Maybe she needed something on Peterson that he could trade on.

"To be crystal clear, regardless of the arbitrator's final decision." She picked up his contract. "Violation of the nondisclosure terms will result in forfeiture of any and all compensations that you have received since the date of the first incident, so going back almost four years, includes wages and salary, bonuses, exercised stock options, usage of the corporate car and phone, future stock options cancelled. Everything."

He gripped his armrests. "Yeah, but—"

"Basically, you'd have to pay Spurion Futures a lot of money. It's all per your contract. I'm sure you've read it." She tossed it onto her desk. "You signed it."

He twisted in his seat with eyes darting around. No one would ever enforce that.

She leaned back. "So, effective immediately, you are on paid administrative leave pending completion of the investigation. The arbitrator will notify you shortly. Be aware that, until this matter is resolved, you shall not contact any current or former employees of Spurion Futures and you shall not enter any company facilities." She raised her voice, "Security."

The door clicked open behind Worthington. He glanced over his right shoulder. A uniformed guard, maybe twenty years old with a peach fuzz mustache, entered. He held an empty cardboard box.

"Please escort Mr. Worthington to his office," Browning-Smith said. "Give him five minutes to collect any personal items, then take him out to his car and see him off the premises."

Worthington rubbed his hands on his knees as he rocked back and forth. After all he'd done for this company, this was how they treated him?

"Sir?" The peach-fuzz kid tapped him on the shoulder.

If he didn't have this job, then what would he do? Where would he go? Who would he be?

"Sir, you need to leave now."

Table of Contents

Episode 7: Party to a Disaster

Michael sat at the breakfast bar, head in his hands, not daring to look at his mother. He knew that this wouldn't end well. Danny stood beside him with one arm wrapped around his shoulders.

"Robert, Julie's interview," Michael's mother said into her phone with a brusque tone, standing ten feet away at the kitchen counter. "It's all over national news. My friends keep calling." She pitched her voice lower. "Michael and Danny are here. They're worried."

To hear him and Danny connected to this mess felt humiliating.

Her voice trembled. "Robert, did you do it?"

Once, a long time ago—like, before today—the guilt of any accused assaulter was an abstract certainty. Now, as the circle closed in on his father, the desire for even a half-credible alibi welled up within him. He pushed his hair back and risked a glance at his mother, wishing against reason that there was some way out.

His mom whispered, "Did you assault Julie Creggan?" She made fleeting eye contact with Michael before drawing a hand up to shield her eyes.

That signal of shame smashed Michael's faint hope. The damage was done. His family was like a shattered dish that, even if glued back together, would bear permanent fissures and cracks—forced together but never truly whole again.

"Well, she said that she was sexually assaulted... by her boss, a few weeks ago." Doubt crept into his mother's voice, but it couldn't be the doubt inspired by hope. She pressed on, as though seeking to justify herself: "She'd been depressed and withdrawn. Her boyfriend talked her into going snowshoeing last night on the way home from Spurion Futures."

It was an absurd story, like all true stories that begged to be ignored. Through his mother's cell phone, Michael caught his father's garbled response. His father's tone said that, regardless of the truth, he'd accept no blame. Michael pushed away from the counter and crossed into the family room to stare through the patio double doors into the backyard. A white field fenced in by the muted green of fir trees, once a playground limited only by his and his big brother's imaginations. Now it was capped by the moonlit, gray clouds of an impending storm.

Danny stood to Michael's right, shoulder to shoulder. She was almost as tall as him— _they_ were almost as tall. He winced inside. Despite running it through his head again and again, he still messed up Danny's pronouns: not " _she/her/hers_ ," but " _they/them/theirs_." He didn't know where their relationship was headed, but he was definitely attracted to them. He did appreciate that they came home with him, knowing the fiasco the two would be walking into.

Danny motioned toward the abandoned patio furniture. "My family, we still have our stuff out, too. Nobody expected this in November."

"Not me. That's for sure." Clumps of heavy wet snow sagged off the forgotten furniture, ugly poses frozen by dropping temperatures. It'd been his responsibility to stow them for the season, but he didn't care anymore. "I'm not cleaning up this mess."

Michael turned back to his mother. She hung her head and leaned on the counter, her hand holding the phone loosely at her side. When it slipped from her grip and slid to the floor, any remnant of hope vanished. He should comfort her. But why him? He was only seventeen. Why was it his job to patch things up? His father always lectured Michael that he should be more like his older brother, but where was Connor? Lying in bed for days with a pillow wrapped around his head? Was there something wrong with him? Was he avoiding responsibility, like always? Like his father? It was getting harder to tell the two of them apart.

His phone buzzed, and he slipped it out of his back pocket. It was a text from Austin: "Are we on for tonight?" He shook his head. Another text flashed: "I need a ride."

"What's up?" asked Danny.

"Austin." He held up the phone display. "Wants a ride."

"Meh." Danny shrugged as if to say either way.

"Yeah. Maybe not." Weirdly enough, for the first time, he really wanted to go to a Bro Squad party. "Well, maybe." As bad as he felt for his mom, he needed a few hours respite from family drama. "Maybe yes. Do you want to go?"

"I guess."

Michael appreciated the compromise. He knew how Danny felt about the Bro Squad, but he needed something outrageous to pull himself out of his family's problems. If the stories were true, the party should more than do the trick.

His mother stooped to pick up her phone. Rubbing tears away, she walked toward them and said, "Well, that went about as well as expected."

Danny grimaced. "So sorry, Ms. Worthington."

"Oh, thank you, Danny." His mom sighed. To Michael, she said, "Sounds like your father barely knows Julie Creggan. So, that's a good thing. Right?" she asked. He let it pass because he'd had enough of his father for one day. She continued, "He said he's working late. Another big panic. You know how that is."

"Oh, sure." He did. His father always acted like whatever he was doing at Spurion Futures was the only thing saving civilization from imminent collapse. So, that was normal.

"How are you doing?" asked Danny.

"I'll be fine." His mom forced a smile. "My friends are coming over tonight. They're bringing wine."

Michael chuckled as he fought the urge to make air quotes when his mom said "wine." He knew it was her code word for smoking pot with her friends, but he was sure that she liked to think he didn't know. His mom needed to unwind. He and Danny should clear out. Then he remembered his big brother with his pillow wrapped around his head. "What's Connor up to?"

"I don't know. He's off somewhere. Meeting up with some of his old buds, I think." She shrugged. "So, what are you two planning?"

Michael's phone buzzed again and he held the screen so Danny could see it, too. Austin had texted: "Lets go!!!!"

Danny said, "We're hanging out at a friend's house."

"Yeah," Michael said. "Wyatt Easting from basketball." Hopefully, she didn't see through his half-truth.

His mom hesitated as if she was running through her usual internal checklist. He feared a few questions about who, what and where might drill down and expose his true plan to attend his first blowout-no-parents house party. Instead, she slapped her palm to her forehead and said, "I'm so sorry. With everything—" She raised her eyebrows. "How were tryouts? Good news?"

"No news," he said. "Cancelled. Out of the blue. Everything's rescheduled for Monday."

"Must be some reason." She leaned her head to one side. "Listen. There's a chance it might snow tonight." He stood up straight, trying to evoke responsibility, not wanting her to overrule his plans. She continued, "Take my car. It's all-wheel drive."

He weighed showing up at the party in a mom-SUV against her changing her mind. "Yeah," he said. "That sounds like a good idea."

#

Robert Worthington trudged across the half-assed-plowed parking lot with the peach-fuzz security guard in tow. Only a few scattered cars remained. Cold slush soaked Worthington's shoes. He carried a half-filled cardboard box containing a framed family photo, some award plaques and a calculator with dead batteries--all he had to show for thirty years of hard work. As he approached, the interior lights of his black Mercedes S560 glowed a familiar welcome—no, not his car, the company's car. He opened the rear door and threw the box onto the seat, rattling its contents. The door begged to be slammed, so he slammed it. He opened the driver's door and, mustering some dignity, stood with one foot in the car to appraise the guard maintaining a surveillance position twenty feet away. The kid avoided eye contact while resting one hand on the walkie-talkie clipped to his belt. Worthington snorted. That lifeline was the only reason the kid wasn't shitting his pants. Worthington dropped into the driver's seat, slammed his door and thumbed the ignition button. He spun the wheel two quick turns to the right and stomped on the gas, spraying a rooster tail of slush as his career receded in his rearview mirror. He knew only one thing for certain about his future: his next destination involved a lot of alcohol.

#

When Michael and Danny pulled into Austin Browning's plowed driveway, the hulking sophomore bounded out his front door and toward the car before Michael had a chance to shift into park.

Austin hopped into the backseat, slapped them both on their shoulders, and said, "Hey, guys. Thanks for the ride. This is so awesome."

Michael found himself warming to Austin's positive energy. Despite his initial hesitation about the Bro Squad party, he felt primed for an adventure.

On the drive out to Wyatt Easting's house, Michael grinned as Austin peppered Danny with variations on the same questions about Susan Wilson: "Is she seeing anyone?"

"Kind of."

"Does she know who I am?"

"Don't think so."

"Think she'd like me?"

"Maybe."

Austin seemed to take each uncertain answer as a confirmation of his chances to impress the popular senior. "You'll introduce me?" "Sure." That seemed to seal the deal for him.

Danny whispered to Michael, "He's like a big puppy."

After a pause, Austin said, "Hey, Michael told me about your pronouns."

Michael gripped the steering wheel and shot Danny a glance. He thought he'd been doing better but wondered if he'd messed up in front of his mom, like referring to Danny as "she" instead of "they."

Danny smiled and turned to Austin. "He did?"

"Yep." Austin leaned forward. "So, you're like a trans person?"

"Yeah. On the trans spectrum. I identify as gender non-binary. Just being me."

"You gotta be. I mean, I admit I'm still wrapping my head around it. I'm used to boys being boys, and girls being girls. But you're cool. I totally get that."

"You do?"

"Absolutely."

Danny turned to look back at Austin. "So, if you don't mind me asking, what are your pronouns?"

"My pronouns? I don't have any."

"You don't?"

"Of course not. I'm just a guy." Austin leaned back.

Danny sighed and folded their arms. Nobody said anything for awhile as they left behind the streetlights and the dark wooded gaps between houses grew longer.

"Actually, sorry. That was stupid," Austin said. "I guess I do have pronouns. Just never thought about it before. Never had to."

Danny unfolded their arms and turned to him. "Glad you're thinking about it now."

#

"Hey, Worthington. How you been?"

"Yeah. Yeah. Fine." He waved the familiar face away and lumbered down a narrow aisle with his hands stuffed deep into his coat pockets. He didn't have to talk. Not now. Not sober. To be safe, he scanned over the tops of shelves for any other faces from town. Nobody. Shouldn't be. This forgotten strip mall was halfway into the woods on a road that led nowhere. His life was becoming an abandoned strip mall. He kept moving, scouring the shelves for his go-to choice for whenever the world dumped on him: Old Grand-Dad. Not top shelf, but high school habits died hard. He grabbed a pint and moved toward the checkout counter. Senior year of high school, it'd finally sunk in that, no matter what he achieved, as far as his father was concerned, he was always one oh-shit away from being a total fuck-up. That was when he'd learned to drink alone with his dear Old Grand-Dad. His father might be an impenetrable wall, but Old Grand-Dad always listened. But he'd never been this badly dumped on before. It was bullshit, but, fine, they'd won the first round. But how could he turn the story around? He glanced at his watch: nine o'clock. He had tonight to figure it out, and he had a lot of figuring to do.

He circled back to pick up a second bottle.

#

Following the GPS, Michael turned onto a dark, wooded road, the kind he'd seen in horror movies. Only his headlights painted a glimpse of the way ahead. Snowbanks, uninterrupted by any driveways, bound either side of the road, and limitless darkness permeated the woods beyond. In the distance, a single set of red tail lights appeared and disappeared like a phantom. As he wound further into the unknown, an uneasiness grew. Even Austin quieted. Michael had no idea that someone could live so far away from anything and still go to the same school as him.

He was about to suggest they turn back when Danny said, "I see lights." Around the next bend, cars lining both sides of the road narrowed the path to a single lane. Michael slowed to a crawl, not willing to park until he confirmed the existence of the house. He powered his window down. Far-off shouts, laughter and music beckoned. Around another bend, a lone house, a hundred feet off the street, was lit up like the carnival had come to town. Danny and Austin glued their faces to their windows. Michael caught several pairs of headlights in his rearview mirror. Ahead, standing in the middle of the road, someone waved a flashlight and held up a hand. Michael pulled to a stop.

A football player he recognized from the weight room approached his window and held out a hand. "Twenty bucks."

Before he could answer, Austin reached past him to pay. "I got it."

The football player added the bill to a stack in his right hand and peered in, checking out Danny and Austin. "Listen up. Park on cleared asphalt only. No tire tracks. And no smoking or puking in the house. Violation of any rules will result in banishment." He slapped the driver's door twice and waved Michael on. "And try not to kill anyone." Four cars had queued up behind him.

Austin kept saying under his breath, "Holy shit. Holy shit." Danny smiled, wide-eyed. Michael, himself amazed by the epic scale of the party, felt like he'd entered an alternate universe beyond the reach of parents and police.

Fifty yards down the road, he pulled into an open spot. His parka hung open as the three hiked back toward the house, weaving through incoming cars. Wafts of wood smoke drifted about. Ice glazed the roadway, but the lack of a breeze kept the cold at bay. As they climbed the driveway, the three wove past clusters of guys in heavy parkas and girls in skinny coats hopping in place, enjoying bursts of alcohol-inspired conversations. Someone flicked a lighter and lit a joint. Michael caught the oddly pleasant skunk-like odor as he passed by. Ahead, the house pulsed with a relentless bass line.

The open double-garage door revealed a clean cement floor covered in paired sneakers and boots. The walls, hanging with implements of lawn care, suggested that adults still lived here. In the corner sat tables and chairs covered with clear plastic tarps. Nearby, four girls, wearing patterned leggings and jean jackets, unzipped knee-high boots, and kicked them off to slip on high heels. Michael recognized two of them from his U.S. History class. The four girls headed toward an open door. A broad-shouldered guy in a black T-shirt, stepped aside to let them pass into the house. Music and flashing colored lights spilled out. Michael glimpsed a closely packed dancing crowd.

A guy in baggy socks and an oversized orange hoodie bopped past the bouncer into the garage. It was Eddie Rangles. With a wild look in his eyes, he clamped a red cup in his teeth, and using two-hands, tugged on a pair of work boots, not bothering to lace them. Cup now in one hand, Eddie thumped Michael's chest with the other. "You can't miss the Christmas tree!" Then he ran out and around the corner toward the backyard. "Land of the brave. Home of the free." His voice trailed off, "It's awesome."

"Whoa!" Danny said. "Somebody's really jacked about the holidays."

Michael laughed. "And it's not even Thanksgiving yet." Still, he was grateful for the recognition by his teammate. This could be his breakout year.

"Must be awesome." Austin laughed, a little too loud, and then hustled after Eddie.

Michael followed along side-by-side with Danny. A shoveled walkway led around the side of the house. He took advantage of the moment to slip an arm around Danny's waist, who leaned into him and returned the favor. Family problems receded into a fog. This was the escape he craved: a chance to be alone with Danny, to kiss, to smell each other's smells, to be close together, to push past boundaries. Despite not drinking or smoking anything, he felt intoxicated.

#

Worthington leaned back in the driver's seat. Cold wind on his face. Window open. Never started the car. Nobody around. Big parking lot. He held the bottle up to the moon and sloshed it. Half drained and feeling better. He jammed it into the center console next to the other one. What now? The story? Know what? Fuck it. Two-handed, he shoved the door open. He climbed out and lumbered back toward the strip mall. Turned toward the hunting store. Half lit and deserted. Still open? What time was it? He slipped but caught himself. A pile of slush. Shitty plow job. Few more steps. Double doors whooshed open. Inside, boats and canoes and kayaks. Bows and arrows. Weird. And camo. Pants. Jackets. Vests. Lots of pockets. Maybe get something. He slapped his pocket. Wallet. Yeah. A glass counter. Someone behind it. Staring at him. Like they knew him. Balance not so good. He planted two hands on the glass. What? Yeah. Course, he was alright. He was looking. Under glass. Bullets and pistols. Should get one. Seven-day waiting period? Bullshit. I got rights. Know what? Fuck it. Don't want it anyway.

He knew what he needed. And he knew where to get it. Just down the road.

#

The music volume lessened as Michael and Danny followed the shoveled pathway along the garage. But when the two turned the corner into the backyard, a thumping bass line hit him in the chest as he took in the grand scene. A half-court pass away, tall trees with branches bent by wet snow established the boundary between the snow-blanketed backyard and the infinite woods beyond. Against the house, on a cleared, immense slate patio, guys and girls shouted in each other's ears to be heard, breaths misting above them. All stood around a fire pit: a ring of field stones encircling a stack of burning logs. More kids leaned out of the house's windows and crammed doorways, shouting names. Some waved red Solo cups.

Someone started a chant, "Chrisss-muss tree. Chrisss-muss tree." Others picked it up. Soon it seemed everyone except Michael and Danny had joined the chorus. The pair threaded through the crowd toward the fire, stopping in the second row behind Austin. Michael tapped his shoulder. Austin turned and nodded as he continued the Christmas tree chant. Michael laughed and shook his head. "Why are you saying that?"

Before Austin could answer, across the fire pit from them, the crowd parted to allow someone entry into the inner circle. It was Wyatt Easting. Behind him, he dragged a no-longer-green evergreen tree. The chanting devolved into rebel yells, piercing whistles and cheers. Wyatt seemed to grow larger as he basked in the adoration. He raised a hand, and the crowd quieted. Many took out their phones and focused them on him. He leaned down, plunged one hand through the bristling, brown branches and seized the middle of the trunk. In one fluid motion, as though hoisting a javelin overhead, he snatched the tree up. The crowd roared as a shake of dry needles dandered his shoulders.

Someone yelled, "Say it. Say it."

With his free hand, Wyatt raised a clenched fist, and the crowd quieted again. All watched him. He put a foot on the ring of stones with the tree clutched overhead, posing like a ten-foot-tall god ready to pull lightning down from the sky.

Again, the crowd chanted, "Say it! Say it!"

Wyatt yelled, "I am the god of hellfire!" Many male voices joined in. "And I bring you! Fire!" He punctuated the last word by slamming the tree onto the burning pile. It crackled, and in a whoosh, burst into a ball of flames. Everyone surged away, laughing and screaming.

Austin spun about, grabbed Michael and Danny and drove them back. Michael backpedaled as a column of fire, as wide as the widest tree trunk, took form. It grew to ten, twenty, thirty feet or more; a giant stab of flame clawing upward at the trees' overarching branches. Thousands of white-hot embers swirled in the updraft. Like the inside of a furnace, all around was lit bright with intense wavering reds and oranges: the back of the house, the snow-covered backyard, the overhead trees branches, and the stumbling mass of fleeing people, some waving phones. An oven blast washed over Michael. His heel caught on something. He would have fallen and taken Danny down with him if Austin hadn't held them all up. Michael clung to Austin, and pulled Danny in tight. The three huddled in a protective circle, each clutching the other, each with their forehead pressing on the shoulder of the next. Michael expected the sky to burst into flames.

"Oh, my god," a girl called. "That was sooooo amazing. I got the coolest video."

Michael raised his head. The fire quelled to a fifteen-foot tall column. Above, the tree branches seemed to lift and recede into darkness. A breeze pushed the diminishing stream of embers away from the crowd toward the dark woods; most wafted into the snow beyond the patio to die a sizzling death. Michael, Danny and Austin drifted an uncomfortable few feet apart. He marveled how, a moment after expecting to die in a maelstrom of fire, he no longer felt threatened by a column of fire a mere ten-feet high.

People chatted over the occasional peal of nervous laughter. Some backed in closer to the fire, holding their phones up, running through various poses, questing for the optimum selfie. Huddles formed as people replayed videos.

Austin said, "Holy shit."

"We've been here for like five minutes," Michael said.

Danny frowned. "You go to a circus, expect a show."

The fire subsided, licking along the skeleton of the tree's trunk and its thinning branches. Eddie Rangles whooped war cries and danced around the fire, bare-chested as he whipped his shirt and hoodie overhead. To one side, a group of girls, Susan Wilson included, flocked to Wyatt Easting and his squad. A guy who sounded like Connor got a big laugh from a line about "a peach-fuzz boy shitting his pants." But it couldn't be him because he only talked trash about high school now; after being away at college for three months, this scene would be beneath him. The music cranked up several notches as the crowd headed into the house.

#

Guys laughed at his jokes and girls wanted to hang all over him. Everyone wanted to be with him. Worthington was the man. Still. He felt good. Not complicated by any shit. Everyone knew what he could do. What he had done. All he had done. And respected him. Like he deserved to be. Of course.

#

After the tree-bomb burnt itself out, most left the patio, shifting the epicenter of the party into the crowded house. Austin said a quick "later" and followed Wyatt and Susan, leaving Michael and Danny alone except for a clustered group sharing a joint and a few other couples scattered around the patio in close conversations.

"What the hell happened?" asked Michael.

"The Bro Squad happened." Danny sat on a wooden-slat lawn bench parked a few feet from the fire pit. It was like the one he'd tripped over when the tree ignited.

Michael held an open hand over the diminished fire. He considered tossing on more wood, but the heat radiating from the crumbling logs more than took the edge off of the chilly night. He dropped onto the bench alongside Danny. Both rested their feet on one of the fire pit's large round stones. His eyes adjusted to the dim light. On a bench across the fire from them, another couple was seriously making out. The guy slipped his hand under the girl's coat. She startled and pulled back, but he pressed another kiss on her. Michael focused on the black bed of coals in the ring of stones: mesmerizing pulses of glowing orange broke and receded like waves at the beach. Somehow, despite the roar of the party spilling from the house, this drew him to a peaceful place.

"This is nice." Danny shifted closer, their shoulders and hips touching Michael's.

"Yeah," he said. "Very." As in, he was very aware that his body was in physical contact with someone he found very attractive. Over the past few months, mostly the two had shared hushed heart-to-heart talks in the school library, challenging ideas and testing opinions, often about gender identity. With every conversation, Danny inched closer to the center of his world. But there'd been few opportunities for more than quick hugs and goodbye kisses.

Danny said, in a soft voice, "Could be nicer," and shifted to face Michael, their knee touching his.

A pounding heartbeat later, he responded, "Yeah." He stretched his arms overhead and, fighting to maintain a calm demeanor, dropped his left arm around Danny's shoulders. But his thoughts raced: How far would Danny go? Should he find somewhere warmer? More private? When these feelings welled up and consumed him, it was a slippery descent into wanting it all. Holding his breath, he met Danny's gaze, brushing his right hand brushed along their hip up to their waist. He slipped a finger into their jeans' waistline, tugging lightly.

Danny put a hand behind his head and kissed him. And that kiss went deeper and longer than any kiss Michael had ever experienced. Warm and smooth and so close. When they breathed, they breathed the same air. He felt the muscles along Danny's lower back, pulling them closer, his chest meeting softness. Together, in the middle of a cool night, the two created a tangled pocket of warmth. Never had someone been so available for him and never had he been so available for someone else. He managed only one thought: this is perfect. Danny broke the kiss off and nestled against his neck, saying "Mmm."

He shouldn't miss this chance. He needed a plan: find a bedroom inside, or maybe a couch, or a quiet corner somewhere; and then make his move. Did he bring a condom? He sat up. Shit. This hunger to get laid—it was like being chained to an idiot.

Danny sat up alongside him. "You okay?"

"I'm great. That kiss was so amazing." Michael took a deep breath. "It's just that..."

"Just that what?"

"Hey, I said 'No." The girl across from them squirmed, apparently trying to free herself from her guy-friend's grasp.

"Oh, come on," the guy said. "You said 'No' the last time, and we still—"

"Alright, contestants." Danny clapped twice and said in a loud, game-show host voice, "One hundred candy points to the first person who can name..."—a sweeping wave of their hand directed the attention of the people on the patio toward the woods beyond— "... who can name what's out there."

Michael glanced out at the shapes and shadows of the trees and then across the cooling bed of coals to the couple. Both stared back at Danny. The girl, showing a surprising amount of bare thigh, seemed trapped. The guy seemed pissed. Neither offered an answer. Unsure how to navigate the painful silence, Michael said the first thing which leapt to mind: "Bigfoot?"

Nobody laughed. Danny made a buzzer sound. "Wrong answer. Anyone else?"

The girl pushed her skirt's hemline down, and clutching the front of her coat, rushed into the house. The guy followed in pursuit, snapping to Michael in passing, "Fuck you, Bigfoot."

A pang of guilt hit Michael, for interfering, for violating an unspoken pledge of loyalty.

"What a man." Danny sat back with their arms crossed and lips pressed together in a tight line.

He sighed. The moment had passed. How did other guys do it? How did anyone? He had such a deep longing, a brain-numbing compulsion, to experience—he couldn't find the right words. Was getting laid a prize? A prize to be taken? Or could someone ever trust Michael and care for him so much that they'd want to have sex with him? Maybe that could be the prize?

The full moon shone between a break in the dense clouds. Through an opening in the trees—a trail leading to Danny's answer? —he searched across a narrow meadow to a distant snow-covered hillside splattered with a milky palette of grays, trees and the shadows of trees. At the base of the hill, a silent wind set into motion a swaying ebb and flow; some treetops released puffs of snow as the reaction worked its way uphill. And then the rise and fall of the rustle and rumble reached him, and he shivered. The storm was coming.

"So, what's the answer?" He pulled his coat tight for warmth.

Danny shrugged as if lost. "I don't know. Maybe Bigfoot is the right answer."

"Really?" Michael slid his arm around Danny's shoulders, intending to comfort.

Keeping arms crossed, Danny considered him with a long gaze. "That's the Metacomet Ridge—where Eric Singer died. And where Julie Creggan found her way out—by herself."

He withdrew his arm. Was Danny implying that he bore some responsibility? For a lonely minute, he sat with what had happened to Eric and Julie; his death and her flight, from something terrible into something much worse. It was wrong, what his father had done. Or was accused of doing. Or might be accused of doing. Nobody seemed to know anything for sure. Well, his father had to know. And so did Julie Creggan. He crossed his arms, tight over his chest. He didn't need definitive confirmation to know what his father was capable of. Yet, did he bear some responsibility for his father's mistakes? Some guilt? He thought about the guy who had just called him Bigfoot and told him to fuck off, the guy who wouldn't take "No" for an answer.

Danny stared at him, waiting for something. What exactly? He had no idea. Danny shifted on the bench. Michael felt the slight pressure of their hip and shoulder against his. The two sat as close as they'd been minutes ago when they'd fallen into that amazing kiss. This time, though, untethered from his compulsions, no longer grabbing at any chance to score, he had a jarring moment of clarity.

"I don't want to mess us up by doing something stupid," he said. "I really like you."

"I really like you, too."

"And honestly, you know, I'd like to... to do more but—"

"I want to do more, too."

"You do?"

"Yeah. Sure."

"Hey, Danny!" It was Austin, leaning out an open window. "You said you'd help me out."

Michael dropped his head, conveying dramatic disappointment, but he couldn't hide his smile.

Danny laughed and turned toward Austin. "Sure. Give us a minute." Then they pulled Michael in for a tight hug. "Let's help Austin out, and then we'll find somewhere to talk. Come on."

Hand in hand, the two crossed the patio toward the house.

#

Worthington knew what she wanted. The way she kept brushing by. Bumping into him. Laughing and smiling. Saying somebody pushed her. And then pretending to look away like she wasn't interested. But she was. She definitely was.

#

Inside, Michael and Danny found Austin in the darkened entryway, waiting between a pile of shoes and a heap of winter coats. Past him stood another wide-body in a black T-shirt playing bouncer. In the beat-heavy, crowded dark room beyond, dozens danced. Washed in patches of colored lights, girls tossed their arms overhead and shook their hips, while a couple of guys leaning against the walls shouted off-rhythm lyrics. Michael liked this song. He joined in, but Danny popped him in the chest and scowled at him.

"What?" he said.

"Think what you're saying."

He replayed the lyrics in his mind: bitches and hoes, n-this and f-that. He'd never _say_ that, why would he think he could _sing_ that?

"House rules," the bouncer shouted over the music. "No shoes. No coats. And no smoking or puking—not inside, anyway."

"Let's go. Let's go." Austin hopped up and down in his socks.

Shaking his head, Michael dropped his coat and sneakers next to Danny's, and slipping sideways past the guard, followed his friends into the party. Bumped by dancers, the three stopped to scan the packed room for Susan. A new song picked up, and the bass drum resonated in Michael's chest. The chandelier, pinned high against the ceiling, held a revolving basketball-size globe of lights, the source of the splashes of purples, reds, blues and greens decorating the dancers. Except for two mammoth speakers and a hutch against one wall, the hardwood floor had been cleared of all furniture; must have been the stuff under the tarp in the garage.

Austin leaned into Michael and Danny and said, "She was just here! But I don't see her now!" He turned and plowed into the crammed kitchen saying: "Excuse me. Excuse me.," Danny and Michael followed in his wake. Bodies jostled against them on both sides. Lit only by the stove-hood light, people squeezed shoulder to shoulder. Most held red cups, laughing and shouting to someone a foot away. In the dim light, at the kitchen table amid bowls of potato chips, Michael spotted kids dumping out prescription bottles and using the back of a spoon to crush pills into powder. At the counter, Austin poured a drink from one of the five-gallon orange coolers that straddled each side of the sink. He handed it to Danny. He poured another for Michael and then one for himself, which he promptly chugged.

Michael sipped the purple concoction, repulsed by the taste of sugar-soaked alcohol.

Danny sniffed the drink. "Oh, my god. What is this?"

"Jungle juice," a girl next to Danny said, slurring her words a bit. She was the one from the make-out couple at the fire pit. "You know, Kool-Aid and grain alcohol." Her eyes half-closed and her head bobbed. "Drink of champions."

Her guy friend appeared at her side and pulled her close. She slipped free with an angry shake.

Austin cut in, "Hey, have you seen Susan Wilson?"

"Yeah. With Wyatt and his friend. Like ten minutes ago. She went... that a'way." The girl waved her cup in the general direction of the next room, spilling her drink on her guy-friend. He said, "Bitch," as he lurched back into another guy, setting off a chain reaction of shouts and dropped cups, with more swearing and sidestepping. When things settled out, guys in socks and girls in high heels jammed even closer to avoid the fresh, purple puddle in the middle of the floor.

A guy shouted, "That's the problem with this country." It was Eddie Rangles in his orange hoodie. "You gotta man up! Do what needs to be done!"

"So, Eddie, whatcha ya gonna do?" asked the girl with the spilled cup.

He threw both arms high into the air. "Human mops!" He and two others dove onto the floor, sliding on their chests through the spillage. With shrieks and roars, the crowd parted, raising drinks overhead to avoid collisions. Some lost their balance and toppled onto the three moppers. Peals of laughter and accusations of "Asshole" sounded as people regained their feet. Crowded in one corner, a red-faced guy, with neck veins popping, chanted "U-S-A. U-S-A." No one bothered to join in, but that didn't stop him.

Michael thrilled, and Danny pressed into him. The crowd pinned the two against the counter. For years, without knowing exactly what it was, he'd long to be a part of this bizarre scene. The allure of the excitement, the freedom, the danger—

"Hey." Austin smacked Michael in the chest with a playful backhand. "Let's find Susan."

With forward energy and polite apologies, Austin drove a path for the three toward the next room. In the doorway, another security guy held them up. "No cups outside the kitchen." Danny asked, "Why not?" He answered like it was the most obvious thing in the world, "Kitchen's the spill zone." Austin shrugged, tossed back his drink and threw the used cup toward the sink. It arched high over heads and rattled home. Impressed, Michael considered draining his but remembered the crushed white powder on the table, wondering if some made its way into the orange coolers. He slid his and Danny's cups onto the counter amid a clutter of half-filled ones and two empty whiskey bottles. The guard let them pass.

In the low light of the next room, people slouched on couches or on the carpet, chatting or making out or drooped in unconscious poses, but still no Susan Wilson or Wyatt. They stepped over a guy sprawled on the floor into a larger room with more people huddled on couches. A cold, stone fireplace covered the near wall. On the front wall, a picture window looked out across the lawn onto the street. Approaching cars' reflected headlights provided sparse illumination. Shifting shadows gave the room the vibe that everyone was hiding from something.

"This is too weird," Austin said. "We're running out of house. Where can she be?"

"How about there?" Danny pointed to the far-end of the room. Another football player, the biggest yet, stood guard at the bottom of the stairs.

"Yeah. Got to be it." Austin sauntered up to the guard and said, "Hey, we're going upstairs."

"Nope."

"What do you mean?" pressed Austin. Michael wandered behind his friend, with hands stuffed into his pockets. Danny stood a few feet back.

"VIP only."

"Well, I'm important," said Austin.

The guard smirked.

"How do I get to be a VIP?"

"If you gotta ask." The guard stared over the three of them. He was several inches taller than Michael and wider than Austin; probably weighed a hundred pounds more than him, too. And he wore a pair of huge work boots. Michael twisted around to follow the guy's stare but found only a lone nail embedded in a blank wall.

"Man, you're huge," Austin said, with obvious admiration.

The football player drew himself up to his full height, drawing his shoulders back to stretch his dark shirt tight across his broad chest.

"What shoe size do you wear?" asked Austin.

"Fifteen. Double E."

"Wow."

The guy preened as though the crowning achievement of his life was growing large feet.

"Bigfoot," Danny said, a little too loud and obvious for Michael.

"Yeah. Amazing," he chimed in. "Really big feet. Hey, my name's—"

"Yeah. You're Mike, right? Connor's brother. He's already up there."

"He's here." Michael froze. Shit. The high school hero had returned.

"I thought you knew," said Austin.

The big guy made eye-contact with Michael and gave an eyes-dead smile. "That fucker can still drink."

"Hey-heeyyy." Danny flipped their head, tossing their dark bangs. "Mike, you promised..." And leaned into him, wrapping both arms around his waist, pressing their cheek against his. And giggled into his ear. All very un-Danny-like.

Giggled? After several slow beats, Michael gathered the plan. "Oh. Right. We're going upstairs." He slid an arm around Danny's waist, pulled them closer and slapped their ass. To the guard, he said, "You know."

The big guy guffawed and stepped aside, allowing the pair to pass. Halfway up the stairs, Michael glanced back over his shoulder. The guard had resumed his position, blocking an anxious Austin. At the top of the stairs, he and Danny separated and scanned up and down. The two stood midways in a long hall lit at the far end by a lone nightlight.

"Susan?" Danny called. No answer except the downstairs' party din. Then from down the hall, Michael caught muffled voices and a burst of laughter—a couple of guys hooted, egging each other on. But not a word from Susan.

"Hey, something important to remember," Danny said.

"Yeah." Connor was here. There'd be no escaping his brother.

"Don't ever slap my butt again. Got it?"

"Oh, yeah. Sorry. I didn't mean it." That wasn't him. "Hey, I was just playing along."

"Yeah, well, you got into your role a little too much. Alright, just check those out." Danny motioned toward the end of the hall where the whooping emanated and then moved quietly away in the other direction.

Michael slumped. Why were they splitting up? What was the hurry? All so Austin could score an intro? He heard a soft cry. Was it a whimper? Then nothing. Shit.

Peeling his foot from the floor with every step, he moved to the first door and stood six inches away. Waited. Heard nothing. He placed his hand on the door knob, easing the door open six inches, and peered in. A bathroom. Dark and deserted.

As though slogging against a heavy current, he crossed the hallway to the next room. In front of the closed door, he heard whispers: a guy and a girl. He knocked. The door popped open a few inches. Someone kicked it closed in his face. A girl said, "We're busy in here." That girl's voice: Connor's ex from high school. And he thought he'd caught a murky glimpse of his older brother. Based on the ensuing laughter, neither would bother with Michael.

A bit relieved, he moved further down the hall. Worst case, tomorrow he'd have to endure another tale of Connor's conquests. The last room's door lay cracked open a few inches, and whoever was in there was really going at it. Maybe it was wild sex, or maybe it was a wrestling match. Two guys joked back and forth, sputtering and slurring, taunting one to outdo the other. Because she _definitely_ wanted it. And Michael knew both voices. He should leave. He had to leave. Right now. He turned away, but the girl's silence anchored his feet in place. She had said nothing. Nothing at all. He turned back. The crack in the door sliced into darkness and shadows. The hallway nightlight was directly behind Michael. He moved aside to allow its dim spray to cast onto the gray forms within.

Slowly, his eyes saw more. Too much. He backed away before he was caught.

Head down, silent as a mouse, he made his way back to the top of the stairs.

Danny joined him a minute later. "Nothing on my side. How about yours?"

"Too dark." He'd seen him on top of her.

"Too dark?"

"It was hard to see." One hand clutched her throat. The other grabbed her hair.

Danny waited.

Behind Michael, back down the hall, a door latched closed. He knew both voices. And he'd seen Wyatt's wild face. And her eyes. Empty. And Michael had walked away. Had left her. Because why did this have to land on him? His life was falling apart as it was. Couldn't he take a pass this one time?

Danny waited.

Because Michael was scared.

Because Wyatt had seen him.

Because Susan had seen him.

And because he had seen Connor.

"Susan's in trouble," he said. "A lot of trouble,"

Danny grabbed his arm. "What do you mean?"

He met Danny's eyes, forcing the words out, "Wyatt's hurting her."

Danny flew past him. Footsteps hammered down the hall. Fist pounded on the door. "Susan! Susan!" Shook the doorknob. Locked now. Threw a shoulder into the door. Didn't budge. "Susan!" And then Michael was alongside. Together, the two slammed into the door.

"Who the hell are you?" Wyatt shouted through the door. "Get the fuck out of here!"

"Let her go!" Again, Michael and Danny slammed shoulders into the door.

"Security! Security!" Wyatt shouted.

Danny cupped their hands to their mouth and shouted down the hall, "Austin, we need you! Now!"

From the stairs, came an explosion of grunts and punches landed, and body slams and cracking wood. And then Austin appeared at the top of the stairs and raced toward them. Even in the dim light, Michael saw that he was soaked in sweat and bleeding profusely from his nose.

"What's wrong?" He sputtered blood as he spoke.

"Susan Wilson is trapped in there." Danny thumped an emphatic finger in the middle of the door. "And Wyatt Easting's raping her."

Austin stiffened like he'd been slapped, and then he grabbed and twisted the door knob. "Locked." He stepped back and kicked the door. It didn't budge. He rapped his knuckles on it. "Solid." He tap-tapped the wall six inches to the side of the door frame and then swiped a hand across his bloody face and painted a dark red target on the gray wall. He sucked in a deep breath, drew back his right fist, and then drove it into the wall, arching his back, piling his weight onto it, burying his fist shoulder-deep.

"What the—hey, asshole, this is my parent's house!"

Austin yanked his arm out of the wall, leaving a gaping hole. Danny slipped beside him, reached in, and then the door popped open. Michael ran in. A shocked Wyatt stepped aside. Then for the first time in Michael's life, he challenged his older brother, shoving Connor off of Susan. Austin surged in and slammed a complaining Wyatt into the far corner. Danny flipped the light switch on and then off, but that flash image froze into Michael's brain: Susan sitting on the edge of the bed, hands pressing to her cheeks with emotions surging across her face: from relief to shame to anger; and Connor standing on the opposite side of the bed, pulling up his pants, annoyed.

In the darkness again, Danny slipped off their hoodie and wrapped it around Susan's shoulders. Susan clutched it to herself, stood and ran out of the room with Danny and Austin chasing her. And then the bouncer with the big feet filled the doorframe.

"Hey, big boy." Wyatt threw both hands in the air. "What the hell am I paying you for? And now I have to clean up this steaming pile of shit?" He stomped out the door with his large accomplice in tow. As he headed down the hall, he barked out orders, "Go to the basement. Get two wallboard patches and some joint compound. And tell Jared to get the fucking vacuum!"

"What the hell, Mike?" Connor zipped his pants and tucked in his shirt.

Michael stared at his feet.

"You gonna shit your pants?" He adjusted his waistline. "Why you freaking everybody out?" He gestured toward the empty bed.

Between him and his brother lay the crumpled bedspread.

"Worthington!" Both Michael and Connor turned to the door. It was Wyatt talking to Connor. "Get your worthless little brother the fuck out of my house. Now!"

Wyatt left again. Pounding down the hallway, he called back, "Mike Worthington and Austin Browning. Banned for life. And whoever the hell that girl was, she's banned, too." Downstairs, the music cut out. And a house packed with a hundred alcohol- and drug-fueled teenagers became sober quiet. "Party's over! Get the fuck out of my house! Now!"

"Seriously, Mike, what's wrong with you? We're all having a good time."

His brother sounded drunk, drunk with confidence.

"Then you're banging on the door. Yelling. Punching holes in the wall. What the fuck?"

More than enough confidence to convince anyone that black was white, wrong was right.

"Shit. Look at that wall. You gonna fix that?"

By moving around all the pieces until the same thing became something else.

"Your first party. I'm so disappointed in you."

Because he never did anything wrong.

"Who's that girl? The one freaking out. Making a huge thing out of nothing."

Michael backed into the hallway, standing where he'd first peered into the room, seeing Susan's eyes, blank, faraway. "It wasn't nothing."

"Mike, wait." Connor held up a hand as he stumbled around to the near side of the bed. "Nothing happened. I'm right. You know I am."

"I don't know that."

"Mike. Come on. I'm telling you. Ask Wyatt."

He shook his head. "I'll ask Susan."

"Ask Susan? Ask Susan what?"

"Did you ask Susan?" Had his brother considered ever asking her anything?

"Mike, listen. Wyatt says she's been to all the parties. Always angling to get upstairs. Well, now she did. If she says anything different, nobody's going to believe her. Everybody knows what happens up here."

"I don't know."

"I'm telling you. Look. We were on top of the covers. She had her clothes on. I've got mine on. Look at me."

"I'm looking at you."

"And I'm your brother. And I'm telling you. We've got to fix this."

"We?" Was Michael a part of this? Was he no better than his brother? Was this just the way the men in his family behaved? Or all men? He'd started the night out hoping to leave memories of his father behind. Then Danny showed him how to face his own consuming obsession. And now, from where he stood, he saw his brother.

And the hole in the wall.

And the crumpled covers.

And her empty eyes.

And he knew.

This wasn't going to get fixed. Not the way Connor wanted it to be.

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About Chris McAuliffe

I'm a long-time resident of Windsor, CT living with Cheryl, who I've known since first grade and been in love with since senior year in high school. We've raised three children: Aaron, Kay and Rose. _Raised three children?_ That's a vast understatement. Together, these four people have given me experiences and insights which have continually redefined how I see myself, them and the world we live in.

Job-wise, I'm a retired mechanical engineering who designed and developed a specific type of machine used in an aircraft system which few are aware of, but all air travelers depend on. At its best, the job was creative and rewarding and payed the bills. At its worst, it's something I'm grateful to never have to do again. And now I get to write every day!

So, call me Chris. I use he/him pronouns. I'm a cis-gender, heterosexual, white upper-middle class male who respects the power of labels, the freedom of no one to be limited by them, and my own evolving ignorance.

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Other books by this author

I'm currently working on Season 2 of _Scenes of Winter_ and I confess I'm behind schedule. There's something demotivating about living in a pandemic. Anyway, all excuses aside, I do have the next episode complete, tentatively titled _The Bystander_ and I have the next few episodes mapped out--kind of. Once I have a few done, I'll start posting them and hopefully that will inspire me to pick up the pace.

Yeah, I've written some other stuff too. But the more I sit with it, the less certain I am of what to do with the other stuff. So, for now I'm focusing on Scenes of Winter.

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Connect with the author

Thank you for reading my story. I do believe that the greatest praise a writer may receive is to have a reader recommend their book to someone new. So, a hundred candy points to you if you do pass it on!

If you'd like to follow me, I'm at:

Instagram: @chrismcauliffe2633

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