A girl appeared on the path, peering into the reeds. Crickets chirped and water slapped. “Hello?” she called again. Kane knew he should warn her, but he couldn’t breathe. Shamefully silent, he waited for the darkness to grab her with its many legs, but nothing happened.
The girl jumped down the bank. “Hello? I can see you. Are you okay?” She was much bigger than Kane, dressed in running gear, and she held his muddy backpack. She stopped short when she saw him.
“There was something…” Kane began. Where did he begin? Should he even try to explain?
There was a beat of stillness as Kane and the girl realized they knew each other, and then so much dread settled on Kane he felt like he would sink right back into the mud.
“Kane?”
“No,” he blurted. “It’s not. I’m not.”
Ursula Abernathy, another junior at Amity Regional, shifted from foot to foot. Broad and powerful, she was a star athlete on the track team. Or maybe the field hockey team? Kane just knew she did sports often, and she did them well, but that off the field she was super awkward. She’d been picked on a lot growing up. Kane knew because he’d been there for all of it. They’d gone to the same elementary school.
It was pointless trying to lie now that she’d recognized him.
“Fine, it is me,” Kane said.
“Are you…okay?”
“Yes.”
Ursula waited, clearly ready for an explanation, but Kane had nothing to give. He was too busy with the realization that by morning it would be town-wide news that Kane Montgomery, local gay miscreant, burner of buildings and crasher of cars, was caught nocturnally frolicking in the muddy tributaries of the Housatonic River. He could already imagine Dr. Poesy making a note of this in that stupid file.
Daintily, Kane picked himself out of the muck and padded up the bank, his boots making indecent squelches. Ursula followed at a distance.
“What were you doing down there?”
Kane glanced at her. She was dressed in a ratty, long-sleeved shirt that read in handwritten letters, BEAT PAVEMENT, NOT PEOPLE. TRIATHLON TO END DOMESTIC VIOLENCE. Sweat glazed her pink shoulders, her neck. Her copper hair was pulled into a sloppy bun that looked more like a nest than a hairstyle, and her bangs were a frizzy awning above thick-lashed, worried eyes. She wore no makeup, not even ChapStick from the looks of it.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” she asked again.
“I’m fine,” Kane lied. He scanned the night for those creatures and, not seeing anything, began scraping the mud from his boots. It was hopeless. He was caked up to his knees. His ass was soaked. His whole body prickled with heat. He wished he could just vanish.
Ursula kept trying to restart the conversation. “I was on a run and I heard something. I didn’t know people were on the path so late, so I thought maybe it was an animal, but then I found your backpack, and then I saw you fall into the river, and…”
“I didn’t fall into the river.”
“Okay, well I saw you sort of stumble into the river, and—”
“I didn’t stumble.”
A dimple of worry bore into the flesh between Ursula’s eyes. “But are you okay?”
Kane looked up at her. “Why are you asking me so many questions? Do I look okay to you? Can’t you read context clues?”
Another person would have pushed back, but Ursula only tugged at the hem of her shorts and stared at the ground, embarrassed. In the awkward silence there was space for Kane to feel what he always felt toward Ursula Abernathy: guilt. Ursula, like Kane, was an easy target growing up. They should have been friends, but Kane was no nicer to her than anyone else. He was perhaps even meaner, to show just how different they were, or how much more she deserved their classmates’ ridicule. A survival tactic of his that he was not proud of. In third grade he’d made a joke about how Ursula Abernathy was adopted from a dog shelter. He didn’t remember how it turned into a rumor—only that it was a mistake—but by the next day it was a school-wide legend. He still felt bad about it, especially the part where someone put a BEWARE OF DOG sign on Ursula’s desk. Whenever he saw her, he saw her as the red-faced girl facing down a room of kids woofing at her. She looked that way now.
Kane had never apologized. He wondered if she knew it was him.
“I’m sorry,” Kane said. “I’m okay, really. Do you…do you want to walk me to the street? I’d appreciate it.”
Ursula glanced around, possibly for an excuse not to, but relented. They walked along the path in silence, Kane doing his best not to show that he was still shaking. He played it off as shivering, though the night was warm.
“How’s school?” he asked.
This surprised Ursula. “School is school. We miss you.”
“We?”
“Yeah, like the teachers and everyone. People were really worried.”
“But I’m fine.”
Ursula gave him a once-over that told Kane she did not think he was fine. He hated how she stared, like a child at a zoo.
“Well, you know. Your whole… The whole incident with the mill.”
“Incident?”
“Right, right. Sorry. Your accident. Everyone heard about it from Claire Harrington—her dad’s a cop. There were a ton of questions, and the school called for an assembly in the gym and opened up the counselor office hours for anyone who wanted to talk.”
The horror Kane felt surpassed everything from the night so far. An assembly. About him? This was his hell, manifested.
“I’m fine. And Claire Harrington makes shit up all the time.”
Ursula kept pulling at the hem of her shorts. She rolled her lips together, unsure.
“Everyone was really happy to hear you woke up, even though Mrs. Keselowski said you were still pretty confused, and Mr. Adams said it was important to give you space and privacy.”
“Why are the school counselors telling people things?” Kane snapped. “Isn’t that like, against their privacy code or something? And I’m not confused. And if people really cared about me, maybe they wouldn’t make shit up or pry into my business.”
Ursula hugged herself. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it that way.”
“Wait.” Kane stopped before they reached the road. “You talked to the school counselors? Like, you went to their office hours?”
Even in the darkness, Ursula’s face glowed red. She had.
Kane felt something in him soften. He picked his words carefully. “Look. I’m sorry for…I don’t know. For whatever this is. For how I am. Thank you for stopping. I know we’re not really friends but I appreciate it.”