Taming My Bullies novel · Chapter 9 of 24

Chapter 9: The Lake

Sean picked me up on Saturday at four, in a battered green pickup that smelled of pine needles and old dog.

"Your carriage," he said, and held the door.

"It's a truck."

"It's a truck with a heater. Don't insult her."

He had changed out of the school cardigan into a faded flannel shirt.

For the first time since I'd arrived, he looked like the boy from the lake.

We drove around the long curve of Tamarack on a dirt road, with the water flashing through the trees.

I rolled my window down and let the cold air in.

"I still can't believe you're here," he said.

"I used to ask my mother about you every year. I'd ask if anybody had heard from the lady with the porch."

"My mother stopped renting the cabin after that summer," I said. "We couldn't afford it again."

"Where is she now?"

"She died. Two years ago."

His hand left the wheel and covered mine on the seat.

"I'm sorry," he said. "She was kind to me."

"She was kind to everybody. It was her whole problem."

He parked at the end of the road, and we walked down a path through ferns to a rotting dock.

It stretched out over black water, grey and weedy, with half its planks missing.

I knew it.

My whole body knew it.

I stood at the end of it with my heart pounding, looking down at the water I'd fallen into.

"Right here," Sean said quietly. "This is where it happened."

"Tell me what you remember."

"You were running. You tripped on that loose board, and you went off the end. And I went in after you."

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