Davy and I actually manage some normal conversation before night falls and the movie starts rolling on the big screen. I brought a backpack with soda and some cookies, and offer them to my brother, who takes a sleeve and inhales it. He’s not watching the movie, though. Just scanning the figures around us, even though it’s dark.
Then, about fifteen minutes in, two people pass by on the path from the state park. I look up and stiffen. It’s Kendall and Seth.
Next to me, Davy is rigid. He looks back the way they came, but there’s no one else.
Just when I think they’re about to move on without seeing us, Seth’s head turns. I can’t see his face in the dark, but a moment later he says something to Kendall, then breaks away from her and walks toward us. Kendall doesn’t look back. Which doesn’t bother me; there was a fifty-fifty chance she wouldn’t have said hi to me before all this went down, either.
Seth slides onto the blanket next to me, his eyes fixed on the screen. “Hey.”
“I thought you weren’t supposed to be seen with me,” I say under my breath.
“It’s dark. You’re practically in the trees. We’re fine.”
Davy glances over from my other side. Seth nods at him. “Davy, man, how you doing?” He reaches across me, and the two of them do that boy hand-slapping thing.
Davy hesitates. “I’m really sorry about Thatcher.”
“Thanks.” The grief in Seth’s eyes is still there, of course. But he looks more put together than he did yesterday.
“What are you doing here?” I ask.
“Needed to get out of the house.”
“Where’s Marion?” Davy asks him.
“She didn’t come with us,” Seth says, and Davy deflates.
I eye Seth, but he doesn’t say anything else. The three of us watch the movie in silence for a few minutes.
Then Davy stands. “I’ll be right back.”
I blink up at him. “Where are you going?”
“I have to pee.”
I look uncertainly toward the trees. “Maybe Seth should go with—”
“Addie.” It’s his exasperated grown-up voice again. “I’ll be fine.”
As I watch him move through the darkness, I have to resist the urge to go after him. I guess he did buy my Thatcher-accidentally-killed-Fiona theory and decided there’s nothing to worry about. Maybe I shouldn’t have been so convincing.
I feel Seth’s eyes on me. “He’ll be fine.”
I’m still watching my brother’s back, white in the darkness. He reaches the trees, slips into the woods, and is gone.
My unease grows.
“Drink?” Seth picks up his backpack. “I’ve got cider.”
“A world of no.”
A look comes into his eyes I’m not sure I like.
“What?” I can’t help but ask.
“It’s just cider. Doesn’t mean anything has to happen.”
I roll my eyes. “I don’t make the same mistake twice.”
That look drops. Seth turns away from me, opens his cider. He sips, and I sit in silence for a while, my eyes on the movie screen, even though I couldn’t even tell you the name of the main character at this point.
“Is that really what you think?” Seth asks.
“Is what really what I think?”
“I’m a mistake?”
But I can’t care about whatever he’s mad at now. Davy’s been gone way longer than it takes to pee.
I look in the direction of the trees, but there’s no tall blond boy walking back toward us. I get to my feet. “Where’s Davy?”
Seth gets up beside me. “I’m sure he’s just—”
But I’m already running in the direction of the woods. “Davy?”
When I reach the trees, I throw myself into them, not caring whether or not Davy is mid-pee and I’ll be embarrassing him. “Davy!”
Footsteps behind me. I turn to see Seth.