Black River Falls by Jeff Hirsch(37)

“We’re here for them,” I said. “For those kids. To make sure nothing ever happens to them.”

“We will,” Hannah insisted. “Nothing’s going to happen.”

“You were right,” I spat. “It was your fault. You had people who loved you—friends, family—and you threw them away and ran because you didn’t give a damn about anybody but yourself.”

She went perfectly still. She barely breathed. I could have walked away, but it was as if she were standing on a ledge and some part of me couldn’t resist pushing.

“Some things don’t change when you get infected,” I said. “I never should have brought you here.”

Hannah said nothing, and neither did Greer. I continued down the trail.



The latch sprang open when I dropped the tackle box, sending weights and lures spilling out onto the shore of the reservoir. I’d stopped by my tent for my mask and gloves and my fishing things. All I could do was get as far away from them as possible and focus on something else.

As I gathered the tackle, that ache reignited behind my eyes. It moved to encircle my head like a belt, tightening a little at a time. I dropped the lures and filled my hands with water, then splashed it against my face and over my greasy hair, hoping it could wipe away the morning, the last couple of days, the last year. I sat back, eyes shut tight, waiting for the thrum inside my head to ease.

“Anything biting?”

Greer’s reflection appeared in the water. He was leaning against a tree behind me, his hands slipped casually into his pockets. I gathered up a handful of lures and threw them into the box. Greer chuckled to himself in that annoying way of his and then took my fishing rod. He found a place farther down the shore and fiddled with the reel.

“Did I ever tell you that I’m pretty sure I used to be an expert fisherman?” he asked. “And I don’t mean this pond fishing, I mean the real thing, deep-sea fishing, for like sharks and whales and stuff.”

“We live a hundred miles from the nearest ocean,” I said. “You’ve probably never even been.”

“Details,” he said. “I’ve got the salt water in my veins, Cassidy. No doubt about it.”

Greer whipped the rod back and made a perfect cast that flew nearly out to the center of the reservoir. The lure hit with a plop and vanished, leaving the red and white floater bobbing on the surface.

“See?”

I tore up a root beside me and threw it into the water.

“So if you’re so great at it, why don’t you do it once in a while?” I asked. “Maybe cancel one of your Super Bowl dance-a-thons and pitch in. I could use the help.”

Greer laughed. “Oh, no argument there. You need help, buddy. A lot of help. You’re not sleeping. You barely eat.”

This again. “I’ve told you a hundred times, Greer. I eat.”

“No you don’t,” he said. “I asked Tomiko.”

“You’re having Tomiko spy on me?”

“Oh, not just her,” Greer said. “The whole camp does it in shifts. There is literally not a second in your day when you aren’t secretly being watched by a twelve-year-old.”

“I don’t need to be watched.”

“Dude, the things you said to Hannah—”

“Greer.”

“—the words ‘titanic jackass’ keep coming to mind, and I know you, you are not a titanic jackass. Buddy. Seriously. I remember like two percent of my entire life, and I’m still pretty sure you are like the least fine human being I’ve ever met.”

Greer set down the rod and turned to me.

“Look, man, I don’t know what all happened to you on the sixteenth—”

“Nothing happened.”

“Card—”

“Nothing happened that didn’t happen to a thousand other people.”

“Yeah, but you remember,” Greer said. “Whatever it was, you remember it. And, hey, if you don’t want to talk to me about it, that’s fine. As your friend, it hurts me deeply, but fine. But you should talk to somebody.”

“I don’t need to.”

“Ha!”

“You and Hannah—” I clenched my jaw to bite off the rest.

“What?” Greer said. “Say it.”

“You two think this is a game.”

Back when Greer was his old self, he almost never had to use his fists. Remember? He would fix his eyes on any of us, either at the bus stop or in the schoolyard, and we would wither. There was something in the way he looked at you that said he saw right through whatever sad little defense you were trying to mount, whatever bluff. It also said that what was inside of him was no bluff at all. Greer looked at me like that as we sat by the reservoir.

“You really think you know what’s going to happen because you know what did happen?” he said. “You think you know who people are because you know who they were? Trust me here, man. You don’t know a damn thing.”

I turned away. I could feel his eyes on my back as I watched ripples of water strike the shore. He got up and headed back down the hill.

“You know what?” he said. “Forget it. I’m going to go find a nice green-haired girl and try to convince her that, no matter what stupid thing you said to her, we all want her here and she shouldn’t take her things and go live in some Guard rooming house full of rapists and pedophiles. And then, if I can manage that, I’m going to take her and all the kids down to the park to eat some barbecue. Because if I don’t, if I spend all my time on this stupid mountain worrying that it’s all going to come crashing down around me any minute, I honestly think I’ll just go ahead and blow my brains out. Okay? If that means I think all this is a game—which, by the way, is an incredibly freaking insulting thing to say to your best friend—then so be it. Now, you wanna come or you wanna sit here moping and pretending to fish?”