The Storm King(54)

“That was good, guys,” Nate said. It was important that he be the first to speak. “You killed it, Johnny, from beginning to end. A thing of beauty. Now we know what a summer’s worth of sunk plans look like. Might have even cracked the bottom of the pool.”



“We’re lucky Dr. Stone didn’t buy his daughter a Hummer for graduation,” Johnny said as he fastened his seatbelt.

Tom was relieved to hear some lightness in Johnny’s voice. He’d been in a wretched mood for most of the day, and Tom couldn’t blame him. A high schooler finding out he wasn’t graduating hours before the ceremony: Now that was cliché. Nate had been great to him, though. Promising that he’d help Johnny break the news to Mr. Vanhouten. Swearing to help Johnny get through the summer session.

Of course, what Johnny really wanted was to nail Mr. Kritzler with a Thunder Run instead of hassling Lindsay for the thousandth time. But Lucy always got her way.

Owen was the only one who hadn’t had anything to drink, so he was in the driver’s seat. They might have an unofficial get-out-of-jail-free card with the local constabulary, but the Storm King didn’t believe in recklessness—at least not gratuitous recklessness. Johnny was in the passenger seat, which left Tom and Nate in the back.

“We’re lucky the Stones don’t have a fence around their pool,” Owen said.

“Yeah,” Tom said. “Lucky.”

Tom always felt rotten after a Thunder Run. Hollowed out, somehow. The ramp-up was always exhilarating while Nate psyched them up for it. They need to be punished, he’d tell them. We are agents of karmic retribution setting a lopsided universe into balance. It somehow made sense when Nate said these things. But afterward, Tom felt unsettled. Guilty. He couldn’t take the same pleasure in destruction that the others seemed to. Afterward, he couldn’t help thinking that in trying to reconcile the equations of pain they somehow edged them further out of balance.

“I’m sure it was insured, Tommy,” Nate said. He wrapped his arm around Tom’s neck, too tight.

Tom winced and waited for the pressure to ease. Nate was always too rough when he’d been drinking.



“To Jim Tatum’s house!” Nate told Owen.

Owen pulled away from the curb, and Tom watched familiar houses hum past his window. Greystone Lake reeled by like a long camera pan of a memorized film.

He tried to absorb the fact that this era of his life was over. That high school was finally over. Did he feel different, he wondered. Had the world changed?

Nate had eased his grip, and his arm was draped loosely around Tom’s neck as he looked through his own window.

Sometimes Tom knew exactly what Nate was thinking, and other times he could not begin to fathom his friend’s mind. He imagined Nate’s interior landscape as an awful and wondrous alien place.

Long lines of cars presaged the festivities at Jim Tatum’s house. Though nearly everything in the Lake was within walking distance, the Tatum residence was on a big chunk of land at the northern edge of the town, abutting the protected forests of the headlands. It was a familiar venue for their class’s festivities, and the location was perfect for an all-out rager.

The Lake had secrets, but the party that traditionally followed the school’s officially sanctioned graduation events wasn’t one of them. Everyone knew about it, including Tom’s dad and the rest of the police force. But they’d once been teenagers, too. They’d once been as fortunate, and vital, and proud, and knew in some part of themselves that the most foolish thing young gods could do was not milk this incandescent age for its every drop. If you weren’t in these fleeting years, you longed for them.

The authorities usually looked the other way as long as things didn’t get too out of hand. Which was good, Tom thought, as he surveyed the stretch of parked cars. Because you didn’t need to be Sherlock Holmes to know what was afoot.

Owen and Johnny exited the car, and Tom opened his door. Nate was still motionless, staring out his window.

“We’re here, Nate.”

When Nate turned to him it took only a fraction of a second for a smile to regain his face, but Tom still caught a glimpse of blank distance in his eyes. Tom didn’t know where Nate went in moments like this, but he knew he went there alone.



Where do you go? Tom always wanted to ask him. Where do you go while you’re right next to me?

“Let’s get something to drink, boys!” Nate said. As he burst from the car, no trace remained of the depths to which he’d drifted. Once on the wet street he was thunder and light and joy.

The rain from earlier should have cut the humidity, but the air felt tropical.

The Tatums had a stately colonial, but the party was set far back from the house, through the woods in a clearing just shy of the headlands. The forest was dark, but music led them to the others like a beacon. Soon the flicker of a bonfire and the twinkle of lanterns cut through the stockade of trees.

Nate led them onward, and their gathered classmates let out a roar when they saw him. Tom felt proud standing next to him. His friend. His best friend. His oldest friend in the world. The eyes of their whole class were upon them as they cut through the undergrowth and Nate put his arm around Tom’s shoulders. He pulled Tom’s face to his own until they were only inches apart and looked straight into his soul as if to say: