I knew exactly why I had continued to avoid the town of Long Brook. The danger here was the same as a danger anywhere you had left behind. It was too easy to remember the person you were before. To find yourself slipping back into it again. The spaces you once moved through, like a ghost. Figments of the past, rising to greet you. Dip in a toe, and you may soon be consumed.
Here was the street I’d grown up on, with older brick homes surrounded by mature trees, limbs arching down, haunting and willowlike. I passed the Kings’ house first, where Oliver’s parents, I believed, still lived, a permanent grounding as their son went on to other heights. And then, halfway down the street, was the place I’d once called home. The brick was now painted over in a brilliant white, the dark front door a pale blue, the brown shutters a light gray surrounding updated, modern windows.
Everything changed. And yet, being here after all this time, it felt that I had not.
I had to pass through downtown on my way out, and I felt another type of gravity kicking in, drawing me to the one place I’d found solace, that summer after our accident.
Ian’s home was in a similarly aged neighborhood to mine, but the houses were smaller, cozier, with trees that seemed to tower over them instead. That summer, I used to take the most direct path—by bike, on a nature trail connecting the backs of our neighborhoods. But in a car you had to loop around past the town center first—restaurants and dentist offices and, with a large sign beckoning you closer, the law firm of Andrews & Andrews. It was an establishment almost as old as the town itself, housed in one of the brick-front standalone buildings, ivy creeping up and over the roof.
Ian’s street was walkable from downtown, which made it a prime place to live. Once upon a time, Clara and Grace had lived here too. Pulling onto their block, I could see why Grace’s family moved—it seemed like several of the homes were in the process of massive renovations, exteriors pushing the boundaries of the lots, trees that had been lost in the process. It must have been the ideal moment for them to downsize.
I idled in front of the Taylers’ home. The curtains were pulled back, so I could see straight into the dark living room. Unlike in the retirement community, no one seemed to be keeping track of who should be here, and who shouldn’t. There was a lawn crew a few doors down, and the steady drone of a mower dulled the sound of my steps as I walked up the drive.
I rang the bell, just to check, but it didn’t look like anyone was home. Then I circled around back, to their large backyard. At the edge of their property, a tree house had been built into a large oak. I could still picture Ian lying on his back, cigarette between his fingers, scent wafting downward as I climbed the steps to the platform.
Now, as I climbed those same wooden rungs, I saw that even this had changed. Inside, there was a collection of pine cones and sticks lining the borders, colored chalk in a bucket, names written in boxy print. I wondered, for a moment, whether his family had moved, and someone new had taken over. But then I remembered that his sisters were older, just as my brothers were, and his obituary had mentioned that he was an uncle several times over.
I lay flat in the spot he preferred, staring up at the slanted roof, imagining my body outlined in chalk. An imprint. A memory. Up above, in the groove where the roof met the wall, I knew, was a hollow carved out of a rotten segment, where he used to stash a small box just large enough for his lighter and a pack of cigarettes. Things kept out of sight of his parents, though it wasn’t exactly a secret, and by then they were just glad he had made it home from the trip. If they noticed me here too, they never said.
I stood and reached my hand into that space now, brushing damp plastic, something kept safe from the elements from long ago. The bag was covered in something dark and slippery, and I didn’t want to guess whether it was mud or rot or mold. Inside was that same wooden box latched shut; I felt a lighter moving around inside as I tipped it back and forth. I pulled it from the bag just as movement caught my eye below.
“I see you up there.”
I jolted, then stuffed the box into my purse. The woman’s voice had come from just outside the tree house; there was nowhere to go, nowhere to hide. I stepped into view of the window.
Below me, Ian’s mom stood with one hand wrapped around a ladder rung. Her expression shifted, and she pulled herself closer. “Cassidy?”
“Hi,” I said, sitting on the edge, preparing to lower myself down. “I’m sorry. I knocked, and…”
I was rambling as I descended the rungs, but she was smiling when I finally turned around, feet planted in the grass. Sometime in the last decade, she had transformed into a grandmother—smaller framed, with deeper smile lines and silver-streaked hair pulled back in a bun. “Cassidy Bent, my god, look at you.”
“Hi,” I said. I had no idea how she recognized me so quickly, so easily. Maybe I only thought I had been invisible, then. Maybe it was just how I’d felt in high school.
“Oh my goodness,” she said. I let myself be taken into her arms, warmth radiating off her. And I began, suddenly, unexpectedly, to cry.
“I’m so sorry,” I cried. “I only just heard.” I could feel my sobs pulsating through my body, my knees in danger of giving out. Everything, finally, inescapably and tragically real.
“Oh,” she said, arms tightening. “Come, now. Won’t you come in? You’ve come all this way.”
I leaned into her as we crossed the yard together, grass tickling my ankles, Ian’s box loose in my bag.
What I remembered most of Ian’s house from our summer together was a warmth, a homeliness that made it a place I wanted to be. A place where your presence was always noticed, and acknowledged.
It would’ve been so easy to imagine that Ian was still here now, if not for the living room display. The room was covered with photos of Ian, though he wasn’t their only child. A memorial, a shrine.
“I almost didn’t believe it,” I said, staring at the photos. “I called his phone, and it still worked.”
“Oh,” she said, hand to her cheek. “Well, he had a family plan with his roommates. I guess they never got around to removing him. Boys, you know how they are.”
She gripped my hand, and hers felt so cold, roughened, and I wished, once more, that I had been here. That I had been here before, when he reached out. That I’d seen his email, and come. So that he didn’t have to move on to Oliver. To whatever had driven him to The Shallows, all alone.
Then I noticed pictures on the wall of small children—grandchildren.
She saw me looking. “He was such a great uncle,” she said. “Those kids adored him.”
“I can’t believe you remembered me. It’s been ten years.” Ten years since the accident, ten years since I’d given myself so openly to another, bound together in tragedy and grief.
“You meant so much to him. I know you drifted apart, but you got each other through that first hard time.” She tapped her chin a few times. “He told me, you know. That he was alive because of you. So of course I remember you. You brought him home.”
As if that extra time had been a gift, even with him now gone.
“Also, look at you,” she said. “How could someone forget that face?” She smiled, lines stretching out from her eyes.
I laughed. “I always loved it here.”
“Would you like something of his? I’ve been offering things to those who’ve stopped by. You would know, better than me, what holds meaning. Come on upstairs.”
“Oh, I don’t want to take anything—” I already had his leather jacket, his scent clinging to the collar. The strongest memory I could imagine. And now I also had the box from the tree house in my bag, which was also for her benefit, and the small children who now played up there.
“Please,” she said. “It makes me happy, thinking of pieces of him having a second life.”
I followed her up the carpeted steps, to the first room on the right.
Ian’s room, unlike Grace’s, had been left almost the same as when he’d last lived here. The twin bed pushed up against the wall, with no headboard. The wooden desk on the other side of the room.
“If there are pictures left, they’ll be in there,” she said.
I opened the top drawer now, which was covered with an assorted collection of scraps of paper. I picked one up, saw a string of letters and numbers.
His mom chuckled behind me. “He could never remember passwords. Even when he wrote them down, he’d lose them constantly. Had to change them all the time. No idea what these were for, but I can’t bring myself to throw anything away that belonged to him.”
I wondered if any of these would open the email on his phone; I imagined they were all from long ago. I opened the next drawer, trying to remember what to expect. But I had never sat at his desk, gone through his things. We were never that type of friends.
“I would’ve set something aside, if I’d known what. Everyone else has already been through.”
“What do you mean, everyone else?”
“Well, Josh Doleman. He was here for the service of course. Did you know they used to be friends?”
I shook my head.
“Long, long ago, used to play in that tree house out back, before they grew up. I thought it was fate that they survived together.” She sniffed. “And Grace Langly was here.”
“I didn’t know that,” I said, feeling unsettled again by all the things I hadn’t known. I didn’t think Ian and Grace had been that close, but she had grown up down the street. Her parents lived close by; she must’ve heard, come home.
“Yes, second time I’d seen her, after a long time. You know, she was here for the library dedication too.”
My shoulders tightened. “I did not.” We must’ve all gotten the invitation. But I had not imagined any of them had gone willingly.
“Hard to know whether to go to those things. But I live here, figured it would’ve been worse if I didn’t show. I told Ian not to go, though. I told him I’d represent him. I was a little surprised to see Grace there, considering.”
“Considering what?”
“Well, she doesn’t come home anymore… doesn’t talk to her parents. Or maybe it’s the other way around.”
I frowned. “I just dropped her at their house.”
She stared at me. “Well, maybe I’m wrong. Maybe they’ve reconciled.” But I’d shaken her, shaken something.
His mother nodded at the framed photo I’d just exposed in the bottom drawer. “You should take that,” she said.
I picked it up, held it closer. It was a framed photo of all of us, that first year, at The Shallows. Sitting on the steps, crammed together. Looking at it now, I could remember the feel of Ian’s hand tentatively on my back, Amaya pressing tightly on the other side, body tense. My knees wedged behind Josh’s back, who leaned slightly forward, annoyed, as always, by my presence.
She placed a hand on my shoulder. “Cassidy, I know.” I looked over my shoulder, stared into her eyes, the same as Ian’s. “I know it must’ve been so horrible. He was never the same.” She swallowed. “I guess none of you were.” I felt my heart in my throat. My own family tiptoed around the topic, pulling back, veering away, as if I could continue on as I had always been, so long as it was never discussed.
I sat on the edge of his bed, looking at the younger version of us, two years beyond the tragedy. I had been twenty; my final exams had just finished. And while my classmates were out celebrating, I’d driven straight to The Shallows, instead. I hadn’t seen any of them since the night after Clara’s funeral, but we pressed in tight, strength in numbers, power in unison.
The Eight, that’s what he’d called us in his phone.
“I’ll be downstairs whenever you’re ready,” Mrs. Tayler said, the carpeted floor creaking as she descended the steps.
I didn’t know if she meant for me to take the frame, or just the picture, so I turned it over and unhooked the backing, to slide the photo out.
On the back, a second picture had been attached with Scotch tape. Clara, alone, a vision of light. Up close and smiling, head tipped back in laughter, sunlight reflecting off her necklace, sunburn visible on her shoulders. The tree house was in the background; this had been taken in Ian’s backyard. I didn’t have to check the date to know it had been taken before the crash—another summer, a happier time. Back when Ian and Clara and Grace were childhood friends, living on the same street.
I left her image taped where it was, then tucked the photos into my bag. He’d kept us together like that, from when there were nine of us instead. It felt right to keep it that way.
Downstairs, his mother was waiting in the living room.
“Thanks for this,” I said. “I wish I’d been here. I’m sorry.”
She shook her head. “I understood why you didn’t come back. Why so many of you still can’t. It’s probably for the best. He really spiraled after Clara’s death.”
My spine straightened, after just seeing that haunting, smiling face. “I didn’t know that.”
She gazed out the back window, a faraway look. “The paranoia. It was the first time we realized we had to get him help.”
I’d thought it was the accident, those seven hours, the choices we’d made. Not that it was Clara’s death the next year that had messed with his head the most. “I missed it.” I had missed so much, trying to move on, away from them.
By the next year, at our first trip to the Outer Banks, Ian and I would sometimes find each other again, but it was never the same. I’d climb the steps to his room, after hearing him calling out in a nightmare—or waking from my own. We grounded each other, reminded each other that we were still here.
Her eyes slid back to mine, and now they were seeking, asking. “After Clara, he became convinced that he was going to be next. Like there was something after you all.”
The room was buzzing. Clara’s picture on the back of the other photo. Ian’s paranoia. It was all I could do to hold my breath, hold her gaze.
She clenched her hands together, chasing the thought. “But of course there wasn’t. He struggled for almost a decade, but I would also see him so happy sometimes.”
I nodded, swallowing nothing.
Then she stepped closer, hand on my arm. “I’m sorry it ended so suddenly between the two of you. I thought you were really good for each other. Balancing each other out.”
“We did.” I stepped back, needing space, needing air. I pictured Ian at the other end of a chapel pew, sliding closer; Ian, behind the driver’s seat, belting out the wrong lyrics to a song; Ian, on a lounge chair in my backyard, eyes closed and face tipped toward the sun. “I can’t believe how long ago…” I said, voice raspy. “I’d better get going.”
Once upon a time we had been so close. My entire world had been wrapped up in his, and his in mine. It wasn’t a balance; it was all-consuming. And I’d felt hollowed-out and adrift when he pulled back. When he finally saw me.
Everything changed after that first summer. We’d had a fight—a disagreement—and I’d left for college soon after. He pulled away, or maybe I did. Either way, the calls, the texts, everything slowed—and then stopped altogether.
I didn’t see him again until the next year, after Clara’s funeral. He didn’t confide in me about his fears. I didn’t notice the paranoia his mother spoke of. He retreated inward instead.
In all the years since, he hadn’t come to me with anything real. Not until the email, just before his death.
Please, you’re the only one I trust—
There was a killer in our group, and what would they do if the truth was about to come out? What would they do if they believed that Ian was going to talk?
What would they do, now, if nothing had stopped with Ian’s death, the information spiraling forward with a life of its own, wanting to free itself? A current, a force, pushing toward shore?
And then I thought—was Clara going to crack, nine years earlier? Was she getting ready to say the truth? Did Ian know it too?
I was shaken standing outside the house, Ian’s warning ringing in my ears. I’m going to be next.
The new school library was impossible to miss. It was a modern structure made of glass, in the midst of a place that had otherwise leaned into its gothic history—all brick and ivy.
At the chime of a nondenominational chapel bell, a sea of students filed out, heading for their cars and busses. I entered the library via a door held open by a girl who didn’t even look my way.
Inside, there was so much light. The building was a large semicircle, glass windows reaching up to the arching ceiling, overlooking the trees out back. There were several rough paths through those trees that students would sometimes sneak away down during class. Now I couldn’t help but feel they’d be exposed. There was no way to slip from view here.
A series of pillars stretched up to the dome, each bearing a bronze plaque, reflecting the light through the windows.
I approached the first, read the name: Ben Weaver.
Goose bumps ran up my arms, the back of my neck. I paced to the next: Collin Underwood.
My eyes scanned the room. Twelve pillars, twelve bronze plaques, for the twelve lost souls, like a clock. A circle of windows, a thousand ways out.
At the top of the windows, in dulled, muted bronze, the engraving read: Class of 2013 Memorial Library.
The people who still lived here had to face this every day. I couldn’t imagine Josh, working less than a mile from here. The chimes of the chapel within earshot every day.
I couldn’t imagine Amaya being here, looking at those names—the people we couldn’t save, the people we had left. Seeing the bereaved families watching them back now.
I tried to picture Grace, standing here, just like I was now, surrounded by ghosts.
God, how could they stand it? I imagined Grace as they read out those names, telling herself You are not the worst thing you’ve ever done. Josh, staring out the window, willing himself somewhere else. Amaya, beside her father, stuck in the moment, unable to jar herself free.
The eyes that must’ve been on them. A penance. A price.
“You can’t be here.”
I spun, faced a woman who must’ve worked here. I couldn’t remember if she was here at the same time as us. I didn’t recognize her, if so.
“We’ve been very clear,” she continued. “No press.”
No press. As if others had been prying.
“I’m not press,” I said, eyes meeting hers.
She opened her mouth, like she was going to tell me I still had to go, but I put up a hand. I couldn’t stand to be here any longer either.
“I’m going,” I said.
Sorry, I thought, as I backed away. The only atonement I could offer. I’m so sorry.
I filled up my tank on the way home. Removed the photo from my purse, flipped it back and forth. The eight of us on one side. Clara on the other.
And then I slid Ian’s box from my purse. It was old and wooden, and just large enough to hold a pack of cigarettes and a lighter, if that. I wondered if that’s what I’d still find, after all this time. Or whether he’d moved on to other, more dangerous things he’d needed to keep hidden now.
I opened the box, but there was no lighter inside. No pipe or pills or powders or anything else. I blinked twice, processing. There was only one item: red handle, an embossed crown. Rust streaking the once-silver edging.
Oliver’s knife—the knife that no one could find, after that night—sat at the bottom of this box.
The one Ian must’ve kept, and kept hidden, all this time.