11.

Things were never the same for me on the island after Trey’s act. A lot of people kept their distance, whether out of resentment or fear, I wasn’t sure. I remained close with staff I spoke to often, but there’d never been such distance between me and the rest.

‘There’s something about that guy,’ a friend of Benjamin’s whispered to him as I passed them sitting on a bench.

‘Nah, man, come on. He’s cool,’ Benjamin muttered.

‘Nah, man, he ain’t,’ he refuted, hiding his mouth behind a cup. ‘Dude’s cursed, like a bad omen or something.’

‘I can fucking hear you,’ I said, stopping and turning towards them.

The guy got up and walked away quickly. Benjamin shrugged. ‘Man … I’m sorry,’ he said.

He meant it, but it didn’t mean a whole lot to me.

I didn’t tell Hannah what happened. I’d wanted to, a few times, to confide in someone about how I felt, but always found myself changing the subject. Part of me thought it was none of her business. The other part didn’t want whatever curse I carried around with me to spread any further.

‘I keep thinking it’s like he was on a tightrope, and I could’ve been the hands that balanced him or the winds that blew him off. I didn’t make him do it, but maybe I didn’t do enough to stop it either.’

I sat right at the edge, skimming the soles of my shoes along the surface of the lake.

‘Mick’s right, though, I guess. The guy fought and lost the battle in his own mind. Nothing I or anybody else could have said would’ve changed it.’

He floated a few feet from the bank. I could’ve reached out and grabbed him, and he me.

‘Ever get the feeling nobody’s life has ever been better for having you in it?’

I butted my cigarette into the mowed lawn and threw it into the garden bed.

‘I’m running out of places to hide.’

Neither of us moved. We each looked at the monster in front of us.