FOR HOURS, I had been the only one worrying. Nobody had given him a thought, not even his mother. She’d stayed where she was, waiting for him. But the worry was growing now. It would spread through the paths until everyone knew about it. I was scared. I despised myself. I had never been so close to confessing, yet I hadn’t done it. I could run away. They might never find me. The sand must have erased my fingerprints. I heard car trunks slamming shut. It was five o’clock, a good time to leave. I could say goodbye to Luce and Louis and just abandon all the rest, like a fire that hasn’t been put out properly. I’d wasted enough time.

I went back to our camping spot. My parents still hadn’t taken down their tent. That annoyed me. I went into mine to pack my things. Everything was neat and tidy, like a dead man’s apartment. How long had I been gone? My clothes were folded in a corner. My electronics were up off the ground so they wouldn’t get sand on them. The roll of toilet paper was still hidden behind my pillow. I wondered if I would ever feel like doing that kind of thing again. Sometimes, at night, it was the only way I could get to sleep: wrist moving silently, feet tensed so they wouldn’t move the canvas, I would think about all those girls I’d seen who hadn’t seen me. And even though I was completely alone, I would blush. Sleep would take me afterward and I’d wake up with no memory of having slept. That was all over now. Farewell, tent, I thought: I’m packing up my stuff and going home and I will never go camping again in my life.

“What are you up to, Leonard?”

“Packing.”

“Why?”

“We’re leaving soon, aren’t we?”

“No.”

I went outside and I saw them smiling, as if at good news.

“We’ve decided not to leave until tomorrow morning.”

“My meeting was put back to Tuesday.”

“Are you happy?”

“He’s not happy…”

“Let him speak.”

“Leonard?”

I sat down. I nodded and tried to smile. My father was about to say something else, but my mother made a movement with her hand to stop him. She looked at me over her book. I recognized that look, a look that I often only felt, the kind of look she would give me during family meals when someone said something that might hurt me and she would examine me in silence, anxiously monitoring my expression for any reaction. I felt her gaze pierce me softly, passing beyond mirages to grasp the truth in my eyes, and perhaps Oscar’s face, which survived somewhere within me.

“Anyway, you need to take Bubble for a walk,” said my father. “The poor dog’s dying over there.”

My mother turned away. She looked around for the dog. “Where is he?”

“Bubble!” shouted Alma. She was standing there, next to me; I hadn’t felt her hand on mine. “We have to find him.”

“I’ll go,” I said abruptly.

And I left. Alma ran after me.