Page 11 of Dead Boys Club

They’re quiet again until Parker’s cigarette is finished, and he stomps the butt into the ground with the heel of his boot. The silence ensues until a car Zach doesn’t recognize rolls slowly down his street, then pulls haphazardly into his driveway. Paige honks behind the wheel.

“Cool,” Parker says, turning to look at Zach. They’re sitting so close now that Zach can see that Parker’s brown eye has little threads of green in it. “See you Monday.”

Parker jumps up and reaches the passenger side of the car in three long strides. Paige and Parker idle there, in his driveway, long enough for Zach to feel like he’s going to crumble into the ground. And then Paige pulls out and turns the car around.

As the light fades, Zach paws around on the ground for the cigarette butt that Parker left, just in case his mom notices, and heads back inside.

Chapter Seven

When Zach wakes up on Saturday morning, his mom is already asleep after getting home from her shift. He does his best to stay quiet so that he doesn’t wake her up, making himself some Eggos and eating them on a paper plate over the kitchen counter.

Zach felt the emptiness of the house more than usual after Parker left last night. Making friends isn’t easy—he struggles with social conventions and often speaks too fast or can’t put a coherent sentence together. He’s spent his whole life on the fringes, wanting to reach out, but never knowing how.

And now Parker wants to hang out with him, but only because he wants Zach to commit to some strange suicide pact. It’s like the worst form of cruel, dramatic irony in the entire world.

He should tell his mom.

Zach hovers at the end of the hallway outside his mom’s bedroom door. It’s slightly cracked. He can hear her box fan whirring and her light snores. Ever since the divorce, the idea of waking his mom up from sleeping after her shift has been ingrained in him as something not to do. Unless the house is on fire or he’s bleeding, Zach has managed to fend for himself during the daylight hours.

He paces, lifting one hand to knock, then deciding against it. Telling his mom about Parker means telling on himself too. He’s pretty sure that keeping Parker’s secret is going to give him hives.

Zach tries to do some reading for English class, but flipping through the first few pages of As I Lay Dying only serves to give him heartburn. He drifts aimlessly between his bedroom and the living room before he finally sits at his desk and opens his old laptop to find seven new Facebook messages from Isaac. They’re dated yesterday, around the time Zach and Parker got home from school.

Isaac Brackenborough

hey why did i see u walking with PARKER REID????

like what are u doing oh my god

do u WANT to get serial killed???

is he black mailing u

are u on drugs?

very important zachary williams are u on drugs with parker reid

Zach scrubs his hands across his face. He doesn’t want to answer these but sees the little green bubble next to Isaac’s name and knows that Isaac probably sees his too. They’re online at the same time, and he can’t avoid the questions. He takes a breath to steady his nerves and drops his hands to the keyboard.

Zach Williams

No, I’m not on drugs.

I was helping him with an assignment.

Isaac Brackenborough

since when does parker reid do homework

Zach Williams

It was fine. He missed that first week.

Isaac Brackenborough

is he weird. does he smell.

Zach Williams