Page 62 of Dead Boys Club

“What, did his dad find out you two were banging?” Isaac presses. Then, a little more seriously, sounding genuinely alarmed, he asks, “Did you break up?”

“Isaac,” Bea says quietly. “You’re not being helpful.”

“You should have seen Paige bodycheck him yesterday,” Isaac says, throwing his hands down against the table. “She was pissed.”

Bea reaches across the table, squeezing Zach’s hands. “You can tell us when you’re ready, Zach,” she says. Zach squeezes back.

At the end of the day, Paige pulls him aside. Isaac and Bea hover nearby. She holds up a single finger—wait—then tugs Zach down the hall a little ways, so they’re out of earshot. She offers him the smallest and weakest of smiles. He can’t make himself smile back.

“Hey,” Zach whispers, leaning one shoulder against the wall of the hallway. He glances around her, where Isaac and Bea are pretending like they’re not staring directly at them both.

“We should tell Isaac and Bea,” Paige says, glancing over her shoulder before looking back at him.

Zach had sort of expected this, but that doesn’t make him want to vomit any less. All he wants to do is pick up all of his secrets and tuck them back inside. He nods, unable to actually verbalize a yes. She turns and heads back down the hall. Zach drags his feet as he and Paige approach their waiting friends.

“We’ve got a really big problem,” Paige says to them.

Bea immediately jumps into Stage Manager Mode. “Tell us how we can help,” she says earnestly, and Zach could cry. He’s never had friends before. He never knew how deeply he would need them when the world came crashing down around him.

Paige tells them everything as they sit in her car, the heat blasting to keep out the winter chill. Zach is struck by how unbelievably lucky he is to still have Paige on his side. She could hate him. She has every right to hate him. If Zach had been in Paige’s shoes, he would have probably never bothered with himself ever again. In ten years, Zach Williams would have just been a name that he knew from high school, a nobody that had managed to ruin his family’s life. Instead, Paige is here, laying out what happened: the emails, their parents’ phone call, the fallout.

Bea and Isaac listen, leaning together through the space between the front seats, rapt and a little horror-stricken. Afterwards, Bea tears up and Isaac says, “Zach, holy shit.”

It’s terrible, laying out his involvement in all of this—what he’d said; what he’d felt; what he still feels, sometimes. Keeping those feelings close to his chest had been safe. It had been as much of a habit for Zach as brushing his teeth before bed. And now everyone knows. His mom, the Reids, Paige, Isaac, Bea. They all know. He waits for the inevitable repercussions. He waits for Isaac and Bea to decide that he’s too much, that those feelings are too much, that he’s too broken or weird or messed-up. He waits to hear the car doors slam, the echo of silence after they both leave.

But none of that happens. After Paige finishes, Bea reaches up between the center console and squeezes Zach’s arm. Isaac grips his shoulder. Zach stares down in his lap, his heart tight and pounding hard.

“Have you talked to anyone?” Bea asks, finally. She doesn’t let go of Zach’s arm. The weight of his hand is grounding. “Your mom? A teacher? You know, there are hotlines available for this kind of thing. Someone you can talk to.”

Zach shakes his head. Logically, he knows that. That there are adults out there who will help if you can just pick up the phone and call. “Just Parker. And now you guys.”

“Maybe we can talk with your mom,” Bea says, switching into problem-solving mode. “And the Reids. We can be your character witnesses. We’ll tell them how much you and Parker have improved since being friends.”

“Yeah,” Isaac says. “We’ll tell them how cool and popular you are now.”

Zach laughs, his face wet with tears. He looks up at his friends and they all look back at him—really look at him, like they see him. He looks between their three faces—Isaac’s freckled cheeks and Bea’s big, brown eyes and Paige’s small, tired smile. He nods, covering Bea’s hand on his arm. Paige reaches across the center console, gripping the back of his neck.

“We’ll fix this,” she promises. And Zach believes her.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Parker is absent from school on Friday too. It’s been three days since Zach has seen him, and he feels like he’s going crazy. He’ll have to wait an entire weekend to see if Parker shows up on Monday. Paige tells him that their parents have taken away Parker’s laptop, phone, and car keys. The idea of Parker trapped in his doorless room makes Zach’s stomach hurt.

Isaac offers him a ride home, but the stress of the day has settled like needles behind Zach’s eyes. He waves Isaac off, deciding to walk home alone in the January chill, picking through the freshly fallen snow. It crunches under his boots, giving him something to focus on other than the mess that he’s caused.

Every day that Parker stays out of school is another day that he could possibly be sent to Vermont. It’s unbearable. During breakfast, Paige had tried to comfort him a little:

“My parents called Dr. Wilson last night,” she told him, picking at her blueberry muffin. She eats it normally, top-down. “She said that sending Parker to Vermont is a really bad idea. So…”

“I’ve heard really awful things about those troubled teen camps,” Bea pointed out, frowning. That wasn’t exactly helpful. It just made Zach worry about the last time Parker got sent to a troubled teen retreat.

Zach had done his best not to have a panic attack right there at the cafeteria table. No good would have come from him breaking down. Parker needs him to be strong. So does Paige. He’s determined to come up with a way to fix this whole mess, to prove to his mom and the Reids that Parker isn’t a bad influence and doesn’t need to be sent to a camp in Vermont.

The house is empty and cold when Zach trudges in through the front door. His mom has left a note on the counter: I love you, Zach. Here’s money for pizza.—Mom

Zach stares at the note, bending it at the edges. He remembers when Parker had stood in this exact spot, reading a note his mom had left and said, Your mom is cute. It had been such a sweet thing to say, unprompted. So unlike the Parker that Zach had thought he’d known at the time. So much like the Parker he knows now.

The evening drags on. Zach curls up on the couch, staring at the television, absorbing nothing. He keeps thinking about calling the Reids’ house, but the idea of Mr. or Mrs. Reid picking up keeps him from doing so.