Page 51 of Head Under Water

Alone, I bathe in silence, thinking over everything the boys said. More than ever, I want answers. Especially when it’s clear we’re the only ones searching for them now.

Who could the blue truck have belonged to?

Why would Ruth have lied about the delivery?

Do our moms know more than they’re telling us?

What did we do? The text I saw on Mom’s phone flashes in my head, beating like a drum.

All this time, I’d accepted that Ruth’s death was an accident. But to have even a glimmer of something else, the thought that someone might have hurt her and gotten away with it, it’s unbearable.

I can’t stomach it.

I’m with Will—Ruth deserves our best. She deserves the truth, whatever that may be.

But I’m also with Cory. Our moms wouldn’t do this. They’d never hurt her.

There’s something else we’re missing.

When I get out, I can hear the hum of Will and Cory talking in the kitchen, though I can’t make out what they’re saying at first. Their tones are soft. Hushed.

“…if you don’t care.” That’s Cory.

“Why would I care?” Will’s voice is low. Controlled in a way I rarely hear from him. It’s almost…empty. “I don’t.”

“Then maybe I do,” Cory says. “Maybe I’m tired of pretending I don’t.”

“What do you want me to say? She’s not mine. She never was.” It sounds like he’s forcing the words past something lodged in his throat. I feel a similar lump in my own. “I can’t stop you.”

There’s something different under those last words. They’re raw. Not angry, yet not as indifferent as he’s trying to sound.

“Yeah,” Cory mutters. “That’s your problem.”

Silence stretches, tight and unfinished.

I hear the door shut a few moments later and, when I make my way back into the kitchen, the air in the room has shifted.

Will is alone, and nearly mechanical as he makes breakfast. Distant. Lost in his thoughts. I take a seat, but he barely looks my way, doesn’t utter a word. Whatever warmth existed between us last night seems to have dissipated.

“I’m going out,” I tell him eventually. I’ve been sitting on this barstool for too long already, waiting for something impossible. “I’ll probably be gone most of the day.”

He nods, but he doesn’t say anything. His shoulders go rigid as if he’s bracing for something, but he just keeps stirring his eggs.

Despite my better judgment and the fact that my path to the door is clear, I move around behind the island. As I pass him, my shoulder brushes his arm. It’s hardly anything.

Still, his hand comes up automatically—fingers flexing like he’s about to catch my waist, stop me from leaving—before he thinks better of it and drops it to his side. His jaw tightens like the moment cost him something I don’t fully understand.

For just a second, his thumb grazes the fabric at my waist. Barely there, and yet still enough that my breathing stutters.

I slip on my shoes at the door. The only sound is the sizzling of the skillet. “Will? Is…everything okay?”

He pauses mid-stir. The spoon scrapes slowly against the pan before going still. When he finally looks at me, his eyes drag over my face like he’s cataloging it. Memorizing every feature. Or trying not to.

“Why wouldn’t it be?” His mouth curves, but there’s nothing playful about it. “You’ve got housing offers. Breakfast plans. Busy schedule.” His eyes hold mine like he’s waiting for me to contradict him. Like maybe he wants me to. “Seems like you’re set.”

But that’s the thing with Will. I’ve never been able to read him like he can me. I never know what he wants. And I hate that I suddenly want to. Because right now, it seems like he’s already bracing himself for me to walk out the door and not come back.

And if that’s true, I don’t know what changed.