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An acorn striking something hard.

Anything. Anything but fingers.

I stared toward the dark window until the first thin gray of morning began to gather behind the blinds.

I didn’t sleep again that night.

And sometime before sunrise, I realized something that frightened me more than the sound.

I wasn’t trying to convince myself that nothing had happened anymore.

I was trying to convince myself that whatever had happened was over.

By Saturday evening, staying home had stopped feeling like the safe option. It mostly felt like giving myself more time to stare at my bathroom door.

When Clayton suggested going out to the lake, I said yes before I could talk myself out of it.

Dad wasn’t enthusiastic. He knew the place, though, knew Asa’s parents would be there, and with four Bishop brothers going along with Sadie, there wasn’t much chance of me being left alone.

That was the condition. Stay with them. Answer my phone.

I agreed without arguing. I wasn’t interested in being alone either.

Sadie was staying at my house afterward. She’d arrived with an overnight bag. “Going home builds character,” she told me as she dropped her bag in my room. “I have enough character.”

I laughed. It felt good enough that I was still smiling when we went outside. I’d changed into cut-off shorts, a fitted peach tank and old sneakers—lake clothes, though I’d told myself I probably wasn’t swimming.

Then I saw Chief waiting beside his Suburban, and my smile became something I had to struggle with.

He’d meant what he said the other night. I could call him. He hadn’t said anything about the rest of it.

I had spent two days explaining that distinction to the parts of me that insisted on misunderstanding.

Rook was driving. Chief took the front passenger seat, and I climbed into the back with Sadie and Clayton while Ruckus claimed the third row.

Chief glanced back as I shut my door.

I looked at him before I could help it.

His eyes moved over my face, paused, then turned away.

Apparently I looked sufficiently alive.

That was the extent of our conversation.

Asa’s family had a small house above a broad, shallow cove, with a porch that faced the water and a gravel drive that curved down to the boat ramp. Most of the bank on that side was open. Scrub and low oaks gave way to grass, then a pale shelf of limestone along the shore.

The woods started beyond the far bend. I knew exactly where they started.

A few people cut through the trees between the parking area and the water. I stayed on the gravel, following its longer curve around the house.

Clayton adjusted the bag of towels over his shoulder and went with me without comment. Sadie walked on my other side.

Nobody asked why I hadn’t taken the shortcut.

There were advantages to being known your whole life. Occasionally they outweighed the disadvantages.

It had rained that afternoon. Water still stood in the shallow tire tracks beside the ramp, and the grass along the bank had been churned into patches of mud by people carrying coolers and chairs down from the house.