My father mumbles something about filing an insurance claim to recoup some of the financial loss, while my mother makes a pointed comment about how this never would’ve happened if I’d merely stayed in Switzerland, where I belong. By the time we hang up, my soul feels as battered as my body. I don’t have any energy leftover to call Oliver. Which truly should make me feel a modicum of guilt. But I’m too tired even for self-condemnation.
Telling myself I’ll contact him the moment my eyes spring open tomorrow morning, I take a scalding hot shower and collapse face-first onto my bed without bothering to change into pajamas. Given how tired I am, I assume I’ll fall asleep instantly. But as ten minutes turn into twenty… as one hour ticks by, then two… sleep remains frustratingly out of reach. I toss and turn in my bed, unable to find a comfortable position. More though, unable to quiet my mind long enough to drift off into a blissful state of unconsciousness. Not with every waking thought wrapped up in Archer Reyes.
Here, safe in the silent darkness of my childhood bedroom, without the distractions of the storm, without the need to fight for survival… my battered brain begins to piece together some of the more puzzling elements of my day. Details I overlooked in the shock-laced aftermath of Cupid sinking are now lodged at the forefront of my mind. And they are not so easily dismissed.
I turn a single question over and over, examining it from every angle, like an archaeologist trying to make sense of an inexplicable artifact at a dig-site — an arrowhead from the wrong age embedded firmly in the topsoil, eons away from where it belongs.
Why the hell is Archer working on a lobster boat?
A star baseball pitcher at Bryant University wouldn’t choose to spend his summer break hauling traps for minimum wage. Not even Archer, who has never shied away from a hard day’s work. It doesn’t make a shred of sense. Nor does the way he looked — which, to be honest, was like a shadowy mirror of his former self. Barely recognizable.
It wasn’t merely the beard, obscuring his sharp jawline, or the fishing garb, or even the rather thin affirmation he gave when I questioned his chosen employment. It was something more. A look in his eyes that was never there before. A bitter darkness that reminded me a bit too much of his older brother, Jaxon.
Jax.
I haven’t thought of him in ages. Last time our paths crossed, he was fresh out of prison — and seemed determined to land himself back there as soon as humanly possible, judging by the seedy company he was keeping. He’s always run with a bad crowd, even back in high school; somehow, I doubt his fellow inmates provided any positive reinforcement.
For Flora and Miguel’s sake, I hope I’m wrong. I hope he’s managed to turn his life around and stay away from some of his more addictive habits.
Like heroin.
And fentanyl.
And oxycodone.
It always amazes me that two sons of the same blood could turn out so different. Where Archer is warmth and good humor, Jaxon is wrath and biting malcontent. Polar opposites, even before Jax developed a drug problem. At least, that’s how it used to be. Something in Archer changed last summer. Something peeled away some of his happy outer shell and revealed a darker layer I never knew was there, hidden underneath. One I could not decipher, despite my best efforts. One that narrowed a bit of that demarcation line between him and his older brother.
Seemingly overnight, he became a different person. Guarded, defensive, brooding. And, perhaps most hurtful of all, completely uninterested in being my best friend. I was never able to figure out what triggered the change in him, or why he was so determined not to let me in on the secret. I suppose the answer was staring me in the face. I just didn’t want to acknowledge it.
He might’ve been my best friend… but I was no longer his.
It shouldn’t have come as such a surprise. After all, I’d spent a solid chunk of my teenage years worried he’d tire of me at some point. That my introverted inclinations would ultimately bore him — especially once he began to ascend the social pyramid at Exeter Academy during our senior year.
Why would he want to hang out with boring old me when half the varsity cheerleaders were lining up to date him?
Even if Archer hadn’t intentionally pulled away, our friendship would’ve changed eventually. At separate colleges, leading separate lives, we would’ve drifted apart naturally, as so many high school friends do, finding ourselves with scarcely anything in common by the first Thanksgiving recess of freshman year.
But bracing for a schism and living through one are different beasts entirely. I’d be lying if I said I was not left reeling by the sharp sting of his rejection last summer. I’d be lying again if I said twelve months of space somehow supplied me with closure.
The sad truth is, I’ve spent a year pushing down the pain instead of healing it, burying my grief beneath the weight of a new relationship instead of working through it properly. And now, like a fool, I find myself disintegrating all over again; the loss bubbling up from the deep like a volcano gone temporarily dormant.
How pathetic is that?
One afternoon in Archer’s presence, and I’m slammed right back to where I started, heart ripped to shreds like the letter he left when he ended our friendship. Unable to think straight with my head so clouded by him.
Questions I still lack answers to tug at me with vicious fingers.
What could’ve happened last summer to change him so completely?
Were those scars I saw on the hand he was so quick to hide away?
Which pieces of this infuriating puzzle am I still missing?
After the events of today, it has become abundantly clear to me that I do not know the whole story of Archer Reyes. My thoughts scatter into a million fragments, then reform into implausible shapes. In the darkness, I begin to wonder ridiculous things. To postulate improbable scenarios, if only to fill in the gaps in our story. Anything to explain why he’s here, working a summer job so outside his skill set I can hardly wrap my head around it.
Unless…
It’s not a summer job at all.