Chapter 5

He already does not like them, but he knows me well enough to be nervous. If something were going to happen, I would not warn him. Neither would he.

- Your main surprise, kid, is that your brains are frozen solid! - he says quite seriously. - I would not be surprised to learn you have lived one life for two. Want to talk business?

- No, - I shake my head, - I am not interested. I just want to make sure we understand each other.

- Then you had better congratulate me, Wright! - Walberg smiles again. - It is my birthday today!

A couple of minutes ago he sent his long-haired girlfriend to the fire, but she is clearly missing him and hovering nearby. I nod my chin in her direction.

- Congratulations, Ray. I can see you have already celebrated?

He notices her look too and laughs:

- Oh, no! The night has only started, kid! So be nice and don't drag this out!

When I return to my friends, Tilda is no longer with them. Her laughter comes from the dark along with a man's, and I tell Lucas:

- It is fine, Palmer. Walberg will not talk about you. Go home and pray Chris gets away with everything.

- What about you?

- I am staying.

- Me too, - Holt nods beside me, and I am mostly glad of that. The closer the night presses in, the stronger the bitterness and pain I keep trying to strangle inside me roll over me, and he knows it.

A couple of hours later, Nicholas and I are still at the Bluff. We are spending time with Ray and his friends, drowning the adrenaline in our blood with alcohol and dancing by the fire.

Booze roars in our heads, sweat runs down our bare necks, I press some Latina girl I was just with against my side, and I hear Nick drunkenly confess, shoving her away and gripping my shoulders hard with one arm:

- I love you, man, even if you are an asshole! And Lucas too! But if he drags us into shit like this again, I swear I will be the first to punch him in the face! Come on, - he demands, - say you love me too, like a brother! Say it, Carter!

Lucas and I are friends, but Nicholas and I are much closer. We grew up together, our fathers are partners, and there is no secret we do not know about each other. But when he ruffles my hair in a rush of euphoria, I am not sure he has not had time to inhale some weed. Nick's eyes are shining strangely. Though I am pretty drunk myself right now, too drunk to figure it out.

Nick starts messing with me. I jokingly hit back, and we both fall laughing into the grass beneath the deafening rock, where I suddenly make out the words of Andy Black's song "This Is My Resurrection" and freeze when I hear a familiar voice...

- Carter, go home right now! It is time! You are already completely wasted, and considering you are not eighteen... Dude, this is too much!

No, I lied. I do have one secret from Nick after all.

Alex. Him again. He came for me, the fucking golden boy. As proper and well-trained as I remember him.

I am drunk and stretched tight as a wire. A wave of reckless bravado slams into me, clenching my fingers into a fist. With that fist, jumping to my feet, I cut through the air in front of me, trying to reach Alex.

This is not my first drink and not my first cigarette. It falls and goes out, and I kick it with the toe of my sneaker, which is solid enough to hit someone in the balls. To really drive it home.

That is how it seems to me. And that is how it really is.

- Fuck off! - I lunge forward, but stumble and slam my shoulder into someone's car. Swearing, I turn around. - Fuck you! - I yell, trying to grab Alex, but I drop onto my ass on the ground and hear "Shut up!" in response.

I don't care. I throw an empty bottle at him and tell him to fuck off again. Alex is dead and I am alive, and I get to decide whether to shut up or scream at the top of my lungs.

- Hey, man! Who are you talking to? - Nick catches me by the collar of my T-shirt and throws me to the ground. Dropping beside me, he locks me in a hold. - You have had too much, asshole. Calm down!

But there is no chance of that. The music in the speakers dies, and everyone turns toward us. They shift closer, and the night air, heated by sweaty bodies and campfire smoke, grows thicker.

Everyone here loves a show, and one of the guys laughs loudly, calling me "Psycho." But a couple of moments later, after I have managed to throw Nick off and get to my feet, he chokes on a groan, doubling over.

Even drunk, I am stronger and faster than every one of them, and I am ready to prove it as many times as necessary.

"Carter, stop... Carter!"

- Alex?!

I am ready to swear I see him, my brother. He is standing at the edge of the cliff, on the border between light and dark, in jeans, a tank top, and an unbuttoned shirt with the collar folded in. His dark hair is rumpled above his clear forehead, his lips are parted as if he has not finished speaking, and in his blue eyes burns the same old light of hope: the dreamy boy with the small smile that always made the shadows retreat in my dark soul.

Alex.

Even dead, he keeps believing in me and seeing me as someone else. As different from this rotten pack of young trash surrounding us, and I will never know the answer: Why?

"Why not me, Al?"

Once I promised you I would never ask myself that question. But I lied. Since you died, I have asked myself every day. Every fucking second I am alone with myself and my reflection, I ask myself, "Why?!" And it breaks my heart.

"That week I was grounded, I kept my promise, like you asked. I came home just before dawn only the next night, and it was no surprise to Father. His older son had always lived by his own rules, and he was forced to start reckoning with that, just as I had counted on. But you were not. You were always stubborn.

You and I were standing at the corner of Fourth Street and the square where we had played so many times as children, unexpectedly running into each other face to face early in the evening, so identical and yet so different, and arguing. Arguing, goddamn it, about something that in the last minute of our shared life meant absolutely nothing!.. And at that same time, forty-year-old Billy Bowen was already driving his truck down Mile Road and yelling a song: "Hot girl, wink at me! Can't you see I need a break!" - that is what he would tell them later... When something went wrong.

First a loud pop, a turn, a sharp hit on the brakes, and when Billy realized the front tire had blown and tried to do something, the loaded truck was already skidding toward the shoulder.

No one was to blame. An accident. Later, the shipping company's lawyers would be able to prove that.

But then I did not see it, the truck. I was standing with my back to the road and yelling at you, but you noticed.

The moment the screech of brakes deafened us, you slammed into me, shoved me away, and you...

I swear it felt like I had time to catch your hands. They were so close, and your fingers had already touched mine... And if I had not been falling, I could have pulled you out, Al. I could have! But one instant decided everything.

You were crushed, brother, like a foil chip bag. Pop. Smack. And you were gone.

Only a bloody streak on the road... and the darkening horizon before my eyes, split in two.