Hugging her knees to her chest, Evie looked down into the slick, dark water.
None of this is real, she thought. It’s all just some big, dumb joke on me.
Ha-ha.
And instantly Shaun’s voice came floating back: “Why would you say that?”
She’d laughed. Sitting across from him at the Olympia that day. “Shaun. Come on. You love me? How can you say that now?”
“How can I not?” He’d chucked his fork down onto his plate. “What do you know, anyway?”
He’d sat back, crossing his arms over his chest. Despite his nearly elbow-length blond hair and the athletic build of those arms, he had looked exactly like a pouting child.
“Shaun, we’re in high school. We have our whole lives ahead of us.” His eyes had begged her to shut up, but she’d only looked away. “We’re way too young to get married,” she’d muttered.
“According to who? Your mom?” He’d sneered.
Evie had sighed then and picked at her own plate. She hadn’t told her mom yet. She’d been hoping she’d never have to. Lucky Shaun gets out of another jam, she’d thought. I’ll just deal with it, and no one will ever know.
But Shaun had not followed her script. Shaun was happy.
She’d thought it would be the worst news he’d ever heard. That he might hate her, maybe even break up with her. Instead, he’d dropped the L word. As if that magically fixed everything between them. As if it fixed this. Abracadabra, girl.
Shaun had been happy. He’d wanted this. And now he was dead.
Evie looked down into that smooth, black river sliding over the stones to some better place, far away.
Alone. Still in high school. Not quite seventeen, and three months late.
There was no way in hell she was having this baby.
“I wish I’d never met you, Shaun Henry-Deacon,” she said.
2
R
He couldn’t get it out of his head. Those dusty, bloody tracks trailing out from where Shaun’s belly was ripped open, contents spilling into the scrub grass and staining the sandy earth. He’d been dragged some distance across the field by pretty big teeth, taken down like prey, though the footprints were human. Or human-ish.
At least, that’s how it had looked to Réal, who was no great tracker.
But he didn’t need to be—he’d cut across that field to Shaun’s since he was nine years old, its dirty footpaths worn right into his muscle. Even with the train tracks, he’d never taken the long way around. Hop the broken chain-link fence and go east along the trail. Stop to chuck stones at the rusty rail containers, spray-painted and tagged by people so far away that their marks were like light from dead stars. Then cut down through Baxter Grains—Shaun’s nan lived three blocks that way.
Réal’s feet had crunched across those dirty train tracks more than twice a week for nine years. His mom maybe would have killed him if she knew, but she’d never asked. Through dark and snow and rain. Lately, coming back from Nan’s drunk and whooping at the moon on Saturday nights. The stones he threw echoing blankly off those rail containers, a sound that made him feel huge and insignificant all at once.
The distance to Shaun’s was mapped in his limbs, and he’d been headed that way again when he saw it—the waxy blue flesh all tangled in the grass, the gray T-shirt torn and stained dark brown.
An arc light shone from a pole by the fence along the north side of Baxter Grains. It mostly spilled its cold, blue light into the Grains parking lot, leaving only a thin fringe to fall on the wrong side, the side no one but Réal ever seemed to use.
At the edge of this light, Ré’s legs had folded under him.
They’d fought, but that was nothing. They’d fought hundreds of times. Shaun was a fifth brother, a pale fraternal twin. Réal had been coming across the tracks that night to say sorry, that it was none of his business. If Shaun wanted a kid, it was none of his business. He just thought it was dumb. No, maybe just—it was Evie’s decision to make, being the girl and all. Shaun was eighteen, but Evie was just a kid. Sixteen maybe. It was fucking nuts, but it was none of his business.
When Shaun told him he planned on marrying Evie, Réal laughed at him and got a fist in his ear for it. They’d grabbed at each other, cursing and crashing into the wall of Nan’s front room, Réal’s tight bundle of muscle against Shaun’s lanky, athletic frame.
Shaun’s fist smashed Réal’s nose, and blood poured out, all down his shirt. Pain tore through his face, and he choked on it. But Réal got a few good ones into Shaun’s ribs. Might have even cracked a few. Then Shaun yanked Réal’s plaid shirt up like a hockey sweater, buttons strangling his throat, and it was done.
Réal snatched his jean jacket from the floor and left, slamming the front door and running across the field. When he’d gotten away from the rows of wooden houses full of little Nans, he bent and yelled, “Fuck!” as long and loud as he could with his fists balled up and the tendons jumping on his neck, the sound coming out of him all animal. But it hadn’t emptied the feeling from his gut.
That night he drove the Buick too fast, music too loud, blood still hot. He’d half wanted to go over to Evie’s and yell some more, but he didn’t go. It was none of his business. He wished he didn’t even know.
A baby. Even the word sounded weird and helpless.
He’d finally ran his rage down at the empty dockyards. Sitting on the hood of his car at the river’s
