Suddenly, the boat shuddered violently and a horrendous scraping sound penetrated the air. After a series of sickening thumps, we jerked to a standstill, perched awkwardly on a submerged rock shelf.
“What the fuck?” Ricky yelled.
I pulled the motor up and when I saw the mangled blades, it crossed my mind that we might not be able to make it back to the lodge. My thumb was still bleeding, leaving trails of blood all over the back of the boat and on my torn seat cushion.
“Here,” Ricky said, throwing me a roll of black electrical tape. “Wrap up your thumb.”
“Are there scissors or something?”
Ricky sawed off a piece of tape with a rusty Swiss army knife. Then, using an oar, he pushed us off the rock. The motor started again, but when I tried to accelerate, nothing much happened. The prop blades were too damaged to garner any traction in the water. It was going to be a long, slow ride back to the lodge.
“How pissed do you think Lance is going to be?” Ricky asked. “He’d better not ask us to pay for this.”
“Ricky, we just wrecked his boat!”
“Yeah, but he’s going out of business anyway. Besides, this boat was already falling apart before we hit the rock.”
“You’re supposed to warn me about shit like that. You didn’t see the giant rock?”
“I was trying to find you a Band-Aid!”
“Try to keep an eye out now,” I muttered.
LANCE ACTED LIKE THE WHOLE thing was no big deal. He had other motors in storage, he said. He would just switch it out. He waved off my attempts to offer some kind of financial compensation, promising to have us back in a working boat after lunch. I was embarrassed, but Ricky looked completely unconcerned, like a cat licking his paws in the sun.
After lunch, Ricky announced that he was having a nap. He retreated to his room and I was left alone in the main room where I could feel the familiar twinges of rage stirring in my ribcage, that old desire to lash out and hit something. To distract myself, I wandered outside with my camera. I followed a trail to a derelict cabin at the top of a steep hill where Amir told me he used to play when he was little.
“Lance only rented it out to people who came alone and didn’t want to interact with anybody, so it was usually empty when we were here.”
People like me, I remember thinking. It struck me as a sad place for a little boy to play. Especially someone as friendly and sociable as Amir. Which begged the question: what was a fun-loving, open-hearted guy like him doing with an emotionally-stunted loser like me?
Lance was down at the dock, attaching a different motor to our boat.
“She’s all ready for you,” he said as I approached. The motor we’d wrecked was sitting beside him.
“Thanks,” I said. “Again, I’m so sorry about this.”
Lance waved his hands. “Don’t even mention it. But catch some fish this afternoon, eh? It will make my efforts worthwhile. I can’t very well send you back empty-handed. Amir will never let you hear the end of it.”
“I doubt he’ll let me hear the end of crashing into a rock shelf either.”
“Only if you choose to mention it. There’s nothing saying you have to tell him.” Lance hefted the broken motor into his arms and turned toward the boathouse.
“I can’t not tell him,” I said to his back. “I’m no good with secrets.” Which was about as far from the truth as I could get. But it sounded nice, the idea that I didn’t have any secrets.
CHAPTER FIVE
•
RICKY DIDN’T WANT TO GO out fishing again. After his nap, he sat on the couch eating Doritos and playing on his phone. Even without a signal, he couldn’t stop doing stuff on it. Since Lance had gone to all the trouble of replacing the motor, I thought we should take the newly repaired boat out, but when I said as much to Ricky he just shrugged.
“You worry too much,” he said, reaching for another handful of Doritos. “We’ll go tonight. Evening fishing is supposed to be better anyway.”
“I’m going this afternoon.”
It was peaceful on the water. I stayed close to the lodge at first, skirting around the island we’d circled earlier, casting along the shoals. The sun warmed my skin and my heartbeat settled into an easy rhythm. Without Ricky in the boat, I felt calm for the first time since we’d arrived. And I could stop to take as many pictures as I wanted.
Eventually, lured by the increasingly rugged shoreline, I ventured farther and farther from the lodge. I was enjoying being by myself, but at some point, conflicting emotions began to skitter across my thoughts like spiders. I was both mad at Ricky for wanting to stay in the cabin and grateful to have a few hours away from him. His comment earlier about Leah kept playing in my mind. His tone when he referred to her as Erika’s precious little angel bothered me, but at the same time the casual way he brought up her having her own room was comforting. I couldn’t nail down the way I wanted to feel, and as I angled the boat back toward Windy Pines, my frustration and anger intensified.
“Why do you have to be such a confusing bastard?” I mumbled, my question swallowed by the sound of the water slapping against the boat and the steady drone of the motor.
Intending to delay my return, I cut the engine and let the boat drift. When I opened the tackle box to replace the lure I’d been using, Ricky’s Rolex blinked up at me from one of the plastic slots. I couldn’t believe he’d left it there. As I drifted through the bay, eyeing Ricky’s
