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Rand was different after Rachel was gone. It was expected, everyone understood why. When Rachel disappeared she took something from everyone with her. She barely left anything of Rand. But nobody ever saw him cry. He only held his mean look with bloodshot eyes, the corners of his mouth and the crease of his eyebrows screwed so tightly like coils no one knew if he had spent the whole night crying or just about to go over the edge.
Everyone tried to help him of course, offering their words of hope or condolences, but he got passive aggressive, lashing out with cutting words. An air of anger surrounding him. It didn’t stop those around him. Rolan and Kian still stopped by his house every day to make the day as normal as possible. They would talk, a little stilted, trying to remember what was normal, and with enough cigarette smoke swirling the attic ceiling they could let go of the elephant in the room for just a moment. But as the days wore on, Rand grew more and more unresponsive, another day with no news. Another day the three of them walked around town stapling Rachel’s face on posters around town. Another day where Rand wouldn’t open his mouth at all.
Rolan tried to meet with the two as often as he could, but his parents held a grip on him so tight he couldn’t stay in his own house, and it didn’t help they were on his case about Rand stronger than ever. Rolan’s parents had never approved of his friends, but now they had gone from “bad influences” to “possible dangers".They blamed Rand for his sister's disappearance, like most of the town, they always found a way to blame Rand. It was his lack of responsibility, it was his fault, it was everything Rolan had been trying to convince Rand he wasn’t. His parents could not believe their precious son would still associate with the town failure turned town tragedy, but none of their warnings or lectures would stop Rolan from defending Rand. And his strained relationship with his parents stretched ever farther. He would run away from home every day, like always when his parent’s embrace felt more like a cage and he would run to his spot. The one place he could find solace with the stillness of the bayou. His tree, his little quiet place, somewhere even Kian and Rand didn’t go.
He wasn’t supposed to be out at night, nobody was since Rachel- and every kid’s curfew had been cut before dark. But Rolan never felt safer than under his tree by the graveyard, where he could watch the dragonflies dance across the gentle waters and relax.
Today was another one of those nights.
He had just started to let his gaze unfocus and refocus as he watched the life in the lily pads, but his attention was caught and he felt his eyes glide over something that was not supposed to be there.
As he fixed his eyes back to the spot, he found himself looking at… A foot? He considered the entire shape in front of him. The whole shape, the foot, the leg, the body it was attached to and the featureless melted face.
It was a corpse.
Rolan must be seeing things wrong in the dim light, his whole body rigid. Of course he had to be wrong, right? No no no, that wasn't a body, and that wasn’t another body next to it, and another -all tucked gently bobbing in the reeds. He had to be wrong about another featureless head with mangled limbs floating among the lilies a little ways off, and there was no way the body next to it had no skin at all, muscle wouldn’t twist that way on its visible bones.
Rolan hadn’t even realized when he had stood up, leering his shaking body to try to get a closer look in the hazy light before the sun set. And as he stared, it started to pound in his head what he was really looking at.
A dozen or so dead bodies, shriveled and warped in weird ways, floating in the bayou. He felt sick. He felt sick really, really fast and the nausea was quick to have him gagging. As his vision started to swim, he tried to convince himself he had inhaled a bit too much of something Kian or Rand had been smoking, or ate something weird, but the flies buzzing was loud and real, he was sure, and he could feel them on his skin- could see them crawling across flesh just several yards away like twisted red logs in the water. He must have moved closer, his shoes barely out of reach of the water's foul edge when he started to back up, his body screaming for him to run. His heart was beating too fast and he couldn’t think- and then he felt faint.
He felt a pinprick of pain, and his heart was stilled, and it suddenly was very very dark.
Rolan awoke violently with the need to vomit immediately. He bolted upright from the ground and stumbled a few steps before it all came up. His body feels wrong and gross and he’s filled with a poison that shouldn’t be there as he purges his stomach’s contents into the water. Gripping his sides tightly he can feel his ribs. It’s not right. The way his head pounds, it’s not right. His eyes are bleary from the force of his convolutions, but he peeks them open just enough because he can swear there is something right in front of him.
He looks down, into the water just below his favorite tree, and he sees his reflection.
Except it’s not his reflection. But it’s his face alright.
Staring back at him with wide terrified eyes is Rolan Deep, the same kid he had seen when he washed his face this morning.
The same face he had worn all his life, the face he sees in the mirror. His own face.
Except this Rolan is working his mouth, no sound coming out, just a feeble shake as his eyes bulge and he’s staring right at Rolan, staring at him with desperation and staring and looking and looking at him.
It shouldn’t have been possible. The body was still alive. His body. But here he was, leaning over the water, looking at himself.
Rolan turns away, he doesn’t look back- he doesn’t look at where he would have seen his own exposed heart and opened rib cage, he doesn’t see as his own body is dragged away farther into the pond. He doesn’t see or hear how each of the bodies gives a soft *plorp* as they sink below the water again, pulled down by some thick fleshy tether.
No, all he can see is the blur of the street ahead of him as he runs and doesn’t even think as a scream starts to escape his lips.
He runs and runs and runs, tasting blood in the back of his throat.
He winds up at the police station. He needs to tell someone. Somebody has to do something.
They let him into the station, startled slightly by a boy banging on their doors with clinging wet clothes (he didn’t even realize) and vomit on his shoes.
Rolan barely remembers the story he told the cops, just the acute feelings that it was wrong. The way it was all coming out wasn’t right, the cops faces showing their lack of understanding and their tired contempt for his bout of madness.
He looked crazy and he didn’t know how to fix it, to make them understand, to go out there and investigate what he had seen!
“There are people out there!- Well maybe dead, maybe alive- probably dead, they were floating there in the water.” -His mouth was sticky and his breath wasn’t enough to form words. “submerged by the water but they came up- came from- there were 10 of them, no, maybe 20 no 25, can’t have been that many.” he was stuttering over his own words. The memories were swimming before him, an overwhelming sway of blood red.
Telling it, he tried to wrangle what it was he really saw, but the cop in front of him just readjusted his badge and looked him in the eye with a dismissive stare.
“Kid, at least get your story straight if you’re gonna waste our time.” he frowned.
The other cop nudged him a bit. “Hey now, we’ll go check it out. Give the water a looksie, don’t worry.” but his face held a frown that had a hidden smile behind it, tight and conceited.
Rolans heart sank. They didn’t believe him.
“Kid what’s your name?” Coughed the officer in front of him- officer Bros, his name tag read.
“Rolan. Rolan D-Deep.”
Bros gave him one of those fake weary smiles and spread his hands out. His partner was looking at him with a similar expression.
“Rolan, okay so you saw bodies in the water?”
“Y-yes.”
“Just dumped there? Out in the open? And uhm, some of them were skinless?”
Rolan felt a new wave of sickness, but he didn’t even have enough strength to throw up let alone anything left in him to do so. He just nodded.
“Whearehe wasthiss aattagainbythegraveyahdgd”… the cops were still speaking to him, but he couldn’t focus on their words. He couldn’t focus on anything in front of him except for his white knuckles gripping his pants.
There was just this buzzing that was so so loud, thrumming in his mind and he was sitting wrong, maybe he was breathing wrong- if he thought about it now he might forget how to breathe entirely and suffocate.
So he just breathed in and out as the sensations and sounds around him faded away and he could only focus on the fact it felt like his lungs didn’t have enough room in his chest to breathe.
Later he found he had been escorted in his daze back to his house, where his parents had rushed out to greet him, experiencing every emotion as they grabbed him and unleashing them onto him. Tearful relief and happiness and burning anger and confusion and way toooo much talking and yelling, it was all too loud. He thinks he hadn’t even been gone for that long?
Rolan didn’t know what he did or said or if he simply just stood there as they rattled on, but they finally let him go and he shuffled to his room as they locked the door behind him. He was exhausted. He stumbled over, tore every blanket from his bed, and holed up in the corner of his room until his bones stopped shaking just enough for him to sleep.
He may have dreamed, but did not remember anything.
When he awoke it was with no jolt of sickness, just a faint numbness in his limbs as he felt… more normal. He checked the time. 10:20 pm. He realized he must have slept below that tree, and spent the whole day dealing with the cops and worrying his parents. Sleep wasn’t the right word, there was no way he would have curled up and slept first thing after seeing a body, he fainted right then and there. He shuddered as he thought of how close he must have been to them. He had woken up wet.
He looked down at his shirt. He had dried out at the station, but he got up immediately and changed all of his clothes.
After changing, he picked up the home phone. He had to try to tell the only two people who may have a chance of believing him.
Rand's number rang and rang until it went to voicemail.
This was normal the past 2 weeks.
Kian picked up immediately.
“Heyy Rolan, what’s up? Haven’t heard from you at all today dude! You up for something??”
It felt so good to hear his voice. “Yeah uh, Kian there’s actually something I want to uh, talk to you guys about. Can I, um, meet you at Rand’s?”
Rolan hoped his voice didn’t sound so shaky over the phone.
Kian fell silent briefly before his voice came back, the playful tone dropping for something a little more concerned.
“Yeah man, you alright?”
“Yes, well actually I don’t know. Probably. Just well-“ Rolan swallowed. “I’ll just tell you in a second ok? Can you go now?”
“Yeah of course, see you soon Rolan.”
Rolan hung up. He didn’t know if his parents were back from the police department; he vaguely remembered them mentioning they were talking to the cops about his story, but he didn’t care.
He ignored the locked door of his bedroom as a feeble way to keep him in and snuck out the window like he always did, heading to the other place he always went when he just needed to go :Rand's house.
Rand’s house was where the three of them would always meet. It was close to his own house and Kian’s trailer, and his attic was spacious and secluded enough to accommodate whatever hijinks they were up to and their weekly DnD games. Rolan was never allowed to sleep over, (he was never allowed to sleep over anywhere), but he thinks his parents would kill him if they found out he had actually been sneaking out frequently to sleep on Rand’s attic floor.
Rolan’s parents believed him to be the golden upstanding teenager but they had no idea how good at subterfuge and stealth he was. (Rolan took a little pride in this.)
He approached Rand’s house from the backyard and started climbing his fence, avoiding the front door. Rand's parents were.. fine, but they had their issues. He knew Rand had many problems with his dad who was not the greatest, a “mean drunken bastard” according to Rand but Donna Rand had always been nice to the boys. … Rand had never really told Kian or Rolan why he didn’t want to be called Timothy, only by his last name. Rand. He simply introduced himself that way and that was that.
Rolan knocks softly on the window, standing on the tips of the pickets of the fence up against the side of the house, and pulls himself over the ledge. He can see Kian’s blonde hair turn as he opens the window for him and Rolan swings himself inside. To anyone else, the whole climb might have seemed a little daunting, but to him it was second nature.
Even if he suddenly felt his limbs didn’t belong to him.
Kian immediately pulled him close. “What’s up man? What did you want to tell us?”
Rand was sitting on the edge of the bed staring at nothing.
Rolan cast a long glance at him, in an effort to let him know he was there.
He sat down on the dirty carpet and let Kian lean against him as he tripped over his own tongue before starting. How was he going to explain this?
On the walk over he had tried to organize it a little better. To rationalize it. To fit his memory into a neat little box.
But as he went over his explanation again he could feel the insanity of the situation seep into his words. The further he pushed into the story the murkier it got and he could feel himself forgetting.
He decided he was going to leave something out of the story… but now he can’t even remember what it was..
Whatever it was, if they weren’t going to believe him about seeing skinless corpses in the water, they couldn’t with the. The what? What would they not been able to believe? Something compromised his whole story, and apparently his mind felt compromised too, because he felt his mind pull it out of reach, kept far away until he could understand it. That couldn’t be good.
As he wheezed out his words with a shortness of breath, Kian held him with that “I believe you but not your story” look, all sorry eyebrows and wide eyes.
“Bogus man, that’s some fucked up shit dude, you sure you’re good? Like..?” He doesn’t look like he really knows what to say, so he rests a hand on Rolan’s.
“We’re uh here for you man. Even if you had some fucky visions? You sure you didn’t take something nasty dude? Bad trip?”
It’s the best Rolan was going to get, he thinks, and weakly smiles just a bit.
There is silence for a second. In the absence of a sound, Rolan turns to look at Rand. He’s got an expression on his face Rolan has never seen before.
Almost normal, almost calm, but the intensity in his eyes is something- so sharp Rolan feels as if a knife has been drawn to his neck.
“Why the fuck would you say that?”
Rand says it quietly.
“Huh?”
“Why would you say that?”
Louder now. He looks genuinely confused, and. Hurt. And all of a sudden his face twists in rage.
“What kind of sick joke is this? What the fuck else could you possibly mean!?” He spits out yelling, desperation in his tone.
Rolan jumps back, bumping his head on the wall.
“Rand- No, this isn’t a joke-“
“You mean to tell me this is just what happened? What happened to her? You FUCKING DIPSHIT DID YOU SEE HER?”
Oh.
“Did you see Rachel? Huh? I don’t believe your goddamn story! I’ve checked every missing persons report this town has ever had, I’ve looked into every suspicious incident- DID YOU SEE HER?”
Rand grabs Rolan by the collar and hoists him to his feet.
Kian’s up too but whatever he’s saying is a million miles away.
“Rand no, nonono, I didn’t see Rachel, I don’t know if this has anything to do-“
“Bullshit. So what are you telling me this for? To SCARE me? TO- TO TRY TO GIVE ME CLOSURE OR SOME SHIT?”
It hadn’t occurred to Rolan to think of Rachel. Earlier he had been forcibly putting her out of his mind.
He feels guilty immediately.
“No! Rand! No I-, I didn’t see Rachel, I didn’t recognize anyone! Well, they didn’t have skin or-“
Rand punches him in the face. Rolan feels his head snap back and hears the resounding crack a second later like a thunderclap.
The blood comes immediately, dripping from his nose, but Rolan is too shocked to nurse his face.
Rand continues with a ferver and wide eyes.
“I’VE - I’ve there’s no way. She’s the ONLY ONE to have gone missing in the last 10 years. Nothing else happened- There’s no way that what you’re saying is true. S-So why are you saying it?”
He looks so betrayed. That spring-like expression he had been holding for the entire month snapped- and Rolan could see all of it. The hurt, the hope, the confusion, the guilt, the anger, the grief the grief the grief -
But it’s quickly replaced with a look of boiling HATE.
Rand doesn’t swing again, but just throws himself forwards, screaming a primal nothingness at him. No words, just sound with all the messy messages crammed into them anyway.
A shadow stops his progress because Kian has placed himself between the two, all sandwiched up against each other, and he has been saying things, yelling and pleading this entire time, but Rolan still can’t hear him. He imagines Rand can’t either.
Kian holds Rand back in a struggle, in a kind of embrace if it weren’t for the way Kian was trying to grab at his fists and Rand wasn’t kicking him in the shins. Kians heels dig into Rolan’s feet and his elbows into his chest as they stumble back.
Rolan stands there, as Rand’s spittle fires at him from over Kian’s shoulder, and Kian trying desperately to fix what went so shitty so fast as if it was his fault.
It’s all wrong, this whole situation.
Rolan begins to cry, a silent cry with no sobs as two tears slip down his face. He’s such a crybaby. He can’t tell if he’s sad or if he’s frustrated.
He feels a new emotion rise in him quick.
“FUCK YOU!”
And his throat finally gives out. He’s never yelled at Rand. But Rand has never hated him.
Rolan can’t get any more out than that, he’s explained himself too many times today, so he turns and scrambles out of the window, nearly slipping, but he’s too used to this, too familiar with Rand’s window to do so.
He takes off down the street and down and down and is vaguely aware of Kian trying to climb out of the window after him. A soft “Rolan!” “Rolan!!” as his voice recedes into the distance Rolan puts between them as he sprints away away away away away-
He’s always running away.
______
Rand has screwed it all up.
It’s official, he has nothing left.
And it’s all his fault.
But that’s not a surprise.
He’s the fuckup, the town loser, the pothead weed addicted all Cs student, the asshole the bitch the bastard, he’s the nerd with no life no future and no sister who’s only had two friends in the whole world.
Thank god they are finally gone too. Maybe they won’t be dragged down with him anymore, maybe they’re free now.
Rand buckles over. A sharp pain echoing through the cavity of his body, but he knows it comes from his mind. He buries his face in his carpet and finally cries. Ugly snotty tears, the waterworks flowing like rivers as a dam breaks inside him.
Oh he’s so sad, he’s miserable, he feels awful and he wants to die.
Just earlier in the week, in a brief moment when his mind was distracted he had entertained the thought of telling Kian and Rolan how much he cared about them. How much they had helped him. Through this, through all of his shit beforehand. He wanted to thank them. He had never been the one for sappy conversations or affectionate words, his personality was “asshole”, and he had to maintain his image, he couldn’t allow his friends to see him any differently. But he thought that now would be the chance, he was mourning, grieving and weak, he would have a reason, no one would think of him less if he let himself be emotional.
But no, he let his emotions spill over and he just told Rolan he hated him. Punched him in the face.
The sadness and confusion in Kian’s look as he had hesitated for just a moment to look at Rand, leaving him too, hurt as if Rand might as well have punched him too.
God he wishes he could drop dead now. Join his sister.
Would she even want to see him? Rand had always pushed her away, for being cringe, for liking Star Wars too much, for banging on the door of the attic, for being weird, for wanting to play in his DnD games, for trying to get involved in all of his stuff, for never leaving him alone and clinging like a tick, for just the fact that she broke his isolation.
Pushed her away until she was gone.
It would be hypocritical for him to want to join her.
It’s always one mistake after another with him!!
Mistake after mistake after mistake- CAN'T HE EVER DO ANYTHING RIGHT?
He couldn’t keep his little sister safe, he couldn’t even hold onto his friends. He literally didn’t have to do anything, they had held his hands in theirs, all he had to do was not FUCK IT UP.
The panic was more than setting in now, spiraling like a thin unstoppable force headed straight for his heart, he was heaving wet breaths now, fast and hot.
The clawing sense of dread, the pit deepening in his stomach as he realizes what he’s done. He doesn’t have anything now he doesn’t have anything now nothing left nothing left nothing left.
He lies there. In his attic, at the foot of his bed, DnD stuff shoved underneath. Dirty laundry piled in the corner and the mattress and sleeping bag he kept for Kian and Rolan to sleep over always out.
Before Rachel disappeared he thought he was getting better, even if it was only a little bit. But he still wants to die.
But, he thinks, clinging onto a thought he.. unhealthily relied on in the past, if I went now they would think it’s their fault.
Many a hard month he had told himself he wouldn’t let Kian and Rolan think they hadn’t tried hard enough, that maybe he was worth their holding onto.
If he went now, they would take it upon themselves, they were soft empathetic babies like that. They cared too much. The self centered bastards would believe it was them, their fault.
He couldn’t let that be true. If he had to survive losing them so they didn’t believe that, he would have to. At least, long enough that they had forgotten him.
He knew that wasn’t the best way of thinking, that there were healthier ways to help himself stay afloat, ways Rolan or Kian had shown him.. but it would have to do for now.
What was he going to do without them, no he needed to fix it, he needed to fix it NOW.
The thrumming panic struck a chord in his heart and exploded into desperation, his hyperventilation suddenly fueling a clammy grasp at any way to undo this. He scrambles to his feet. Out the window, shoes hitting the pavement of the streets as he chases after Rolan and Kian. They are long gone now he thinks, but he’ll search the entire town, he knows their small town like the back of his hand and he needs to find them.
And he plunges into the growing dark of Galloway.
————
Rolan is a fast runner. He had always been tall, with long legs and a gift for jumping that led him to start taking track and pole vaulting. He finds himself now tearing through the trees, unusually clumsy as he clambers over or through bushes and branches, Kian’s voice long gone behind him, now he’s left with only the wind in his ears and the buzzing in his head.
Rolan runs and runs and realizes he has nowhere left to run to. He can’t run to his tree, not anymore. He can’t run back home; blood is streaming from his face and there was no way he would ever be let out of the house again, let alone ever see his friends again. And he’s running away from Rand's house, where they usually all go when they need somewhere to run to.
He just needs to somehow escape, so he runs with no direction just to feel like he’s not trapped, but the trapped feeling stays when you don’t have somewhere to go.
Eventually he finds himself stumbling through the bayou forest. It was really dark now. Maybe midnight if Rolan had to guess. The sounds around him are different tonight. He swears half of them are in his head.
He can feel himself clicking, or something he’s not sure what or why. His vision is hazy and he’s exhausted again. He had been walking for some time now- letting his mind wander much farther than his conversation, no- his fight, with Rand.
The image of the bodies are playing and replaying in his mind's eye -and he swears he can see the ground shift into the bayou’s putrid water beneath him everytime he takes a step. But his feet are dry and the ground is solid.
He’s far too overwhelmed, why, why did everything have to happen tonight?
He wasn’t even done mourning for Rachel.
Rachel… Rolan feels a pang through his heart.
He wasn’t Rand of course, he wasn’t her brother he could never know how he felt, but he really really missed her. He felt kind of silly to admit it, but Rachel had always been like the sibling he never had, whenever he was over he would play with her to the eye rolling of Rand, and she was always happy to see him. He had always wanted a sibling and couldn’t understand why Rand found her so annoying. He had gone home and cried and cried the day he found out she had gone missing. And that was when they still had hope of finding her. What a crybaby.
He had focused his energy on trying to support Rand during this time, but maybe he didn’t realize what a toll it had taken on himself, and he felt a crushing weight briefly stop him in his tracks before.. a new sensation washed over him.
As he thought of Rachel, he realized he still didn’t think she was dead. He had told Rand that “I’m sure she’s still out there” time and time again in the hopes of comforting him, but maybe this had also served as a message to himself.
As he thought about it now he was suddenly so sure of it. He could feel something ever so faintly pulling on his mind, like walking through a spider's web, or the feeling of water shifting while you’re submerged.
It’s calming. All of a sudden, all of the panic, all of the dread and doom, clear. Walks had always been good for his head but finding himself on the edge of town, he felt a peace close to what he used to find at his tree.
At this point he found himself emerging from the bayou forest to walk alongside the road that sat companion to the ‘Welcome to Galloway!’ sign. He started at the back of it now.
He regrets telling off Rand. He wants to talk to him without the yelling. He wants to apologize and he wants an apology. He has somewhere to go now, he can go back, he’ll climb back into the attic and he’ll sleep there. He figures Rand at least owes him letting him clean up his face.
He turns away from the backwards sign, back to back, and starts to head back into town. The slight pull to return he feels steadying his feet.
When he gets back he finds Kian leaned up against the fence of Rand’s house. Kian’s entire face lights up when he sees him.
“Hey man!” He huffs, the lateness of the night causing him to keep his voice low. “You’re way too fast for me, left me in the dust! Stopped by your house- though I figured you probably wouldn’t be there.” He gives an awkward smile. “Good thing I know you so well I knew you’d be back here!”
Rolan pulls him into a hug. Kian startles before his arms fold around his back.
“Thanks for waiting for me. And y’know, stepping in.”
“Anyday dude,” Kians smiles but it slips after a second of silence, “I just hope Rand gets back soon.”
Rolan turns to look at the attic window “He left? I- I didn’t realize. At all- that what I said could be heard that way. I didn’t mean to scare him, I didn’t even think of Rachel, so soon after- I wouldn't have believed me- sounding like a liar with a sick sense of humor- what I sounded like, it’s understandable he got upset-“
“Not that he should deck ya like that tho” Kian chided.
“…yeah. But-,” Rolan wipes some of the dried blood off his face. It had stopped bleeding now. “.., I don’t know.”
They breathe for a second. Kian sighs. “I’m really worried for him Rolan, I-I don’t know what to do. I can’t tell what he’s feeling, what he’s thinking anymore- not like I used to.”
“It’s like he’s lost”
Kian looks up “What do you mean?”
Rolan turns his eyes away from the window, instead grinding his shoe into the ground as if he had a cigarette under it.
“I- I don’t know what I mean. … It’s just that, all the looking for Rachel, waiting and searching, I feel like- like I can’t see into the future anymore it's like it all,.. stops. Until I know what happened to her…. I wonder if Rand feels the same way.”
Kian is staring at him intently, the way he gets when a expressionless mask goes over his face and Rolan can tell he’s being analyzed.
“Do you think maybe that's why you thought you saw those bodies?-”
Kian cuts himself off and immediately looks like he wants to swallow his words. “I mean- uh- not that I don’t believe you, just that-“
“It’s fine if you don’t believe me Kian.”
“No Rolan I do I do-“
“Kian. I don’t want to talk about it.” He sounds cold, but he hopes he gives Kian a soft enough expression that he knows it’s not him that’s the issue. He just wants it dropped. He’s tired of explaining himself and he kinda wishes he never told anyone anything. Then maybe it would have all been just a bad dream.
Kian opens his mouth, then closes it again, looking away, the mask falling off. “Just, let me know if you do.”
Rolan nods, and starts to climb the fence again.
The two of them climb into Rand’s attic and Rolan cleans up his face in the bathroom. They lay together on the sheet-less king sized floor mattress and wait for Rand.
The door knob eventually turns and opens, and a frazzled, leaf covered and miserable looking Rand enters. He’s immediately surprised by Rolan and Kian sitting up next to his bed, his bleary eyes widening with a mix of relief and apprehension. It’s clear that he had been crying, his face red and splotchy and he still had the sniffles of a sob. He tries to speak, frozen like a deer in headlights.
“I-I’m sorry.”
He had a lot more to say. His voice was hoarse from shouting their names into the night.
He had been planning everything he wanted to say while he had run and searched and ran and searched, trying to find the right words that would fix it all. The right words that would turn back time.
But he just stood flat on his feet looking down on them as they looked up, managing to push out his 2 word apology. Rand rarely ever said sorry, so when he said it it came with a certain weight to it, and Rolan could feel this one crushing Rand with such force it might push him six feet under.
So he reaches out his hand and pulls Rand down to their level so they can all bear the weight together. Rand allows himself to get shoved between the two and after a couple haggard breaths -lets the pressure ease just enough off his lungs the words start pouring out.
He’s sorry for punching Rolan, he’s sorry for yelling at him, he’s sorry for accusing him of anything and for the way he reacted. He’s sorry to Kian for putting him in that position and he’s sorry he’s been treating them like shit for the whole month. Rolan and Kian don’t say anything, but the air no longer holds the buzz of anger and instead a shared sense of “it’s okay” settles in. They understand. They don’t blame him. They are okay. Rolan and Kian had already started to fall asleep, Rolan’s head leaning against Rand's shoulder and Kian’s long hair in his face, only half listening to whatever Rand was saying.
Rand keeps going, apologizing for things from years ago, all the little bits and rickets in their years of bickering.,, and, they didn’t need to hear this. Rand had always said sorry in his own way before. So they fall asleep while he mumbles...,, until finally he joins them as he slurs off into sleep.
When they awake the distance is placed again. Like a big empty box between the three of them. But the cold sharp edges from the night beforehand are handled with care, and the warm already-afternoon sun streaming through the window helps to warm it up. They head downstairs well after 12:00pm.
Rolan forgives Rand over brunch, and the gang are friends again. It takes a while, before things are normal again. They spend the next few days talking about Rachel, staying by Rand’s side, putting up more missing posters, talking to the police again, and smoking up in Rand's attic while avoiding his grieving parents.
Rand tries to bring up Rolan’s story once. Rolan shuts him down. Rolan can tell Kian wants to bring it up numerous times, a couple times when Rolan is alone he asks, in case he didn’t want to talk about it with Rand around. Rolan still doesn’t want to talk about it. If he’s being 100% honest with himself, he can’t remember much at all about that night. And he doesn’t want to open up and find nothing inside to share at all, it would only serve to hollow his words more. Every passing hour it feels as if more of it has faded away from his grasp. Like there was some kind of mental barricade, yellow caution tape and a ominous warning sign on the front that he knew was bad.
He remembered what had happened with Rand afterwards, (he wasn’t ever going to forget that- a faded scar in their relationship) but he could not remember what he had seen in the bayou that day. The willow leaves closing over the memory like stage curtains.
He shelves the memory for later. It could wait, no, it would have to. He had a life to build for himself.
But many years later Rolan would find that with enough alcohol (something he had found himself addicted to), and enough sickness in his stomach, enough buzzing in his head, he could peek behind the curtain. Just a bit.
But he would never know the full truth, the entire truth, until a decade and a half after he graduated and escaped from that town.
He would not find out, until he was standing under the same willow tree and looking into the now blood red waters of his hometown, why it was that after that day he never recognized his own reflection.
What truly had made him feel a stranger in his own body. (An imposter, it was true).
He would not find out until he got a shaking call from his aunt to attend his parents funeral.
He would not find out until he traveled back to that godforsaken town.
He would not find out until he smelled the sticky sweet stench Richie Rat’s body slathered behind the Quick Stop.
He would not find out until he pulled a wet handwritten note from his dead father’s mouth.
He would not find out until he watched his highschool history teacher's neck snap in front of him.
He would not find out until his best friend Kian was a smear of bubbling flesh on a tree.
He would find out after his best friend Rand got to see his sister again.
He would not remember how he looked the day he died -for the first time- until the bodies he had seen that day were laid out in the streets he walked as a child, and there was no one left in Galloway who had the luxury of not believing him.
And god he wished he had been a liar all along.
And maybe he had been. It was up to him to decide.
For the past 20 years, he had convinced himself he was human.
He could choose whether he had been lying or this was the truth. All it would cost was all he had left.
He made his decision.
***