The Thicket

Chapter 1 of my horror novel.

"Hell is empty and all the devils are here."
—William Shakespeare

Stadium lights blaze against the cool October night like fallen stars, casting harsh shadows that dance between the grandstands. On the field, the Dodds Ferry High School marching band stumbles through their homecoming rendition of Stevie Wonder's "You Are the Apple of My Eye," their formation wavering like smoke in the wind.

In the bleachers, families huddle in letterman jackets and school-colored scarves, their breath hanging in the evening chill. Students cluster in small groups, some sneaking swigs from hidden flasks, others updating social media feeds with carefully curated photos of their Friday night perfection. At midfield, the homecoming court assembles in a nervous line, their formal wear incongruous against the lush green of the football field. The girls shiver in strapless gowns—emerald silk, midnight blue chiffon, rose gold sequins that catch the harsh stadium lighting like fish scales. Their dates stand beside them in ill-fitting tuxedos rented from the mall, bow ties already slightly askew, corsages wilting on wrists despite the cool air. They shift from foot to foot, trying to look comfortable under the weight of hundreds of watching eyes.

Days later, when the newspapers dissect what happens, they'll chase the usual ghosts—bullying, teenage angst, the crushing weight of small-town expectations. They'll interview guidance counselors who speak of missed warning signs and quote statistics about adolescent depression. They'll build their neat little narratives from the bones of tragedy, missing the marrow entirely.

They always do.

The real story is buried in the spaces between the official accounts, hidden in the testimonies dismissed as hysteria or trauma-induced delusion. The real story lives in the darkness beneath the bleachers, where seventeen-year-old Bethany Woodland crouches like something that has crawled up from the earth's wounded belly.

She has been here for two hours, watching through the gaps in the metal grating, her pale skin pockmarked with acne scars that look like tiny craters in the sickly light. Each scar tells its own story. Late nights spent picking at her face in the mirror, desperate attempts with drugstore makeup that only made things worse, dermatologist appointments that never happened because her mother counted every dollar twice.
Through the gaps, she watches the festivities across the field—beautiful people doing beautiful things in their beautiful lives, while something ugly stirs in the shadows below. They move with the confidence of those who have never doubted their place in the world, never wondered if they deserve the good things that come to them, never felt the crushing weight of being fundamentally unwanted.

They can see you, the whispers say, their voices like autumn leaves scraping across concrete. They know what you are.

But what is she, exactly? That's the question that haunts her in the small hours of the morning, when sleep won't come and the walls of her bedroom seem to press closer with each passing hour. Seventeen years old, never been kissed, never asked to a dance, never invited to a party except one time as the butt of some cruel joke. She’s the girl who sits alone at lunch, who gets picked last for every team, whose name is whispered with snickers and laughter in the hallways.

"Ms. Cora Tomilson, escorted by Stan Wolfrom."

The announcer's voice echoes across the stadium, each syllable a reminder of everything Bethany will never be. Hunched like some feral creature in the darkness, the crowd's applause washes over her like a tide of judgment. She presses her face closer to the cold metal, the rust flakes biting into her cheek as she watches Stetson wearing Stan Wolfrom, all seventeen years of small-town confidence and masculine swagger, guide Cora Tomilson to midfield with the effortless grace of someone who has never doubted their place in the world

Hungry things, the whispers say, and now there seem to be more of them, a chorus of voices speaking in unison. Waiting things. Patient things.

The ring of footsteps on the bleachers from above makes Bethany look up. Her stomach clenches with sick recognition as Nora Tomilson, Cora's twin in every way but temperament, descends with her usual entourage, their heels clicking against the metal in rhythm-like fingernails on coffin wood.

Nora's pale blue eyes find Bethany in the darkness with the unerring accuracy of a predator. "Well, well. Look what we have here, girls. It's our little cave-dwelling friend."

The girl in a sequined red dress—Bethany thinks her name is Madison, or maybe McKenzie, one of those trendy names that all sound the same—speaks first, her voice sweet as poisoned honey. "Bad hair day?" The dragon tattoo on her shoulder seems to writher in the light from above. "I'm thinking bad hair life."

Their laughter is sharp enough to cut glass as Bethany runs her fingers through the tangled strands of her mousy brown hair, knots pulling at her scalp. She is darkness incarnate, a shadow person watching the luminous beings dance in their circle of perfection.

But underneath the laughter, Bethany hears something else. Screaming.

"Seriously, though," another girl chimes in. "At least when I wear makeup, it doesn't look like a box of crayons puked on me."

The screams grow louder. Attacking her from every direction as the girls surround her like a pack of wolves, circling their prey, savoring the moment before the kill. Bethany can smell their perfume—expensive stuff that costs more than her father makes in a week—mixed with something else, something organic and rotting.

"Know what I heard?" Madison-or-McKenzie says, leaning so close that Bethany can see the way her lipstick has settled into the lines around her mouth. "I heard she still sleeps with a teddy bear."

The lies come fast and cruel, each one designed to draw blood. They speak of her supposed crush on their chemistry teacher, of the time she allegedly wet herself in second grade (which never happened), of the rumor that she cuts herself (which isn't entirely untrue, though she's careful to keep the scars hidden).

But it’s Nora who delivers the killing blow, her voice dropping to a whisper that somehow carries more weight than a shout: "Bet she ain't bled yet, neither."

The words hit Bethany like ice water in her veins. Heat floods her cheeks as the screams in her head suddenly go quiet—not gone but listening.

"Come on, girls," Nora says. Turning to leave, she pauses at the bottom of the bleacher steps and looks back over her shoulder with those pale, predatory eyes. "Maybe we should call animal control, cuz I think something crawled under here to die."

As they leave, their laughter echoing off the metal, Bethany feels something shift inside her chest. Something that has been sleeping, waiting, growing in the dark places of her heart. It unfurls like a black flower blooming in fast-forward, spreading tendrils of shadow through her bloodstream.

Soon, the whispers say, and this time she is certain they aren't coming from inside her head. They are coming from the darkness itself, from the spaces between atoms, from the void that exists in the heart of all things. Soon, little one. Soon.

"Ms. Emily Walcott, escorted by Brandon Camacho." The announcer's voice cuts through the voices like a scalpel.

Bethany's head snaps up so fast her neck pops. Her breath catches in her throat like a fishhook as Brandon Camacho emerges from the tunnel in his football uniform. This is it. The moment she has been waiting for.

The shoulder pads make him look broader than usual, like some warrior god stepping down from Olympus to grace the mortals with his presence. His dark hair perfectly tousled, as if he's just run his fingers through it, and his smile. That devastating, heart-stopping smile that has haunted her dreams for three years. Ever since that first day of high school, when he said "excuse me" after accidentally bumping into her locker. It was nothing, less than nothing, but she has replayed that moment a thousand times in her mind, each repetition wearing it smooth like a worry stone. She has memorized every detail of his face, knows that he has a small scar above his left eyebrow from when he fell off his bike in third grade, knows that he bites his lip when he's concentrating, knows that he smells like soap and Old Spice and something indefinably masculine that makes her stomach flutter.

Brandon steps forward and offers his arm to Emily, who accepts with the grace of someone who has never doubted her place in the world.
Emily Walcott. Perfect Emily, with her perfect skin that has never known the humiliation of acne, her perfect hair that falls in perfect waves to her perfect shoulders, her perfect life that unfolds like a fairy tale written by someone who believes in happy endings. She moves like she is dancing, her dress flowing around her like water, like moonlight, like everything beautiful and unattainable in the world. They are the “it” couple of Dodds Ferry High.

As Bethany watches Emily and Brandon walk to midfield to join the other members of the homecoming court, her mind conjures up a different scene. A parallel world where it is her arm Brandon holds, her dress catching the light, her face the cameras capture. She can almost feel his hand, warm and firm against hers, can almost smell his cologne, can almost believe that she is worthy of standing beside someone so beautiful, so perfect, so impossibly out of her league.

You could have him, the whispers say. You could have them all. All the beautiful ones, all the cruel ones, all the ones who have made you suffer. The voice is seductive, honey-sweet, and full of promises. Just say yes. Just open your heart to us, and we will give you everything you've ever wanted.

The music suddenly stops. The stadium falls hushed except for the sound of Bethany's heart hammering against her ribs like a caged bird desperate for freedom.

"And this year's Homecoming Queen is..." The announcer pauses, milking the moment for all its worth. "Ms. Emily Becker."
The crowd erupts in cheers and applause as Emily's hand flies to her mouth in practiced surprise, as if there was ever any doubt about the outcome. A princess tiara catches the light as it is placed on her head, transforming her into something mythical and untouchable, a goddess made flesh and crowned with starlight.

From shadow's embrace, Bethany watches Emily and Brandon climb into the back of a pickup truck wrapped in blue and gold streamers, their chariot for the victory lap around the stadium. Emily waves like a queen, gracious and glowing; her eyes fill with tears—happy tears, grateful tears, the kind of tears that come from having your dreams fulfilled instead of shattered.

Bethany wonders what that feels like, crying from joy instead of humiliation, to have your name called for something good instead of whispered in mockery, to be celebrated instead of reviled.

As the truck begins its slow circuit around the track, Bethany presses closer to the bleachers, her fingers gripping the cold metal, her eyes tracking Brandon's every movement. She watches the way he looks at Emily as if she’s the only person in the world who matters, drinking in each detail like a woman dying of thirst, storing up images to sustain her through all the lonely nights ahead.

Then something miraculous happens. As the pickup passes her section, Brandon's eyes sweep the crowd, and for one impossible, heart-stopping moment, Bethany is sure they find hers. Time stands still, and the world narrows to just the two of them, connected by a gaze that spans the distance between the shadows and the light. He raises his hand in a wave, and without thinking, she waves back.
He's waving at her. He sees her. He—

But the truck moves on, and reality crashes over her like a slap to the face, like the cruel truth that some dreams are too beautiful to come true. She looks at her hand, still raised in that pathetic gesture, and feels something shatter deep inside her chest. Not crack—break utterly, leaving jagged pieces that will cut from within for years. The tears follow, hot and bitter. Mascara runs in black streaks, creating a mask of failed hopes and broken dreams.

Above, the crowd continues to cheer, but the sound is different. Mockery. A thousand voices laughing at the girl who dares to dream she could be anything more than what she is. The girl who will always be watching from the shadows, wanting what she can never have, loving someone who will never love her back.

Let us help you, the whispers say, sounding almost gentle, almost kind. Let us give you what you deserve.

In the darkness beneath the bleachers, Bethany Woodland stops crying and starts listening.

Because in Dodds Ferry, some girls are born to be queens.

And some are born to be something else entirely.




CHAPTER 2

"In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends."
—Martin Luther King Jr.

Pine trees tower over a two-lane highway, their branches forming a canopy so thick that only fragments of the morning October sunlight manage to penetrate the gloom. Below, an aged Olds 88 winds through the deep East Texas woods, its air conditioner struggling against the stifling humid heat. In the backseat, Bethany, eyes red-rimmed from a sleepless night, haunted by the memories from the night before that won't fade and voices that won't quiet, presses her forehead against the cool glass, surrounded by evidence of her approaching execution. Sleeping bags still stiff with newness, a small tent that her father purchased specifically for this trip, bottles of insect repellent, flashlights, and all the other equipment he insisted she'd need for what he keeps calling "a fun weekend adventure." Each item represents another hour she'll be trapped away from the sanctuary of her bedroom, forced to interact with people who see her as nothing more than a target for their amusement.

"Do I have to go?" Bethany's voice cuts through the uneasy quiet.

Dan Woodland glances at his daughter through the rearview mirror, his bookish features creased with concern that has become a permanent fixture on his face over the past eight months. At forty-something, he looks like the high school English teacher he is, complete with elbow patches on his corduroy jacket and an earnest, almost desperate desire to fix everything with words and good intentions.

"Why wouldn't you? It'll be fun."

The word "fun" hangs in the air like a bad joke as Bethany lets out a bitter laugh. "Then you go."

"I did. Back when I was in school."

"Really? So that was you in the boat with George Washington?"

"Funny..." Dan says with a smile. "Besides, aren't all your friends going?"

"Just because we go to the same church doesn't make us friends." The word "friends" feels foreign on her tongue, like speaking a language she's forgotten how to pronounce.

"What about Emily?"

Bethany glares at her father in the rearview mirror, the question like salt rubbed into an open wound.

"Emily? Emily Walcott?"

"Yeah... Aren't y'all best friends?"

"Seriously?" Bethany's voice cracks slightly. "When's the last time you saw me with her?" She turns back to the window, watching the world slide by in a green blur. The memories come flooding back — sleepovers where they’d stay up until dawn, talking about everything and nothing, sharing secrets whispered in the dark, the way Emily used to braid her hair before school, the sound of their laughter echoing through the house like music. Days that now feel like they happened to someone else, in some other life.
"She dropped me like a bad habit when she became head cheerleader."

"She always seemed nice."

"Popularity will do that. It's called the A-list... I'm more like on the U-list."

Dan glances back in the mirror.

"Untouchable," Bethany adds.

The word hangs between them, heavy with meaning and self-loathing. Dan shifts uncomfortably in his seat, the way he always does when confronted with the reality of his daughter's social exile. He means well, but his good intentions are like band-aids on bullet wounds.
"You're being overly dramatic, don't you think?"

The dismissal in his voice makes Bethany’s stomach twist. Overly dramatic? As if her pain isn't real, as if the daily humiliations and carefully orchestrated cruelties are just figments of her imagination.

"Whatever,” Bethany responds, her verbal equivalent of a door slamming shut.

"Look... It's your senior year... You can't stay cooped up in your room all the time."

Bethany opens her mouth to argue, but Dan continues before she can speak. "Plus, Coach Elkins gave up his weekend to take y'all on this canoe trip." His guilt trip, transparent as glass.

"So, like I've got no say in this?"

"You do... You did... You're going."

The finality in Dan’s voice is absolute, like a judge pronouncing sentence.

Bethany huffs, somewhere between frustration and defeat, and returns to the safety of watching the world through a window. The trees seem to press closer to the road now, their branches reaching toward the car like gnarled fingers as they turn onto a narrow dirt road, the smooth pavement giving way to gravel and ruts. Dust kicks up behind them, coating the rear window in a fine layer of grime. In the distance, a weathered sign appears through the windshield, its letters faded and peeling:

"VILLAGE CREEK 2 MILES”

As the Olds bounce along the road, Bethany's stomach clenches tighter and tighter. Soon she'll be face-to-face with all of them—the golden people who inhabit the world she can only watch from the shadows. The thought of spending an entire weekend trapped with them, pretending to be normal, makes her want to throw herself from the moving car. But there's nowhere to run except deeper into an East Texas wilderness that stretches endlessly on both sides of the road, primordial and patient and full of secrets.

The water remembers everything, they say—every secret, every sin, every soul that's ever touched its surface.

****

Laughter carries across the Village Creek boat dock, echoing off murky waters that reflect an overcast sky, its surface dimpled by lazy eddies and the occasional startled splash of a hidden something below. Weathered planks creak ominously beneath restless teenage feet, the wood sun-bleached and warped by decades of punishing Texas summers and thunderous storms. A dragonfly hovers just above the ripples, its wings catching the silvery light, while a cicada’s drone vibrates in the dense air. Somewhere in the thicket, a mockingbird flutes a bright, mocking tune, as if to taunt the awkward, uncertain figures gathering at the edge of the dock.

"Fear not, fair maidens!" Brandon calls out in an exaggerated English accent as he hefts a canoe across the dock. "Sir Brandon the Brave shall rescue you from the dreaded... uh... what are we being rescued from again?"

"Virginity!" Stan shouts.

"Dude, you can't say that.” Geeky Andy Simmons protests, pushing his thick glasses up his nose. "What if the girls hear you?"

Stan glances over at Cora and Nora taking selfies by the water's edge, their phones clicking like insects. "Those two? Too late," he says. "Besides, I speak only the truth. For we are the noble Three Misfit-a-teers."

Andy stands and salutes. "One for all and all for pretending we know what we're doing in bed."

"Speak for yourself," Brandon says, dropping the canoe into the water. "Some of us have actually—"

"Emily doesn't count," Andy blurts out, then immediately turns red, the color rising from his neck like spilled wine soaking into fabric. "I mean... uh... because you guys are like... official and stuff..."

Stan doubles over laughing. "Oh man, Andy just called you out, dude.”

"That's not what I meant! I was just saying—"

"Relax, Numb-nuts," Brandon says. "Your time will come. Probably sometime after you hit puberty."

“Or thirty,” Stan adds.

"I've hit puberty!" Andy protests, his voice cracking on the word 'hit,' only making the other two laugh harder.

"What's so funny?" Emily says, walking up. Still wearing the homecoming tiara from the night before, she's traded her formal dress for cutoff jeans and a red bikini top. A few strands of blonde hair curl damply at her temples in the humid air.

"Just explaining the facts of life to ol’ Andy here," Stan says.

"More like the fiction of life," Emily replies, giving Brandon a pointed look. "Some people have very active imaginations."

Brandon grins and reaches for her waist. "You callin’ me a liar, Your Majesty?"

Emily dodges his grab playfully, the tiara wobbling. "I'm calling you creative with the truth."

"Well, this conversation calls for a drink," Stan says, pulling out a dented silver flask from his back pocket. He takes a long pull, his Adam's apple bobbing as he swallows. When he lowers it, he catches Emily staring at him with the disapproval glare usually reserved for parents.

"What?" Stan says.

"Little early… Even for you."

"If you have to ask if it's too early to drink... You're an amateur, and we can't be friends.” Stan smirks, taking another swig before tucking the flask into his back pocket.

Brandon suddenly straightens. "Shit... She came."

The group turns as one to see Dan's car pulling into the clearing, dust billowing up from its tires.

"Talk about your third wheel," Stan mutters.

"More like flat tire," Cora says.

The Olds comes to a stop. Dan exits first, shares an acknowledging wave with Coach Barry Elkins, a weathered man in his forties who stands near the boat ramp, talking to Andy’s parents. His permanently sunburned complexion speaks to a life spent outdoors.

Bethany emerges slowly from the passenger side, her movements hesitant and uncertain, her face turned downward, eyes fixed on the gravel beneath her feet like someone walking toward their execution.

"Know the difference between Bethany and a brick?" Brandon says. "Bricks can get laid."

The teens erupt in laughter, carrying across the open space where Bethany stands frozen beside her father's car, the heat of shame flooding her cheeks. She doesn't need to hear the words to know she's the punchline—the sharp, cruel laughter tells her everything.

Emily's smile vanishes in an instant, as she fixes Brandon with a stare that could freeze fire.

"What?" Brandon says.

"Correct me if I’m wrong. You're going to college next year, right?"

"So?"

"So you need to start acting your age and not your shoe size."

"Ewww..." the group responds in unison.

"Warning... Den mother alert,” Andy adds.

The teens laugh as Andy and Stan launch into a ridiculous handshake ritual that resembles two spiders trying to mate.

Emily watches them with the expression someone might wear while observing a disappointing science experiment. She shakes her head and walks to where Bethany and Dan are unloading their car.

"Hi, Mr. Woodland."

Dan's face brightens at her approach, the same way it always does when one of the popular kids acknowledges him. "Hi, Emily."

Emily turns to Bethany, who's bent over the backseat, removing items like someone trying to avoid eye contact. "Hey,” her voice muffled by the car's interior.

"Sorry about them," Emily says with an apologetic tilt of her head toward the others.
Bethany straightens up. "It's OK."

"No, it's not," Emily says, glancing back at the teens. "Sometimes I feel sorry for their dog."

The joke hangs in the air between them. Emily's smile, tentative, hopeful—the same smile she gave Bethany when they were eight years old and Emily accidentally broke Bethany's magic eight ball. The smile that used to make everything okay.

"Whatever." Bethany shrugs, the word dropping like a stone into still water.

Emily's smile flickers but doesn't die completely. "I'm really glad you came."

Bethany's head snaps toward her father, who pretends to be very interested in organizing a cooler. "Like I had a choice."

"It'll be fun... just like old times."

Bethany’s eyes lift to the homecoming tiara sitting slightly askew on Emily's head, its cheap plastic gems glinting in the filtered sunlight like broken promises. Emily reaches up self-consciously to adjust it, but the gesture only makes the contrast more obvious— beauty and the beast, everything that was and everything that can never be.

Bethany returns to unloading the car.

"You can even stay in my tent," Emily says.

Bethany stops, a sleeping bag clutched against her chest like armor. The offer hangs in the air like charity from a queen to a beggar, well-intentioned but poisonous in its very kindness. She looks at Emily with a mix of disbelief, hurt, and bitter amusement that someone could be so oblivious to their own condescension.

"Here... Let me help." Emily says, taking a step forward.

"I got it." Bethany's voice is flat, final.

But Emily doesn't take the hint. She reaches for the sleeping bag anyway, her manicured fingers brushing against Bethany's scarred hands—the contrast jarring—perfect skin against damaged flesh, privilege against pain.

"Really, let me—"

"I said I got it." Bethany jerks the sleeping bag away so violently that Emily stumbles backward, her hands flailing in the empty air between them.

For a moment, they stare at each other across the space that might as well be an ocean. Bethany's face, a mask of controlled fury, her knuckles white, gripping the sleeping bag like a lifeline. Without another word, she turns and walks away toward the water, her footsteps crunching on the gravel with each deliberate step.

As Emily watches her go, her expression cycles through confusion, hurt, and finally something close to understanding. Her hand drifts up to the tiara, touching it with the tips of her fingers as if feeling it for the first time. She slowly lifts it off her head, the crown catching on a few strands of blonde hair, and stares at it like she's trying to solve a puzzle.

Then, in one fluid motion, she drops it in a nearby garbage can and walks away without looking back.

In the shadows beneath the trees, something that might be approval rustles through the leaves like a whispered promise as Village Creek flows on, dark and patient, carrying secrets toward the Gulf of Mexico, where the headwaters eventually find their way home.

Four canoes bob in the muddy water, their aluminum hulls catching the filtered sunlight in ways that make them seem to wink and leer, as the teens scurry about loading them. Coolers packed with sandwiches and sodas, dry bags stuffed with extra clothes, life jackets that look more like constraints than safety equipment—all get shoved into the narrow boats with the haphazard efficiency of youth preparing for a weekend adventure.

Bethany remains in the car, her forehead pressed against the passenger window, eyes locked on Brandon with the intensity of someone memorizing a face they'll never see again. She gnaws on her last good fingernail, a nervous habit that her mother used to scold her for constantly along with everything else Bethany seemed to do wrong. The nail tears at the quick, and a tiny bead of blood wells up, bright red against her pale skin like a small sacrifice to whatever dark gods might be listening.

Blood calls to blood, the whispers murmur approvingly. Pain recognizes pain.

The car door opens with a metallic groan. Dan peers in with the expression of a man trying to coax a feral cat from under a porch.

"Ready?"

Bethany's death glare could have turned the murky water to black ice.

"Bethany."

The sound of her name on Dan’s lips carries the weight of eight months of worry, eight months of walking on eggshells around his broken daughter, eight months of pretending that words and good intentions can heal wounds that go deeper than flesh, deeper than bone, all the way down to the soul. Resigned to her fate like a condemned prisoner accepting the inevitable, Bethany huffs and storms out of the car, slamming the door shut with a crack like breaking bones.

Coach Elkins approaches Dan.

"She gonna be OK?"

"Don't know... Ever since the fire... she's been like a hermit."

The word 'fire' hangs in the humid air like smoke. Elkins shifts uncomfortably, the way people do when confronted with grief too immense for easy comfort.

"How long's it been?"

"Almost eight months now."

"Can't imagine what she's going through."

Dan's eyes drift to where Bethany stands apart from the group, her arms wrapped around herself like she's trying to hold her pieces together through sheer force of will. "Peas in a pod, those two were."

Elkins nods. "This might be just the thing she needs."

"Kinda what I was thinking." Dan's voice lacks conviction, as if he's trying to convince himself as much as Elkins.

Elkins looks to the sky, where clouds are gathering like gray wool. "Better be shoving off if we're going to make Millikan's Bend by dark."
"Millikan's Bend?" Dan's face brightens. "Wonder if that old tire swing's still there."


"It is... Don't think it would hold either one of us though."
They share a chuckle—two middle-aged men reminiscing about their youth, when the world was full of possibilities instead of responsibilities. For a moment, the years fall away, and they're teenagers again, standing on the banks of Village Creek with their whole lives stretching out before them like an uncharted river.

"Y'all have fun now,” Dan says.

They shake hands, and Elkins starts to walk away.

"Coach,” Dan's voice carries the weight of a worried parent.

Elkins looks back, his eyebrows raised in question. “She’ll be OK."

His words sound more like a prayer than a statement.

"She'll be OK," Elkins repeats, as if saying it again might make it true, then turns to the teens. And calls our "We’re burning daylight!"

The teenagers quickly pair off in canoes. Brandon climbs into the lead canoe with Emily, their royal status automatically granting them the best position, while Cora settles into the second canoe with Stan, who takes a hidden pull from his flask.

As Nora starts toward a canoe, Andy scrambles past her, almost sending her tumbling into the creek. Clambering into the back, he flashes her what he thinks is a charming grin, but comes across as somewhat disturbing.

"No way... I'm not riding with “it”." Nora demands.

"We took a vote," Brandon calls out from his canoe.

"And you lost," Stan adds.

"Unfucking believable."

“Language,” Coach Elkins shoots her a warning look that she pointedly ignores.

"Think of it this way, my love," Andy starts, trying to salvage the situation with what he considers romantic rhetoric. "You're Cleopatra, and I'm Marc Antony, gently rowing you down the river Nile."

"Yeah?" Nora says, taking a seat at the front of the canoe with resigned fury. "Call me 'my love' one more time, and that won't be the only thing floating gently down the river Nile."

Bethany watches from the shore, her arms still wrapped around herself, like a ghost observing the living from a distant shore, some place where the rules are different, and pain is the only currency that matters.

Soon, the whispers promise from the Spanish moss swaying in the wind. Very soon, now.

"Looks like you're with me," Coach Elkins says, gesturing toward the last remaining canoe.

Bethany snaps out of her trance and looks around the clearing. Realizes with a sinking feeling that everyone else has paired off, that she's been left for last like the kid nobody wants on their team.

"Could be worse," Elkins replies with a grin. "At least I won't try to tip us over to impress some girl."

Despite herself, Bethany almost smiles. Almost. Instead, she shoulders her backpack and follows him toward the canoe, where the dark water waits to carry them all downstream toward whatever fate has in store.