Page 138 of What Boys Learn

I tensed with frustration. “Pair o’ docs.Pair o’ docs.”

Dr. Campbell Sr. had just started reaching for the crackers again when I jumped up from my seat, startling everyone at the table. “Robert. I’ve got it.”

51

BENJAMIN

“Lenora,” Dr. C shouts, “I won’t let him touch you.”

He lunges between us, like he’s protecting her, both of them wedged into a corner of the cockpit. The knife is on the deck, between us.

“He’s lying!” I shout, but I can tell, as she peeks out from behind his back, that she doesn’t believe me and willneverbelieve.

Eye on the knife, I pull Lenora’s phone from my back pocket. “Look. I didn’t lose it. Your phone, see?”

I’m only helping to convince her that I’m a liar. A manipulator.

I struggle to dial my own number with my thumb. In seconds I hear my mother’s voice, faint and tinny. I shout, “Mom! Mom! We’re on a boat! Can you track us? I’ve got a phone—”

But my distraction has cost me. Dr. C darts forward and grabs the knife, with Lenora still behind him.

To the tinny voice still squawking from the phone in my lowered hand, he shouts, “Call the police, Abby! Send help!”

My mom can’t believe his side of things. She just can’t. And Lenora—even if she thinks I was trying to rape her, she knows I didn’t. Right?

“Tell them your name,” Dr. C orders her.

“Lenora!” she shouts. “Lenora Young! Call my father, please! Brad Young. His boat’s calledSiren II. Please!”

“Mom,” I say, holding the phone to my ear. “Mom!”

The sun is low on the horizon to our left. West, I mean. I can see the shoreline, only barely. A few sailboats so small they look like seagulls bobbing on the waves. A smear of green. One tall structure—maybe the same lighthouse we saw when we launched.

“Mom!”

Lenora is sobbing. Dr. C catches her, turning as she buckles, wrapping an arm around her waist.

The call has dropped. I try to redial, eye on the knife in Dr. C’s right hand. He leans forward and all I see is the winking metal and I don’t understand what he’s doing until the boat suddenly leans hard and I stumble forward, catching myself only feet away from the blade he’s holding at chest level.

I steady myself again, on the edge of hyperventilating. Phone on the cockpit deck, where I dropped it. Tiller freed from the lock that was holding our position. Boat circling, so we won’t keep advancing toward shore, but we’re not that far away and he knows it. If someone is looking, they’ll find us.

He gives Lenora a shove toward the cabin. “You’ll be safer in there. Go.” But she’s too scared to move.

“He’ll lock you in,” I warn her. “Don’t do it.”

She stares at me, then risks a hesitant side step away from Dr. C, with a quick glance back for encouragement. I see the confusion in her eyes. Even my mom doesn’t look at me that hard. A few seconds, maybe, then she flits away. My mom tries not to let me see, but I know she’s afraid.

Izzy wasn’t, though. She trusted me with her secrets. She begged me for the pills. She said she had to meet one last time with the Weber guy. Face-to-face. As if she couldn’t just say forget it, never mind, the game’s over.

I should have gone with Izzy, to the motel. Instead I just gave her the pills, like she asked, so she’d feel less nervous. I told her they worked for my mom. They weren’t strong.

So, in a way, I did kill her. By accident, but I did.

If Dr. C stabs Lenora or suffocates her inside the cabin, it will be the same. I set the trap.

“Lenora, please,” I say. “Look at me. Please. Please pleaselookat me.”

“For fuck’s sake,” Dr. C says, dropping the knife, which gives me hope until I see he simply wants both hands free. He wraps his arms around Lenora’s narrow waist and hauls her up, feet off the ground, pedaling. Her eyes widen with surprise. He looks proud and in control, like a dad who’s lifted a crying toddler out of a sandbox and is going to show the kid what’s what. He risks loosening one arm to grab a hank of her hair. She’s tiny. He’s strong.