these troubled bones | s.m.

v. protector

warning: shawn's kind of a douchebag in this chapter. but hey, that's what character development is for, right? also this chapter's pretty long.

also also, quick disclaimer: the song in this is "unbelievers" by vampire weekend, which i don't own. i've linked it above if you'd like to listen!

xxxxx

v. protector

IF THERE'S ONE thing I know, it's that secrets are paradoxical: both a danger and a saving grace.

I've kept my fair share of secrets, and I continue to even now. Sure, you have the regular garden variety secrets to keep from parents or other adults (sneaking out, academic dishonesty, getting drunk every now and then) that you keep not to get in trouble, but mine are different.

Mine were, and are, kept out of greed.

The kind I kept from Anna and Caroline. The kind that blew up in my face. It's the same one I'm keeping now, from Willa Knight, because I know she'd act differently if she knew. She'd hate me even more. She'd be disgusted. And for whatever reason, I really don't want that.

The only problem?

It's getting a little harder to hold this one in.

+

"I really don't think you should be coming," I mutter again.

Knight eyes me with disdain from the passenger seat, too unimpressed to even fully turn my way. "That's the tenth time you've said that since we left, Debbie Downer."

"You're being melodramatic. It was only, like, the sixth time."

"Right, because clearly I'm the drama queen out of the two of us," Knight retorts. I don't bother to snap back, too distracted by the way her voice sounded when she said the two of us. I wasn't aware we are an "us." It sets my stomach in motion, but whether that's butterflies or nausea, I can't tell.

If it was up to me, Knight would remain tucked safely inside 28 Lilywhite Lane (barring the fact that the mere sight of the little blue house makes me feel decidedly unsafe) and I would be on my way to the Lot alone. As it is, Marin and Kathy have texted Willa and me about forty times between the two of them to remind me to bring Willa along. It's like they're determined to give me a headache.

The edge of the coast stretches out alongside the road as we drive, tantalizingly serene in the evening glow. It's almost deserted, sans a few swimming people that appear only as silhouettes from here. The sight brings a small smile to my face as I remember one night, during the whole Anna-Caro fiasco, when Elliot and I had foregone the bottle-littered battlefield that was the Lot in favor of the public shoreline. We had basked in the quiet rumble of the tide and laid diagonally on the sand, ranting about everything and nothing and eventually singing along to the acoustic songs on my phone. It's one of the few nice memories I have post-Summers.

"Green means go, dipshit." I jolt at Willa's flat tone to realize I stopped too long at a light, and step on the gas.

To distract her from asking about my momentary lapse, I say, "I thought green meant youth," referring to our in-class poetry analysis. It's a nerdy joke, but she seems like one of those posh literary people that'll get it.

She laughs like I predicted, and it feels like a prize somehow. Willa Knight is one of those people that laughs with her whole face; scrunched up nose, squinted eyes and all. It oddly suits her. I'm starting to learn that when she feels something, she feels it strongly, and she makes everyone around her feel it too. She makes me come undone.