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One disgusted look, and I realized exactly how much I despised him. Pastor Carter. That wasn’t new. I’d despised the man for years, in the vague and helpless way a child despised any adult who made his best friend cry himself to sleep at night.

But this was different. This was the first time I’d seen Pastor Carter look at Alvin and understood exactly what the bastard had done to him.

Not all of it. There were things Alvin had never told me. Things he turned into jokes before anyone thought to question it. Secrets he kept to himself like I kept so many of mine. Still, I knew enough.

My hands curled at my sides. I took one step forward. Alvin noticed and his glare flicked in my direction. A warning. I stopped.

That was the thing about Alvin. He could walk into a burning building wearing a skirt and carrying pom-poms, but he still wanted to decide whether anybody was allowed to follow him inside.

Pastor Carter caught me anyway. He made some sideways comment about my ma having a message for me before sinking his teeth back into Alvin. I felt like he had more to say he just wasn’t ready to say it yet. Or he was like a shark sensing blood in the water anytime Alvin looked relieved to escape his clutches.

He circled Alvin while I’d tucked myself up against the building and watched.

The air changed while father and son continued to exchange words. I felt it from across the field. Pastor Carter didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t need to. He’d figured out a long time ago that quiet could hurt worse than shouting, especially when there was an audience standing in the wings.

At some point, Alvin stopped breathing. Not literally. His chest still moved, but something in him went somewhere else. His eyes fixed on nothing.

I wanted to go to him. I wanted to grab his hand and pull him back. Instead, I stood here, glued to the spot. Unable to move forward but unable to back away either. I was stuck. Like I was always stuck while Alvin struggled to pull himself above water.

He’d been right. Last week at the docks hadn’t been the first time I’d watched my best friend drown. He’d been drowning his entire life. Drowning in insults, drowning in pain, drowning in rejection from all the people who had promised to love him unconditionally. Last week had just been the first time I’d stepped in to save him.

Trevor was the one trying to save him now. Alvin dismissed him and the rest of the campers. He hadn’t noticed me still watching. He’d assumed I was back at the chow hall. And I understood why. What kind of best friend abandoned you when you needed them the most?

Pastor Carter waited until they were alone. Then he said something that made Alvin do that fake choke-laugh he did whenever you insulted him and he didn’t want you to know it hurt. I couldn’t hear every word, but I didn’t need to.

I was sure it was the usual spiel his dad gave him. It was never very clever or original. But it didn’t need to be when it hurt you to your core.

Alvin stepped closer to his father, and for once, the performance cracked enough for me to see what was underneath. Not anger. Just a little boy who had spent his entire life being told that the worst parts of him were the truest ones.

My stomach twisted. Then Pastor Carter lifted his hand, and Alvin flinched. His whole body jerked backwards. Pastor Carter saw it. I saw him see it. And the look on his face made something inside me go cold.

I started towards them. The paster’s assistant got there first. Omar, I thought I heard him say. He called Pastor Carter towards the meeting house, his voice calm and professional. Pastor Carter resisted, because apparently even meetings had to wait for him to finish belittling his son.

Eventually he walked away. Alvin didn’t move until he was gone. Omar stayed behind.

I didn’t like that. I didn’t like the way Omar looked at him. I didn’t like the way Alvin looked back. I didn’t like how quickly Alvin’s shoulders lowered when Omar was beside him. I especially didn’t like that Omar made him laugh.

Alvin laughed with me all the time. He laughed at me more often than not, but that was beside the point. We had our own language. Our own history. Our own collection of things nobody else could touch.

But Omar sat there as if the silence didn’t need to be filled with dry insults. And Alvin seemed pleased with that.

“What’s wrong with you?” Cindy asked from where she was now standing to my left.

I looked over at her. She was holding a pile of cheer stuff the campers had tossed in the grass. Her blonde hair was tied back, and there was a smear of blue paint near her jaw from our poor attempt at fingerpainting with the kids this morning. More had gotten on the walls and floor than ever made it on to canvas. But outside of the occasional paper cut, no one had gotten hurt so that was a win in the camp counselor book.

“Nothing,” I told her.

“You’ve been glaring at Pastor Carter for ten minutes.”

“He deserves my glare,” I muttered under my breath. “And probably worse.”

“Probably.” She glanced towards the porch. “Are you going to go check on Alvin?”

The question shouldn’t have bothered me. But it did. Most questions did because they always felt like an attack. Like someone was trying to figure me out while I was doing my damnedest to keep the façade together.

“Someone should.” I sighed.

“That someone being you?” she asked, humming to herself as she walked away. But she wasn’t headed in Alvin’s direction. She was headed towards the chow hall. Where I should be. Right now. With my kids. Instead of creeping on a conversation from afar.