Bay woke up the next morning to the sound of hard rain pounding against the roof of her house. She rolled over on her now completely deflated air mattress and checked her phone. The blinking notification gave her an instant feeling of relief: the email from [email protected] telling her that the park was closed for the day due to inclement weather. The rain wasn’t predicted to let up until well into the night, and a high wind advisory had been issued for the whole county. The news was a boon for all who wanted to go back to sleep, a curse for all who wanted a paycheck. Bay was happy to be in the former category, and she turned off her alarm and passed out again, waking up groggy at noon.

Her phone had a new string of messages on it, these ones of a much more personal nature, from Jonah.

< hey bay

< I need to get the fuck out of my house

< Amanda is here hanging out with my sister for some unknown reason

< theyre both driving me crazy

< you got anything you’re doing today

>sorry for the late response

>I just woke up

>yeah I’m not busy

> since I was supposed to be working lol

>want to get lunch? (not pizza)

Jonah responded immediately.

< sounds good to me

< I’ll come by to pick u up?

>cool cool

This exchange provided the impetus for Bay to finally crawl out of the cave that was her bed, shower, and put on human clothes. Her Arcadis staff shirt lay wrinkled in the corner of her bedroom, and she was glad that she didn’t have to wear it. Orange was not a flattering color on her.

Her whole house was empty, both her parents being at work, and so when Jonah arrived and honked her horn outside the house, there was no one around to tease Bay about it. She dashed out through the rain, hands covering her head as best she could, and slid into the raggedy front seat of Jonah’s car.

“Don’t own an umbrella?” Jonah asked.

“Even if I did, I wouldn’t bother to use one to go twenty feet. You’d get more wet standing outside the car folding it back up then you would just running.”

Jonah laughed, and put the car onto the road. “I’m so glad to have the day off.”

“Rain is truly a life giving thing.”

“It’ll be even more so when I finally move to Arizona or whatever.”

“Are you actually serious about moving to the desert?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

“I don’t know.” Bay, for whatever reason, had a sudden desire to not have Jonah pack up and head to New Mexico or the Sahara.

Jonah sang a little song. “Benson, Arizona, the warm wind in your hair. My body flies the galaxy, my heart longs to be there. Benson, Arizona, the same stars in the sky, but they seemed so much kinder when we watched them, you and I.”

Bay smiled. “What’s that from?”

“Hah. A movie. Dark Star.”

“Don’t think I’ve ever seen it.”

“I’m shocked that I’ve seen a movie that the film student hasn’t. It’s a real cult classic.”

“You’ll have to show it to me one day,” Bay said.

“I’d love to. Where shall we eat lunch?”

“I don’t know any of the restaurants around here, except for Pizza Bella. You’ll have to pick.”

“Shalimar’s it is, then. You like Indian food, right?”

“Sure.”

“They’ve got a weekday lunch buffet.”

“Ideal.”

Shalimar’s was a cozy little restaurant, tucked in the tiny “downtown” that wasn’t much of a downtown. It indeed had a delicious smelling lunch buffet, and Bay and Jonah helped themselves to naan and rice and chicken curry.

“How was work yesterday?” Bay asked as they ate.

“Fucking sucked,” Jonah said. “I got yelled at by Mr. Calvin.”

“For what?”

“Same thing you saw me get yelled at for before.”

“You talked to the police again?” Bay was startled, because she thought that Jonah would at least tell her that she was going to take the photo to the police.

“Oh, no way. I was just asking Amanda what happened at the party on Friday. She was the one in the chair in the photo, I’m pretty sure.”

Bay lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “Did she see the, you know.”

“No, unless she’s lying, and I don’t think she was. She was like, dead to rights though apparently.”

“Hunh,” Bay said. “I feel like I would have woken up if something like that had been so close to me.”

“The vibes coming off of it would have been simply atrocious,” Jonah said, voice flat, but with a crease around her eyes that indicated that it was a joke. Bay laughed a little, but felt a bit bad for laughing. They were talking about a real, dead, human person, after all.

“I’d say the smell would be more so, but there really wasn’t much of one.”

“God, gotta stop talking about it,” Jonah said. “I’m eating. Don’t want to think about that aspect.”

“Fair,” Bay said, and shut up briefly. She couldn’t contain her curiosity for too long, though, and she asked, “So why did Mr. Calvin yell at you for that?”

Jonah frowned deeply, mixing her rice with a little too much vigor. In a nasally voice, which was nothing like Mr. Calvin’s, but was clearly intended to be mocking anyway, she said, “Don’t spread paranoia among the staff, Jonah. Don’t you know I’m not paying you to be a detective, Jonah. Zach wants your job real fucking bad, Jonah.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. So it was Zach who snitched on me.”

“Rude of him.”

“Yeah. And I tried to talk to him about it later.”

“Talk?”

“Okay, sure, I yelled at him a little. But he was getting weird about the whole thing.”

“In what way?”

“He’s personally offended that I’m investigating. I think it’s because he feels guilty, for like, not stopping the murder from happening, or something.”

“I mean…”

“What?” Jonah asked, looking sharply at Bay.

“It seems like you also feel some kind of responsibility, to keep you investigating,” Bay said.

Jonah’s breath came out of her in a deflated huff. “Arcadis is mine. I’m responsible for what happens there. And, you know, I found her. I feel like…” She trailed off, looking and sounding lost.

“I get it,” Bay said quietly. “I’m not judging you.”

“Thanks.”

“So, are you going to stop investigating?”

“I don’t know,” Jonah said. “It’s all coming up dead ends. There’s still Kyle, who I haven’t talked to, and we can show the photo to the police, but they’ll probably just laugh at me.”

“What, why?”

“I mean, it doesn’t look like much. Anybody with access to photoshop could whip up a pale smudge floating on the pool. You don’t have the original anymore, because you said it got wrecked, so it’s like… What evidence is it? Nothing.”

“They’d have to take it seriously,” Bay said. “It would be shoddy work if they didn’t.”

“The main guy, Andover or whatever, he’s deep in it with Mr. Calvin. If Mr. Calvin told him that I’m making up lies just because I’m paranoid, he’d probably believe that.”

“I mean, I could take it to the police instead of you,” Bay said.

“They know you’re my friend, and Mr. Calvin would just say the same thing about you. But even quicker. He’d just straight up fire you. I get warnings because aquatics staff head is, well, there’s me, and then Zach for backup if he actually does fire me, but after that, who’s left?”

“I don’t know,” Bay said. “So, what are you going to do?”

Jonah sighed and stared out the window, where the rain went down in thick sheets, the indoor warmth fogging up the glass. It was a day that felt unseasonably cold. “I’d like to talk to Kyle without Zach snitching on me again,” Jonah said. “Not like I actually think he’ll have anything to say. Apparently, he and Zach were off messing around in the wave pool in the time that the body appeared and then vanished again.”

“You think he might have seen something?”

“I mean, he’s the only other person who might have.”

Bay tapped her fork on the side of her plate. “I think you shouldn’t talk to him,” she said, trying to make her meaning clear in her words. The confused expression on Jonah’s face indicated that she hadn’t quite understood. “I think that YOU shouldn’t talk to him,” she said again, putting more stress on it.

“Oh,” Jonah said. “So—”

“Shhh, plausible deniability,” Bay said. “I don’t want you to get in more trouble with Mr. Calvin.”

Jonah grinned. “You’re getting yourself in deep on that one.”

“Exactly. No one can say that you’re dragging me through it. You can stop feeling guilty now.”

“You’ll tell me what happens, right?”

“Nothing’s going to happen,” Bay said with a wink.

“Right.”

“I have tomorrow off. But maybe I’ll stop by Arcadis anyway.”

“Wow, three day weekend. Aren’t you special.”

“Maybe it’ll keep raining all week, all summer long, and I’ll never have to go into work again,” Bay said.

“I think… I’d prefer not to be completely underwater,” Jonah said. “If it comes down to that.”

“Don’t you want this place to turn into the Venice of the east coast?”

Jonah just laughed. “We’ll steal the paddle boats from Arcadis and row them around.”

“I want one of the fish shaped ones from Belly of the Whale,” Bay said. “Keeping it classy.”

“I wouldn’t go so far as to call literally anything at Arcadis classy,” Jonah said. “Seems a bit of a stretch.”

They finished lunch, talking about basically anything except Arcadis and its myriad issues. Bay learned all about Jonah’s school friends, and how different it was going to school for biochemistry rather than film. Bay pulled out her phone and showed Jonah the silent film she and a couple of her classmates had made the previous semester, a weird comedy short about a man who desperately craving a certain kind of soda, so badly that he would do anything to get it. Jonah said that it wouldn’t have been out of place in Charlie Chaplin’s repertoire, which Bay took as a compliment.

After they ate, the rain was still pouring down as heavily as it had ever been, and both of them seemed loath to go their separate ways. Bay, because the day stretched out before her like a chasm, with nothing to do and no one to see, and Jonah because her home was a deeply unpleasant place. Bay didn’t ask about it, but she had gathered plenty. So they sat in Jonah’s car in the Shalimar’s parking lot, the windows fogging up around them, making a bubble of their own.

“I guess I should take you back home,” Jonah said, clearly reluctant.

“I’m not in a rush.”

“We’re not exactly doing anything,” Jonah said.

“Are people obligated to be engaged in activities at all times in order to hang out? We could just chill.”

“I don’t want to make things awkward,” Jonah said, starting the car.

“It’s not awkward,” Bay said. “We’re friends.”

“Yeah.” Jonah drove silently, though Bay noticed she took the long route back to Bay’s house, which took them past the gloomy entrance to the park. The ferris wheel and all the tall waterslides stood silhouetted and empty against the grey sky. The radio was turned way down low as the car bumped along.

Jonah pulled into Bay’s driveway. Her house was dark; it was still too early for her parents to be back.

“You could come in,” Bay said. “My parents won’t be back for a while.”

The awkwardness in Jonah’s voice was palpable. “I wouldn’t want to impose.”

“I swear you’re not imposing,” Bay said. “I…” She didn’t know how she wanted to finish that sentence. She knew she wanted to say something, but she couldn’t put her finger on what it was. She didn’t want Jonah to leave, and she didn’t want to keep this odd tension between them. She wanted…

She had decided to work at Arcadis park to make friends. That goal had been accomplished, shockingly. But Bay felt that there was something else missing, like the pieces weren’t all fitting together. It had nothing to do with the murder. It had nothing to do with how stupid Arcadis was. It had everything to do with Jonah, sitting beside her in the drivers seat, hands tight on the still wheel, staring out the windshield as rain slid down and the wipers squeaked their way through the silence of the car.

“You’re not dragging me into things,” Bay said. “I want to hang out with you. I’ll make up something for us to do if I have to. I can show you how all my cameras work. You can waste a roll of film. We can develop it in instant coffee.” She was rambling, now, suddenly desperate for Jonah not to kick her out of the car and drive away. “I’ll show you how to make a pinhole camera. I’ll play all the dumb shorts I’ve made at school. We can watch that movie you mentioned earlier, you know, Benson, Arizona, the world seemed so much kinder when we watched it, you and I.”

Jonah turned to her, and a smile was cracking at the edge of her face. “Alright, alright, you’ve convinced me.”

"Oh, thank God, because I put a lot of effort into that convincing."

Jonah turned off the engine and they headed inside, each trying and failing to shield themselves from the still torrential rain. A flash of lightning darted across the sky, and several seconds later a crash of thunder followed. Bay fumbled with the key, leaving them stranded in the rain. Finally, she unlocked the door and ushered Jonah in.

The house was absolutely dark, a darkness that couldn't just be chalked up to the outside gloom. Bay flicked the lightswitches and nothing happened. The power was out.

"Must be all the wind," Bay said. "Hold on, I'll get you a towel." She fumbled her way to the bathroom in the dark and grabbed one of the plush towels from the closet, returning and handing it to Jonah. She rubbed it on her head, and her short hair frizzed out into little tufts everywhere.

"Can't watch a movie if the power's out," Jonah said.

"Stop trying to escape," Bay said. "You're here now,might as well stay. Want some tea?"

"How can you make tea with the power out?"

"Gas stove, dummy," Bay said jovially. "I'll just have to waste a match to light it." She trooped into the kitchen, with Jonah following. There was still only the bare minimum of furniture, but it was enough. Bay found the matchbook and lit the stove, putting the water on to boil.

"Kinda cozy," Bay said. "With the power out, I mean."

"Yeah," Jonah said. "I'd start to miss the internet pretty quick, though,if it went on for too long."

"I'm sure it'll be fixed soon enough."

They waited in silence until the tea kettle shrieked. Bay puttered around, trying to make herself feel more in control of the house she lived in. All the while, she felt she could feel Jonah's eyes on her, a pressure drilling into her back.

“Sugar? Milk?” Bay asked, opening the dark fridge and pulling out the milk.

“Sure, whatever,” Jonah said quietly. Bay prepared the tea and carried the two mugs to the living room, which had just a couch in it, no other furniture. She sat down on the end and waited for Jonah to make her move. Jonah sat on the other end, which wasn’t too far away, and pulled her knees up to her chest, resting her mug of tea on top of them.

“Now what?” Jonah asked.

Bay looked at her, in the dim light that was making it through the rainclouds and the windows of the house. She had a charm to her, that Bay hadn’t noticed in the harsh park glare. Her face was pointy, pale beneath her awful sunburn, brown eyes that were a little too wide, and that hair that stuck up short and fluffy on the top of her head. Bay hadn’t ever really looked at her before. Jonah caught the noticing, and studied Bay back, a gentle, quiet contemplation from both of them.

“I’m glad I decided to work at Arcadis,” Bay said.

“Think you’re the first person to ever say that.”

“If I wasn’t there, I wouldn’t have gotten to meet you.”

Even in the dim light, it was obvious that Jonah blushed a little. She looked down into her tea cup awkwardly. Thunder cracked outside, and a particularly strong gust of wind threw snaps of rain against the windows.

“I’m nothing special,” Jonah said.

“Sure you’re not,” Bay said. She brought up her foot and kicked Jonah’s leg gently. Jonah laughed.

“You’re too nice to me,” she said again. “And too good for Arcadis.”

“If I am, so are you.”

Jonah shook her head. “You told me you didn’t need me to flatter you, about the photos. Don’t need to flatter me about my whole existence.”

“I wouldn’t call it flattery if it’s true.”

“Hah.” Jonah drank her tea, wincing at the heat. “I don’t want to make you--”

“You’re not making me.”

They seemed to be unable to say what they really needed to, with Jonah drawing back into herself, and Bay pressing against the issue but unable to articulate what it was that she wanted or needed from Jonah. Something had to buckle and give under the pressure, and Bay knew it would have to be her to make that change, but she couldn’t say it. She put her cup of tea down on the floor instead (wouldn’t it be nice to have a coffee table!) and leaned towards Jonah. The new leather of the couch felt slick against her knees.

“Am I dragging you into this?” Bay asked. “Maybe I am.”

“No,” Jonah said. Her voice was quiet. “I--”

Bay put her hand on Jonah’s, the one that was holding the mug of tea. Jonah transferred the mug to her other hand and put her tea down on the floor. Bay smiled up at her, grabbing her hand. Jonah gave it a tentative squeeze.

“So…” Bay whispered. “Now what?”

“Now you kiss me, stupid,” Jonah whispered back.

And so Bay did, scooting the rest of the way forward. She tilted her head and closed her eyes and pressed her lips against Jonah’s. Jonah’s other hand reached up to tuck Bay’s hair behind her ear.

It was good. It was cool in the house, but Jonah’s lips were warm against hers, and her hand was sweaty. The thunder roared; the rain came down; there was no one else in the house, and it was as good as it ever could be.

The next day, the weather had cleared up considerably, and Bay had woken up in a kind of happy daze. The mood soured as the day wore on, though, because she found herself with little to do but ruminate. She wanted to hang out with Jonah. Jonah was at work. It was a conundrum.

She had promised herself that she would stop by Arcadis, originally to try to “interview” Kyle, but now she wanted to say hi to Jonah. Dumb. It wasn’t as though she didn’t see her every other day of the week. It wasn’t as if them kissing eachother changed that much.

Except, it very much did. Bay could at least now put a name to the warm feeling that rose in her chest, and she could justify its existence there. That was good about their change in status.

But, on the other hand, she had a fear lurking now on the edges of her thoughts, like a ticking clock. The summer would only last so long. Strange to think that she would ever want the eleven hour days at Arcadis to be longer, but she did. Strange that this summer, which had originally stretched out in a long line of boredom, was twisted in a knot by this new spark of happiness. Amanda and Kyle knew they were breaking up at the end of the summer. What did that mean for Jonah and Bay, Bay had to wonder?

She tried not to dwell on it. Let the days come as they may.

In any event, she did haul herself to the park, in the relative cool of the evening, as the sun slipped just to the edge of the trees. The park was still open. Bay took the shortcut through the woods, dumping her bike and hiking through the trees. She took a detour that would bring her close to the lake. The water in it was brown and churned up from the rain of the day before, and she saw no sign of police anywhere. They had either found all of what they were looking for or had given it up. Bay wondered if that meant that Arcadis was pumping water in again. She headed to the fence, checked the fence hole out of a kind of instinct and found it to be closed, exactly as she had left it. She clambered over, unencumbered by cameras or backpack or anything else, and then she was in the park.

Without her staff uniform on, Bay blended into the thinning crowd of guests, though she moved with much more confidence as she walked among them. She craned her neck and looked around for any sign of Jonah or Kyle. Either one would do.

She ended up finding neither Jonah nor Kyle, but she did see Amanda, once again guarding the top of the Thunderdome waterslide. Bay squeezed her way up the stairs, past a line of protesting guests.

“I’m not in a bathing suit; I’m going to talk to the guard; I’m not cutting,” Bay muttered as she shoved past people. She finally made it to the top and squeezed next to Amanda where she sat on a tiny umbrella shaded stool.

“You’re out of uniform,” Amanda said. “How scandalous.”

“It’s my day off,” Bay said.

“Then why in the,” -- she looked around at the small children who were lined up to go down the slide -- “world are you here?”

“Purely a social visit,” Bay said. “Have you seen Kyle or Jonah?”

“What do you want with them?”

“Just to talk.”

“Hah. No, I’ve been stuck here all day,” Amanada said. “The view isn’t even that exciting.”

From this high, Bay could see that most of the attractions of the park were full of muddy brown water. “The pumps are going again?”

“Sure are.”

“Guests must be thrilled.”

“I think they’re glad we’ve just stopped putting in way too much chlorine. I know I am. I was getting like, burned.”

“Ew.”

“Yeah.”

“Anyway, know where Kyle or Jonah might be?”

“Jonah, I’d check the stupid whale ride she likes. For Kyle, I dunno, but I’m gonna meet him at his car in like, half an hour so that he can take me home.”

“Cool, thanks,” Bay said and turned to go down the stairs.

“You don’t wanna take the slide down?” she asked. “It’s a shortcut.”

“Do I look like I’m wearing a bathing suit?”

“That’s never stopped anybody and you know it.”

Bay laughed and pressed past the guests to go down the stairs once more, causing only minor chaos on the way.

She went to the Belly of the Whale, looking for Jonah. There was no line, which was entirely predictable. The guard at the attraction was Tom, who Bay barely knew.

“Is Jonah in there?” Bay asked.

“She’ll be around in a minute,” Tom said, waving his hand at the turgid water and empty boats that bumped past in it. Bay waited in awkward silence, and then Jonah appeared out of one end of the ride, ignoring the world as she stared at her phone.

“Scoot over,” Bay said as Jonah’s boat sailed past. “Let me in.”

Jonah was so startled that she dropped her phone onto the floor of the ride. “Bay!” She obligingly scooted over as she picked up her phone.

Bay stepped clumsily into the moving boat and sat down, pressed up against Jonah in the small seat. “What are you doing here on your day off?” Jonah asked. The little boat turned the corner and entered the pitch black tunnel.

“Just my social duty.” They seemed to be out of hearing range now of the front of the ride, so Bay now felt free to say, “I really came to chase down Kyle for information, but I figured I’d stop by and see you while I’m here. Just hanging out in your office?”

“Let’s just say that I’m taking my allotted fifteen.”

“Hah.”

They were in the dark, and it seemed uncharitable to break the silence, but Bay wasn’t quite sure what the rules of her being here were. She slid her hand around in the dark and found Jonah’s, weaving their fingers together. They passed a diorama of the biblical Jonah on the stormy seas, getting tossed overboard by the sailors of his ship.

“I’m just killing time until the end of the day,” Bay said quietly. “My plan is to corner Kyle when he gets back to his car.”

“Good luck,” Jonah said. “I don’t know what you’re planning to ask him.”

“I’ll make it up as I go along. As long as it’s not you doing the asking, it’s probably fine.”

“Don’t cause too much of a scene in front of Amanda, okay?”

“Why not?”

“She’ll make a fuss.”

“Sure.”

They lapsed into silence again. The boat knocked gently against the walls of the ride. They passed the diorama of Jonah being swallowed by the whale. “It’s so stupid,” Jonah said, pointing at it, her other hand just barely visible in the dim glow of the display’s lights. “Had the person who made that ever seen a whale?”

“I’ve never seen a whale,” Bay said.

“Should go on a whalewatching tour someday. My middle school, at the end of sixth grade, we got to go on one.”

“Did you see any whales?”

“Yeah,” Jonah said. “They look pretty small from far away.”

Bay leaned heavily on Jonah in the dark. Jonah leaned her head on top of Bay’s. The next diorama was Jonah kneeling and praying inside the whale’s belly. It seemed spacious. It looked like it was very heavily inspired by the scene in the Pinnochio movie along the same lines.

The ride was very long. Bay said, “Don’t you think we should use this ride for its intended purpose?”

“Prayer and contemplation of Biblical mysteries?” Jonah asked, a clear joking tone in her voice. Bay tried to move her head, and accidentally bumped it against Jonah’s chin. “Ow,” Jonah complained.

“You alright?” Bay asked, taking that as an opportunity to touch the side of Jonah’s face with her free hand. It was clumsy in the dark, but the feeling was there.

“Of course,” Jonah said, sounding a little breathless. “Yeah.”

Bay leaned in and their noses bumped together. Jonah squeezed her hand tightly. They kissed for a little, as one was intended to do in a tunnel of love ride, then Jonah broke away. “We’re almost at the end,” she said, pointing to a diorama of Jonah sleeping under a tree. “Just a little bit more.”

“Of course you have this whole ride memorized.”

“What else am I supposed to do?” Jonah asked. “Close my eyes the whole time?”

The last diorama came into view, the Biblical Jonah standing underneath a shrivelled tree and looking up to the sky. “How easily things are given, and how easily they’re taken away,” Jonah muttered.

“What?” Bay asked, confused.

“Nothing,” Jonah said with a laugh. “There’s the entrance.”

And the bright light came into view. Bay clumsily stood and exited the boat, holding out her hand to help Jonah out. Jonah smiled at her. Her weight nearly caused Bay to topple back into the boat, which was perhaps Jonah’s intention, but Bay held firm, and Jonah ended up on land once again.

“Back to work?” Jonah asked.

“I’m gonna go ambush you-know-who.”

“See you in a bit, then,” Jonah said. “Good luck.”

“Thanks.”

Bay headed off towards the parking lot, and Jonah disappeared into the park. Kyle’s car was easy to find in the parking lot. He drove a red sedan, with one of the back windows completely busted open and covered over instead with a plastic bag. Bay leaned against it, bored, watching the ferris wheel make its slow circular journey over the treeline. Guests who were leaving the park streamed past her, not processing her at all. Mothers harangued their grumpy children, teenagers shouted at each other across the lines of cars, and vehicles beeped and clattered as they all tried to fit their way back out onto the road. It was chaos, but the mundane kind of chaos that seemed comforting to Bay, in a way. The shadows grew longer and longer, and the sky went through an arrangement of purples and pinks as she stared up at it. The day was cool and the air was clear. Arcadis could be a fine place when it wanted to be, she thought.

After most of the guests had gone, the few staff who had cars began to trickle out, laughing and talking to their friends in matching orange shirts, or just trudging their way to their cars, tired to the bone after a long day. Kyle approached. Bay could tell it was him because he seemed to be sprouting two heads as he jogged sloppily across the parking lot: Amanda was riding on his back, laughing and screaming.

“Put me down! You’re gonna drop me!” He took a particularly tight corner and her screams redoubled, half choked out by her laughter, and bouncing in her throat with the rhythm of Kyle’s feet on the ill-paved ground.

Bay watched them come, closer and closer, and then she saw that Amanda was right. Kyle was going to fall over. He stumbled over a broad crack in the ground, and his center of gravity was too high to recover. With one prolonged shriek, he and Amanda toppled to the ground. Bay jogged over, momentarily forgetting that she was supposed to interrogate him, wanting to make sure that nothing was seriously wrong.

Amanda clambered off of him, seemingly unhurt. Kyle gave out a long groan and lay unmoving, facedown on the ground. Amanda crouched next to him as Bay arrived..

“Are you okay?” Bay asked.

“Fuuuuck,” Kyle said, long and slow, wincing as he moved his arms out from underneath his body.

“Aw, Kyle…” Amanda said, wedging her hands underneath his side and trying to roll him over onto his back. One of the few remaining cars in the parkinglot beeped and swerved around them.

Kyle was a mess. The wounds hadn’t quite started bleeding yet, but he had scraped his hands trying to break his fall, and his knees badly as well. The scrape on his right arm went from palm to elbow. His face had been mostly spared, and just seemed to be dirty on his cheek a little bit, but that was proven wrong when he opened his mouth to say something, and a bit of blood came out. “This is your fault,” he said to Amanda. “Eugh. Bit my tongue.”

“I told you to put me down, idiot,” Amanda said. She patted his face. “I’m sorry.”

“I’ll live,” Kyle said.

Bay felt like she was third wheeling this situation suddenly. “I’ll, um, go get a first aid kit,” Bay said.

“There’s one in his car,” Amanda said. “Here.” She fished in Kyle’s pocket and tossed Bay the keys.

“Wait, no,” Kyle said, and Bay looked at him, confused. Amanda made a shooing motion and sent Bay away.

“Shush, stupid, it’s fine. Go get the first aid kit.”

Kyle seemed about to protest more, but Bay was already several steps away at that point, heading back to Kyle’s car. She unlocked it and pulled open the front passenger door. The car was filthy, with old fast food wrappers everywhere, and smelly towelsW that Kyle had brought to work and not dried properly, just left to get moldy in his car. Bay shook her head and tried not to touch them as she searched around for the first aid kit. It wasn’t in the front seat, or glovebox, or chucked into the seats behind, so Bay was forced to unlock the trunk and look around in there. Unbelievably, there were more towels. He must have had an infinite stash of them. She pulled some aside, trying to see if the first aid kit was on the floor of the trunk, and her hand found something hard and cold. She pushed it out of the way, but it was heavier than expected, and the towel covering it slid down, revealing a pair of thick red plastic coated handles. With some trepidation, Bay uncovered the rest of the object, her heart rising in her throat.

There, in Kyle’s trunk, wrapped in filthy, and, she noticed, muddy, towells, were the heavy shears from the Arcadis maintenance shed.

Bay stepped back, as though she had been bitten.

“Did you find it?” Amanda’s voice called from further down the parking lot.

“No!” Bay yelled back. “Where is it?”

“Underneath the front seat,” Amanda yelled back. “Do you need me to come help you?”

“No, I see it now,” Bay lied. As quickly as she could, she took a photograph of the shears, closed the trunk, and retrieved the nondescript first aid kit from underneath the passenger seat. She ran back to Kyle and Amanda, trying not to let them see her panic. She couldn’t help but stare at Kyle with wide eyes, but he was laying on the ground, eyes closed, letting Amanda poke at him. “Here,” Bay said, thrusting the first aid kit at Amanda.

“You got a water bottle? We should wash these out before we put bandaids on,” Amanda said, poking at Kyle’s horrible looking knee. There were bits of gravel stuck into it.

“This might be better off done inside,” Bay said. “How about you walk him back to Arcadis?”

“I just want to go home,” Kyle said, struggling to his feet with a visible wince. “I’m fine.”

“No you’re not,” Amanda said. “You’re the opposite of fine.”

“I’d rather be the opposite of fine at my house than at Arcadis,” he said, stumbling towards his car.

“Gimme his keys back,” Amanda said with a deep frown. “I’ll drive you home, baby. Don’t want to touch the steering wheel with those hands.”

“Whatever.” Kyle was already far down the row of cars, and Bay put the key into Amanda’s outstretched hand. She ran after him, leaving Bay standing alone in the parking lot, watching as Amanda clumsily backed out the car and drove away.