Alex began to peel off his blindfold. Lonnie giggled, clasped a hand over her mouth. “Trust me?” she said, through the slats of her fingers.

A confused smile spread across Alex’s face as his eyes adjusted, as he made out that slice of moonlight bouncing off the lake.

“Trust you?” he said.

Without pausing long enough to think, I pushed him, hitting the center of his chest with my shoulder. He reached for me as he stepped backward, but it was too late. The dark water swallowed up the thin slip of his frame, the spattering sound echoing across the landscape, quieting the loons. Lonnie pounced on me, her hands around my shoulders, her mouth at my ear. She yelped, laughed, and then fell completely silent as we waited for Alex’s reemergence. Nothing happened for too long.

Lonnie’s body began to vibrate against me. Though we looked at each other, it was too dark for me to make out anything but the shadow of her features, the blurry white of her teeth.

I hadn’t meant anything by the push—it was a joke—but I had failed to take into account how deep the water was, or whether there were rocks below. I didn’t move in disbelief. It couldn’t be that easy to kill someone.

I think if Lonnie had said something or moved to the edge of the dock, if she’d jumped in after him or even run screaming back to the house, I wouldn’t have remained inert so long. As it was, with her clinging to me, the pulse of her breath on my face, I felt protected, like we were in this together, like it wasn’t really my fault.

I suspected even if I hadn’t pushed him in she would’ve—why else had she led him here? Why had she placed him so close to the lip? I’d only anticipated her actions.

I don’t know how long we stood there before we heard the lapping of water and saw something crawl onto the little beach to the right of the dock. We knew without being able to see that it must be Alex—he must’ve swum underwater, trying to scare us—even though it looked more like a wolf or some other hunched creature on all fours, emerging onto the mud, gasping for breath.

“Fuck you guys,” he sputtered when we ran to him. “Neither of you jumped in after me?”

Lonnie knelt, her knees in the water next to him, pulling on the collar of his shirt.

“We knew you were faking.” She laughed, then added, “You fucker,” with her usual hesitancy, her overzealousness for obscenity.