He shook his head. “I fell asleep because I had too much to drink. I thought most of the other guys did as well, but later I learned Alec, Miles and Zach stayed awake late, talking. Maybe Zach told them more.” Gage repositioned the wooden stag statue on the coffee table, tracing the antlers absently. “But the accident didn’t happen until the next day.”

“Accident?” She zeroed in on the word. When Gage had said before that a friend jumped to his death, she had thought the boy committed suicide. Had she misunderstood?

“Some of the guys wanted to go cliff jumping, but it had rained the night before and the conditions were all wrong for their plans.” Gage shook his head, his eyes seemingly fixed on some distant point in the past. “I didn’t think they were serious. I thought it was just posturing that would end with all of us getting on the horses and going back to school.”

Her stomach knotted; she knew that must not have happened. She tipped her temple to his shoulder for a moment, offering what comfort she could.

“What came next was hotly disputed afterward.” Gage moved the stag farther away from him, sliding the wooden creature along the table on its weighted, felt feet. “We all saw counselors in the weeks that followed, thanks to Alonzo’s intervention. And the professionals helped us understand that our brains can rewrite traumatic events to make them...bearable.”

Elena lifted her head, peering over at him. “What do you think happened?” She wound her hand around his upper arm. Squeezed gently.

“I believe Zach jumped. I never viewed it as a suicide because that was just the way the guy was wired—especially that weekend. He pushed boundaries because he said that a good thrill ‘fed his art.’” Gage shrugged and drummed his fingers once on the coffee table. “He liked to live on the edge. But after one jump, he never resurfaced.”

A pit opened in her stomach.

“Did anyone go in after him?” She hugged closer to Gage, rubbing her cheek against his shoulder. Comforting and taking comfort at the same time.

“Every damned one of us.” His dark eyes flared with something like defensiveness. “Weston was the only one to jump, which could have killed him, too. The rest of us went down to the rocks below and slid in the water that way. We searched until we could barely breathe, knowing all the while we were too late.”

“I’m so, so sorry.” She couldn’t imagine the trauma of an experience like that for sixteen-year-old kids.