“It’s okay,” Seth said. “Let her finish.”

Izzy noticed that his eyes were bloodshot; he was on edge. Had he been drinking already this morning? And what was with Nephy’s bruise? He couldn’t have hit her…

“Go on,” Seth told Izzy.

“Someone has to look for him. The police aren’t doing shit.”

“But the mines?” Seth said. “There’s no reason to think—”

“What am I supposed to do? Sit at home waiting for him? Getting my nails done like you?”

Nephy skewered Izzy with her eyes. “I understand how upset you are,” she said. “But this is getting really fucked.”

“What’s fucked? That I’m looking for him? Or that he’s fucking missing, Nephy? That he might have killed himself? Or that someone else might have—”

They all sat in silence, staring at each other.

It seemed long ago now that she and Nephy had been close; hell, a long time since the four of them—Cyrus and Izzy and Nephy and Seth—had been close. Though they’d never verbalized it, Izzy knew that when they were younger, they all envisioned themselves as pseudo-stars of their own dark teen movie, in a way, walking in a line through town, dominating with their height, their impervious expressions; if Izzy were forced to admit it: dominating with their sexuality, too. People envied the way they had bonded to each other, as couples and a group.

There was an abandoned bait shop down on the shores of the Salton Sea where Seth once shot a film of Izzy and Nephy dancing, silhouetted against the setting sun while Cyrus sat with his back to them, fishing, tossing the poisoned tilapia and pupfish back into the water.

“Just let it go, Izzy,” Seth said. She wasn’t sure, for a moment, if he meant the memory of the past—as if he’d read her mind—or the search or the argument with Nephy. Leanne and Joe had told Izzy something similar—to let everything go. And she had, for a while. But why were they all telling her this? Seth’s snake eyes rolled back in his head for a second. And then, in a softer voice, Izzy thought she heard: “It’s all unfolding.”

“What was that? What did you say?” She might have screamed the words; she wasn’t sure.

Seth blinked at her, lizard-like.

“What did you say?” she repeated.

“We’re all upset.”

“That’s not what you said.”

He continued to stare at her with his hard, bloodshot eyes. Nephy touched the bruise on her face. In that moment, Izzy hated them both.

“Fuck this,” she mumbled. She threw some bills on the table, got up, and walked out, the door chiming blithely behind her as if it didn’t understand either: she had work to do.

◆◆◆