Tim popped out and said they all had to get the annual photo by the tunnel. It was obvious to Matt now he didn’t care. He didn’t care about the tunnel. He was just trying to save face—damage control. Everyone filed onto the side to take the picture but Matt stayed in the background. And then when they were done, they just went straight back to how they were. Tradition done—for the last time. Good riddance. So long, Matt. He started the boat up again, as he realized Tim had made sure to shut the hatch when he’d got on the boat.

Standedge got ready to swallow them, as the tip of the boat entered the tunnel. Every second more of the boat disappeared into darkness and, for once, Matt didn’t blame himself. Whatever had happened between him and the group wasn’t his fault; it was theirs. They met in secret. They got matching tattoos. They spent a Christmas without him. They chose to do that.

Half of the boat was in the tunnel now, more every second. And Matt looked around at the world one last time, as he always did. But he didn’t feel excited or awed. He just felt empty. He felt like he had invested so much of himself in a group of people who treated him like a joke. He felt like the life he had been leading had been the wrong one, a planet orbiting a fake sun made out of cardboard and LED lights. He felt that who he was as a person was wrong. And, as the tunnel swallowed him, he started to feel an emotion he had never felt toward the group before.

Anger.

Chapter Sixteen

Robin looked at Matthew. The young man had stopped talking. He was staring down at his hands, as though wondering what they’d done. They were shaking. “What happened next?”

He jumped, as though coming back to the present, tucking his hands under the table. “That’s it. That’s the last thing I remember. The anger. And then—nothing. Then I woke up, lying in the hospital with a doctor standing over me and my hands cuffed to the side of the bed.”

Robin rubbed his eyes. Matthew’s story was relentless—he told it with the pace and emotion of a painful experience—like he was reliving every second. It hadn’t given Robin much time to think.

“So you remember going into the tunnel, and nothing else?”

Matthew thought for a moment. “Yeah. I don’t remember anything afterward. No getting hit on the head, nothing with the others, nothing at all. The doctor said it’s probably short-term amnesia brought on by the concussion.”