The crash. Their classmates.

“Were you there that day?”

Maxwell nodded, eyes on his friends downstream.

It happened on one of the last September days warm enough for a swimsuit, and still the police had no explanation other than “maybe the kids swerved to avoid an animal.” Their parents were suing. In a town used to constant mourning, this loss hit especially hard—five healthy, popular, gorgeous teenagers dead on a beautiful day.

“Everyone was there.” Then Maxwell cringed as if to apologize because, of course, Vera wasn’t. “We weren’t even drinking. When I think of all the times kids should have gotten into crashes and didn’t…”

Vera couldn’t imagine anyone getting into a car with a drunk driver, but she was also an outsider worthy of a Ponyboy nickname, so her experience with peer pressure was rather limited.

“It looked like this.” Maxwell gestured to the teens in the distance. “We were hanging out, having fun, then Rocco started acting like a jerk, which wasn’t like him.” He turned to face her. “He pushed Brooke off the bridge.”

“What?” Her eyes bulged. Vera hadn’t heard that. The bridge at Devil’s Pool was higher than any platform dive. At the wrong angle, hitting the wrong rock, it could kill someone.

“I know, but Brooke had been standing up there a long time. She wanted to jump; she was just chickening out. So Rocco pushed her. It was a dick move, for sure, but we thought he was joking around and took it too far.”

“Now what do you think?”

“I don’t know.” He shrugged. “Brooke hit the water hard, and when she came up, she was hysterical. Everyone started fighting. And Rocco, he looked, I mean, he looked like he could have killed someone.” Max shook his head. “He was normally the life of the party.”

Vera didn’t know him, but she was at the memorial. Everyone called Rocco a class clown. They spoke of his humor, his carefree spirit.

“Did you know he lost his dad in the explosion, and his mom lost half her leg?” Maxwell asked.

Vera nodded. She saw Rocco’s mom at the services, collapsed in sobs as she physically leaned on her relatives, burying another loved one.

“That family is so wrecked now.” Maxwell dropped his head back, squinting at the sun beneath the brim of his hat. “I don’t know what happened in that car, but the only thing that makes sense is they were fighting. They must have been fighting while he was driving, and he got distracted.”

In the nine months since the crash, this was the first theory she’d heard that actually made sense.

“Did you tell the cops? Their parents?”

“Yeah, but it doesn’t change the fact that no one saw the accident. How can you prove they were fighting? And even if they were, it’s just what happens in this town. People die. All the time.” When he peered at her, his expression, his words, mirrored her own. “It freakin’ sucks here.”