On a click, the door opens behind Darcy, and Karaoke Bill floats inside. “Oh, shit,” she yelps, grabbing Marcos’s spear and swinging it toward our new guest. I continue holding my own spear at the Reverend, but Bill consumes my full attention. No matter how hard I strain, I can’t recognize Ricky in his father’s sun-beaten face. Matted with filth like a dog in the rain, Bill’s wounded eyes flit left and right. “What’re you all staring at?” he asks, defensive but swallowed in shame. “I paid my time. I’ve been stuck in this prison longer than any of you have been alive, so stop your staring!”

“Bill, that’s no way to talk to Connor,” the Reverend admonishes. “All summer, he took care of Ricky and Aunt Sharon. Hot meals every weekend.”

My lip twitches as Bill pivots the heat of his focus onto me. “I heard about that.” Bill softens at the mention of his son. “I’m…so grateful to anyone who looks after my Ricky.”

How could he say that? The same man who brought a crowbar to his son’s wedding, murdered the groom in cold blood, and then beat his son into the floor. And for what? Embarrassing him? Running away from a dirtbag family? I’m impressed Ricky put up with any of them for as long as he did. And now Bill is “so grateful” I took care of him? A couple decades running around on a paradise island, doing whatever he wanted, and suddenly he has perspective?

The Reverend let this monster near queer kids knowing what he was capable of—my mind can’t even process it.

“I did what you asked and waited,” Bill tells the Reverend. “Now where’s Ricky? You said he’d be on the boat tonight, but nobody showed.”

“What?” I ask, close to laughing. Marcos and Darcy exchange doom-filled glances, clearly not sharing my morbid sense of humor. Bill’s gone off the deep end and, in his delirium, thinks Ricky is still alive and somehow able (and willing!) to make the journey here. Clearly, whatever this letter from home was, Bill misunderstood.

But the Reverend is similarly grave. “I’m so sorry,” he says. “I mixed up my information. Ricky is already here.” Bill and I freeze, our mouths drooping open, but where I can feel my color is draining, Bill grows golden with anticipation. “It’s been such a hectic day that I lost track. He’s here, in your room.”

“Why didn’t you say something?” Bill asks, leveled by an untamed glee. Marcos, Darcy, and I curl into tenser and tenser shapes with each bout of nonsense spoken.

“Ricky can’t be here,” I insist.

“Ah, Bill, he’s confused,” the Reverend says, reaching out his arm. “Please show Connor your letter, and then we’ll all go see Ricky together.”