Page 35 of Keeping Secrets

That morning, just before Travis arrived, they had put needles into Scot’s muscles for a test called an electromyogram, which recorded the electrical activity. They were working to figure out why his hands and legs weren’t obeying him the way that they used to. He was scheduled for an MRI, and there was even talk of a lumbar puncture. Just thinking of it made Travis wince. The day before, they had done a biopsy, taken pieces of Scot’s nerves and muscles to peer at beneath a microscope and find out why his body was failing him.

Travis could only pray that it was something reversible, something that Scot could overcome.

Up until now, he had never realized the extent to which Scot was the stable axis around which his world spun. He was his employer, yes, but it was so much more than that. He was the one person in his life who had always been there for him, ever since he had started washing dishes at the Bottlenose as a teenager.

After a difficult childhood and a rocky adolescence that left him with no adults in his life that he could rely on, Scot had become the one study and stable person in Travis’s life. The one person that he could look up to and depend upon. To have Scot’s health unraveling just as Travis was facing an unsustainable amount of stress felt like it would break him.

But he couldn’t collapse. He couldn’t break. Scot was depending on him.

He rubbed his aching eyes again as he turned off of the highway and onto the narrow coastal road that led to Pelican Point.

His phone buzzed, and he checked it after coasting to a stop at a red light.

It was a message from Nick.

Hey man, do you have some time before work? How about a hike?

Travis tossed his phone aside and kept driving. He wanted nothing to do with Nick, not today. Nick who had come into Pelican Point and destroyed the easy life that Travis had built here. Nick who had come away from the vigilantism unscathed, his sister safe, with a shiny new life in Pelican Point. Nick whose sister couldn’t take a hint. Even on the days that she didn’t text Travis, she haunted his dreams.

No, he wanted nothing to do with his old friend.

So why was it that he turned onto Nick’s street instead of his own? As if driving itself, his car coasted slowly down the street and pulled up in front of Nick's house. He sat there for a minute, too tired to think. Then the front door of the house opened, and Nick stepped out. Travis climbed out of his car and closed the door behind him.

"Up for a hike?" Nick asked. He seemed subdued, more like his old self than the uber happy boyfriend he had been since getting together with Chloe.

A good friend would have wanted him to be happy, but Travis felt a strange satisfaction at seeing his friend subdued, which was immediately followed by a kick of remorse.

What kind of friend didn’t want their best friend to be happy? Nick was probably worried about Scot, just like he was.

"You drive," Travis said. "I’m exhausted."

"We can go another time."

"No, I need to clear my head. A walk in the woods would do me good, I think."

"Cool. Let’s go."

Travis climbed into the passenger seat and stared silently out the window as Nick drove them back out of Pelican Point. Nick tried to make conversation, but Travis was too tired to engage. After a few short answers, Nick stopped asking questions.

Nick turned off of the highway and drove up through the trees. The torpor that hung heavy on Travis‘s mind lifted when he realized that they were driving toward the place where they had last seen Adam. A familiar fear gripped him, pushing back some of the exhaustion that clouded his mind.

"Where are we going?"

"I’m sorry I got you tied up in all of this," Nick said. "You shouldn’t have been there that night. But if you hadn’t been, that girl probably never would’ve gotten away." He glanced over at Travis as he drove. "She did get away, didn’t she?"

"Yeah. She got away."

"She got away because of you, didn’t she?"

Travis swallowed. "I guess so."

Nick pulled into the dirt lot and parked near the trailhead.

"Did you kill him?" he asked, looking forward into the trees.

Travis opened the door and got out of the car, his ears beginning to ring. He headed up the trail at a pace that fell just short of a jog. Nick ran to catch up with him.

"I wouldn’t blame you. You know I wouldn’t."

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