Page 94 of Four Times Saved

My stomach lurched.

"No." I shook my head.

Ethan nodded. "It's a good thing I went out to the lake to throw away the fish. Or who knows what would have happened?" He collapsed on his ass, braced his back against the wall and groaned. "We spent the last few minutes convincing him that it was the wrong thing to do. All the while I..."

Matt examined Ryan but was satisfied by his snoring, that he was too passed out now to hear our conversation.

"How's Lily?" Ethan cleared his throat, but the weight was heavy in the creases in his forehead, in the way his chest heaved.

"No nightmares." I confirmed and reached out to pull him into a hug. I didn't know why I was pretending to be strong right now. As I said, it still didn't feel real to me. I was dangling in between reality and fantasy at this point. "We'll figure out a way to get through this. As a matter of fact, starting tomorrow, we're going to make an effort to focus on anything else. Maybe even book a therapist."

"I was thinking that, but that's too risky." Matt grimaced.

"We don't have to tell them what happened, we just need to talk about what we're feeling. Yeah? And then we're going to stop running from it because the more we run from it, the more it's going to chase us. We have to accept that it's happened. Do our best to move on from this. And commit to happiness, damn it. You hear me? Ryan's going to take photos again like his life depends on it. Might even take Lily to meet my parents, do some surfing while I'm there, we're all going to take Lily with us on vacations, she's going to paint again in gardens of her choice. Our lives are not over just because we made the worst mistake of our lives, one we can't come back from. It's just beginning with Lily. Okay? And just because we live here now, by the lake, it doesn't mean we're stuck here forever. You haven't bought us our personal prison, our hell on earth. We're never going to forget what we did on that lake. But there's only four of us who know about it. And no one else will ever find out," I said.

"No one else will ever find out about what?" Lily asked and we all looked up to find her standing behind us.

"Hey, Lily!" Ethan yelled, his forehead eating up his eyebrows. "How long have you been standing there?"

Lily yawned and rubbed her eyes. Her soft blond hair fell over her face. "I heard a bunch of voices and jumped awake."

"Damn it. Lily, I'm so sorry. Did we wake you?" I hurried to wrap my arms around her shoulders and turned her toward the empty bedroom, casting a glance back at the other guys to keep quiet, especially Ethan. I could see him struggling with his facade, and he always overreacted.

Matt nudged him and when Ethan looked at him, Matt motioned at his lips with the sign of a key sealing that excitable trap shut. Ethan cleared his throat and straightened himself.

Lily shivered. "For a minute there, I thought I was back in that place, hearing them talk around me." She grabbed herself tighter.

Matt grumbled. "No one will ever hurt you again."

Ethan glared at him now, like, 'really? I thought you were telling me to shut up.'

"What was that?" Lily turned and I gritted my teeth.

"Nothing. You should go back to sleep. I'm sorry, we'll keep our voices down." I tugged at her arm.

"No. What were you talking about before? About no one finding out. What is it that no one else can ever know?" She turned, the sleep leaving her eyes now.

"Uh, just that we..." Ethan attempted, but Matt punched him. Why? I didn't know. We just couldn't risk it. Sometimes when Ethan got nervous, he didn't know what he was saying.

Matt jumped in. "We've...uh...never embarrassed ourselves as badly as we did tonight." His lips tilted into a smile. "I think we'll take it to the..." Well, he had to finish the sentence now. "...grave." He frowned. "Throwing up in front of the woman we love? It'll damage our reputation."

Whew. Good save. He said it with such ease as well and charm, I wondered how he learned to lie so well.

Lily's shoulders relaxed and she grinned. "It's only me." She shrugged. "Besides, I've seen worse."

"You don't have to be so nice about it. We can tell you were disgusted. You couldn't wait to sleep away from us. Not that I blame you." Ethan also relaxed into the lie.

My cheeks tingled with uneasiness, but relief allowed me a moment to play along.

"Actually, according to Eric, you were even snoring, having the best sleep of your life without us." Matt sauntered over, hands in the pockets of his suit pants.

Lily's eyes went big and her cheeks reddened beneath the white of the LED lights. She'd refused to sleep without the lights on. "I didn't snore," she said with a question lying beneath her tone.

I fake cringed. "I mean, it wasn't half as bad as Ryan over there, but it was pretty bad."

She threw her light fist against my shoulder. I pretended to wince in pain.

"Great. Now I'm never going to sleep around you guys again." She covered her face.

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