Page 92 of The Staircase in the Woods

Owen wanted to throw up.

They stepped back, shut the door.

Nick backed away and sighed before hopping up on the washing machine, his legs dangling over the edge. He had a bag of stale cheese balls from a few rooms back, and he crunched on those and stared at the middle distance. Owen gave him a quizzicalwhat the fucklook.

“I just need a minute,” Nick said. “I’m tired. This is tiring.”

“You’re always the one who wants to keep moving.”

“Well, now I’m the one who wants to cool his fucking heels. Relax.”

“Okay. Yeah. Fine.”

Owen stood there. Awkwardly. His stomach flirted with hunger, but then—the image of the cat, the woman, the red mess on the animal’s face. Then the hunger was gone again, replaced with a sour pool of acid.

“You don’t like me,” Nick said. “You never liked me.”

“Jesus, Nick, c’mon. We’re friends.”

“ ‘Friends.’ ” This he said with one hand up doing the lazy bunny ears of air quotes. “Friends, but not like you are, or were, with the others.”

He kept crunching cheese balls between his teeth, showing what he was chewing with an open, almost feral mouth.

“Nick, why are we doing this? Far as I can tell, I was the only one to ever answer any of your emails.”

A shrug. “Yeah. Always so polite, too, overly,obsequiouslypolite, like you were responding to a weird neighbor asking you to sign up for their pyramid scheme or send around their chain email or some shit. But you never said yes. Never joined me in trying to find Matty.”

“Well. I’m sorry for that, but—” Owen did a half-assed, weary gesture around him. “Look where it got us.”

Owen knew he was goading Nick, poking that bear. And he instantly felt bad about it. Did they really need to do this? But Nick just shrugged.

“You were jealous of Matty.”

“No, I—” Owen sighed. “Fine, whatever, I was jealous.”

“Lore and him had a thing, and you wanted that thing to be with you, not Matty. So.” Another shrug. More crunching.

“What are you getting at?”

Anothershrug.

Owen persisted. “I’m half waiting for you to say I killed Matty.”

“Not saying anything. Just saying, you didn’t do much to find him.”

“And you did?”

From Nick, a piercing gaze, like a pair of hot needles. “I tried.”

“And we followed.”

“Only because I lied to you all. I had to trick you into giving a shit. Ain’t that a bitch.”

He was about to say,Yeah, about that, how’s your pancreatic cancer, Nick?But what was the point? “I don’t want to fight.”

“I know you don’t. You never did. Not much of a fighter. Not for Matty. Not for your own life. Not even for Lore. That’s the thing, Nailbiter. I didn’t make much of myself, either, but at least Itriedthings. At least I fought.”

“Didn’t amount to much, did it?”

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