Whatever ‘old times’ implied, Nate was fairly certain it wasn’t like this. The atmosphere inside the car was dark and stale. Usually, Adrian had the radio on whenever they went driving. This time it was off. Or, usually, Kelly would be humming away on her own. But the entire car sat in deafening silence. Simon looked stiff in his spot beside Nate. He held his school bag in his lap, arms wrapped around it tightly, and looking straight out the window.

Suddenly, Simon leaned forward. “Hey, where are you going?” Adrian didn’t reply. “Adrian!”

“What’s up, little shrimp?”

Simon let out a quick sigh, ignoring the distasteful nickname for a moment. “You drove past the bowling alley.”

“What?” Nate sat up, looking around out the window. “When? Is there another one?”

“Nope!” Kelly popped on the P. She spun around to glance between them in the back seat. “We changed our minds. I wanna go to the cliffside.”

Simon stiffed, clenching his backpack and immediately formulating an escape strategy.

“The what?” Nate rolled his eyes. He didn’t want to sit outside. The weather was nice, sure, but it was wet and muddy. He didn’t even want to go bowling with them. It was finally one of his days off where he didn’t have the bait shop, chores, or that dumb meeting. He’d of loved to spend it curled up in his bed with a good book and call it an early night without so much as looking at his homework.

“Cliffside.” Adrian smiled at him through the rearview mirror. “It’ll be fun. Promise. We’re gonna take just one little detour before we go bowling.”

Kelly’s eyes landed on Simon. She snickered, watching his reaction. “Just like old times.” She turned back around.

There was something off about the situation, Nate noticed. Normally Simon never shut the hell up. So what was wrong?

There had to be a history here, Nate thought. To the best of his knowledge, bully’s usually had a goal in mind when they set out for their target. And, usually, there was a reason they picked that specific target. At his old school, in a particular math class, it had been one kid harassed by a group of boys on the daily. He had been singled out because of his arrogance. The pompous prick had handcrafted a reputation for himself as the grades ‘smartest’ kid. He’d often flaunt his stats over people like some God and go on endless tangents about how he must be the reincarnation of William James Sidis.

He allowed himself to glance at Simon, justifying it as an observational study. Simon was looking straight at the floor and looked like he was talking to himself, though the sound was mute.

Nate looked back up at the other two. “So…” He spoke awkwardly, not entirely sure where he what he wanted to say. “Why are we going to the cliffside?” was the question he’d settled with.

“You’ll see.” Kelly began humming like her usual self again, but no one touched the radio.

The cliffside was an agonizing hour long car ride. They pulled into the empty parking lot, taking one of the many available spaces. Once the engine was shut off, Simon flinched.

Everyone sat still for a minute.

Finally, Adrian broke the silence. “Are you two friends or something?”

Nate huffed. “No. Why?”

“‘Cause you were both talking. Alone. In the classroom.”

“So? That doesn’t mean we’re friends.” Nate sat back, crossing his arms. This was exactly what he didn’t want them to think. Living on the island was hard enough. He didn’t need to be labeled as the friend of the deaf kid.

“Wanna see something hilarious?”

Nate frowned. “What?” He whined, rolling his head back. “No. I don’t. Can’t we just do one game of bowling and then call it a night?”

“No, we wanna show you.” Adrian got out of the car, opening the door behind him and grabbing Simon’s arm. “Come here, shrimp.”

“Let go!” The two of them fought, Simon putting up a valiant effort before getting tossed from the car and onto the ground.

Nate quickly got out of the car and went around, stopping before he got too close. He watched as Simon slowly got to his feet, brushing off the dirt on his clothes. “Dude… was that really necessary?”

“Get up.” Adrian’s usual chipper voice had fallen a few octaves. “Get up!” He grabbed Simon and pulled him fully to his feet, pushing him towards the cliff.

“W-woah, what-” Nate ran quickly until he was beside them.

Adrian crossed over the grass area, getting within feet of the drop.

“What are you doing?” Nate asked, holding his hands out a little in front of him in case he needed to make any sudden moves. “You know that murder is a crime, right?”

A creepy smile crossed the boys face. “I’m not gonna throw him off the side.” Still, he laughed. “Look at this,” He pointed at a rock at their feet.

Nate glanced down at it, but kept his attention trained on Adrian. “Step away from the side, please.”

“Read the rock.”

“If you pull him away from the side.”

Adrian groaned, shoving Simon to his other side so that he was the one closer to the drop. It still didn’t sit well with Nate, but he allowed himself to pay attention to the rock. He frowned at it.

It was one of those stupid, cliche heart things with the couples first initial etched in the center. This one was S & S. “I don’t get it.” He confessed, paying very close attention to how close they were getting to the edge.

“Bro!” Adrian laughed. “So, back in the day, we used to have this friend named Sal, right?”

“Okay?”

“And he brought this fag into the group.” Adrian held up Simon’s shirt.

Nate heard Kelly behind him, stopping once she was directly above the rock. “The three of us have known each other since we were kids. Then this asshole,” She pointed directly at Simon. “Falls in love with Sal, who is a man by the way.” She cringed. “It’s totally gross. After that Sal moved away because Simon couldn’t stop being disgusting with his crush.”

That was their reason? He still didn’t know the full story, but he could take a guess that this small town was probably religious. Of-fucking-course. “So, what, you bullying him every day because your friend left?”

Both of them made a face. “Didn’t you hear what we just said?” First Adrian.

“He’s a faggot.” And Kelly.

“Maybe we should just go bowling,” Nate suggested. “I don’t have anything to do with this anyway.”

“So you are friends?” Adrian demanded to know, shoving Simon towards the drop again.

Nate nearly jumped out of his skin, feeling his heart thump into his throat as the two got dangerously close. “Get away from the drop, Adrian.”

“Are you friends?”

“Adrian. The drop-”

“Answer the question. Or I’ll just have to assume your more than friends. Are you fucking him?”

Nate’s jaw clenched and he glared at them. “That’s disgusting. We’re not even friends.”

“Really?” He didn’t sound convinced.

“Yes.” Nate groaned, holding his hands out further as the two went closer to the side.

“Prove it.”

“Huh?”

Adrian pushed Simon forward. He stumbled, reaching out in front of him but falling straight through the air.

It took a good full second for Nate to register what had just happened. If he was being honest, he didn’t, not in a million years, think Adrian would actually do it. And now that he was seeing just how wrong he was about this friend of his, and how right Simon was, he suddenly got pissed.

“You fucking lunatic!”