Blackwater by Eve Bunting

blame on him, and I wanted to bawl. What a jerk I was! I blinked hard.
    “Forget that,” I said. “There were plenty of times when I could have told the truth.”
    “In the end you did.” Alex gave me a sleazy smile, and I could tell he was trying to make things right between us, to act like we were friends. We’d never be friends. I knew that even before the Blackwater. I knew that all along.
    He came with us when we went to tell Raoul. Raoul who had been my coach and who had always been like a second dad. Maybe I only imagined the coldness in his voice. Maybe.
    “You made things worse by not speaking up, Brodie,” he said. “We couldn’t have saved those two poor kids. But you might have saved yourself.”
    A while back I wouldn’t have understood what he meant. Now I did.
    “There will have to be an inquiry,” he said. “It’s hard to tell how it will go. Accidental death, most likely.”
    Alex butted in. “It was accidental all right. I saw it happen. I can tell them, and I’ll tell how hard Brodie tried to save them.”
    Raoul gave him an odd look. “That’s right. You were there and you kept your mouth shut,too. So there are two of you. Well, the press is going to have a field day with this. You’re not going to be their golden boy anymore, Brodie. The river took Otis and Pauline, but you let it take Otis’ reputation, too. And you let them call you a hero.” He shook his head as if he still couldn’t believe it.
    I shuffled and touched the paper clip dispenser on his desk. The team bought him that at the end of the season. Oh, Raoul.
    His voice gentled as he touched Dad’s shoulder. “It’s going to be especially hard for you, my friend.”
    “I know,” I said quickly. “That’s kind of why …” I let the useless words trail away. They were only partly true anyway. I’d been afraid that I’d be blamed, and I would be. But maybe not for their deaths. “Accidental,” Raoul had called them. Please let it be that.
    Mom took Dad’s hand. “We’ll make it through,” she said. “Brodie will, too. We’ll have help.”
    I knew she meant from God. But even with His help, it was going to be awful.
    I lay there in bed that night, my mind ajumble of terrifying thoughts. Where was Otis now? Was he lying in a coffin in McCormick’s Funeral Home? I’m sorry, Otis. Do you know how bad I feel? Can you hear?
    In the other bed Alex ground his teeth and whimpered. Was it true that he was having scary thoughts too? Was he not as tough as he made himself out to be?
    I thought about me. What was I going to face? What was I going to do? If only I could start all over again. I’d do it so different. I made myself remember Hannah. She’d kissed my cheek. She still liked me. I thought I’d be able to talk to her. But would I have told if she hadn’t made me? Or would I have stayed a liar and a coward for ever and ever? I’d never know. I stuffed the corner of the sheet in my mouth to choke my sobs.
    Mom and Dad’s voices spoke downstairs. I heard the heartbreak in Dad’s guitar.
    Later still they came into my room. Mom leaned over me and her hair swung forward against my face. I kept my eyes closed.
    After they left, I lay watching the shadows on my wall, listening to Alex gnashing his teeth and groaning in the other bed. Listening to the dullrumble of the river. I could bear it no more.
    I got up and went to their room.
    They weren’t in bed. They lay, both of them, on top of the covers, Mom in her blue bathrobe and socks, Dad still in his clothes.
    I stood at the bottom of their bed, cold and shaking.
    Mom sat up. “Brodie?”
    “Can I come in with you?” I whispered.
    “Of course.” Dad patted the quilt, and I climbed into the space between them.
    I used to crawl into their bed when I was little and needed to be kept safe from monsters. There were still monsters.
    We didn’t talk. Mom held my hand.
    After a while she pulled the comforter over me.
    My eyes hurt from staring at the