pvlmerâ:
the mood feels weird to jason. even as someone whoâs normally adaptable in most situations, he canât help but feel a little uneasy. and he canât quite put his finger on it. he figures it was because of nateâs mood shift, thatâs whatâs putting him off. hesâ so used to seeing his brother crack jokes and be the life of the party, but this mood on him was seldom something jason saw. he wonders if itâs a mood that nate keeps hidden from others, kind of like how jason keeps parts of himself hidden to certain people. jason tries to focus on the lake, rather than how creepy everything is. he remembers his therapist telling him focusing on one thing can help alleviate anxiety. heâs not sure if itâs working or not. he hears what nate says. so he settles on: not.Â
âi only told them stuff i thought was relevant to the case. i mostly told them that i didnât think anyone here is capable of something like that but they kind of pressed me so i did say someoneâs name but it was more like just a theory, you know?â a couple moments pass before what nate had said really sunk in for jason. he was mostly talking about the police investigation and didnât even register that nate had said he was trying to keep the cops from suspecting jason. âwaitâŚwhy would you want to keep them from looking in my direction?â he gulps. because deep down, he knows the answer. but he canât tell nate what happened that night. how he laughed in the face of orson as he bled out, how he liked seeing him suffer. the guilt of his actions and of keeping this from nate have been heavy on jason, but not as heavy as knowing that his brother would never look at him the same again. ânate, iâŚdonât know what youâre talking about.â his voice was unconvincing to even an ordinary person, so it certainly wouldnât be enough to convince his brother. but he couldnât, he couldnât let nate see that side of him. the side that got lost in the shadows and became the darkness within them.Â
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nate winces at jasonâs words. for so long, he had tried to be the best brother - or at least, the best brother he knew how to be. in their household, nate had learned specific lessons about patience, kindness, and empathy. all of which he never had to really use with jason, because things had been easy for them for a long time. now in hindsight, while trying to analyze his brother, nate felt that familiar pang of guilt he always managed to push down. had things only been easy because nate didnât try to work on their relationship? how much was there that they hadnât talked about, simply because they didnât think it was necessary? had nate pushed jason away, somehow? the answers to those questions were hard to think about.Â
but he couldnât let jason shut down on him this time; the stakes were too high. âwhoâs name did you say? is that so much of a secret you canât even tell me?â nate looks out past jason, out towards the rest of the campus through the thick of the trees. he thinks about the police, about the investigation, about orsonâs body and - âjason...i love you, okay? iâd gladly give you a kidney, a lung, a part of my pancreas - if they were healthy, that is.â nate steps closer to him, âmy point is that iâd do just about anything for you. but i need you to trust me.â nate knows heâs handled jason with kid gloves practically their whole life, so this feels especially weird for them, but he has to see this through. no matter what the answer might turn out to be.
âtell me the truthâ, nate signs with a mixture of nostalgia for their âsecretâ language as kids and fear of what jason might actually reveal to him. âdid you kill o-r-s-o-n?â








