Free Things We Fear by Glenn Rolfe Page B

his way through the thickening crowd and reached the pier’s end. A lot of fucking out-of-towners. A lot of witnesses. He’d need a good distraction to give Em’s fuck buddy the ride of his life. Off to his right, in front of a shack packed full of cheap jewelry, pocketknives and other assorted odd items, an ugly freckle-faced kid stood alone, stuffing his face with fries. Perfect. Matt pulled out his wallet and checked his cash.
    * * * * *
    This all seemed too impossible to be true. Aaron was pretty damn amazing. Good looks, genuine, yet not flawless enough to make her self-conscious. His bizarre confession of the pig-nosed figure in the river…well, she was sure the vision had more to do with the bump he’d taken on the head in his rope-swinging accident than it actually did with some underwater creature. Still, whatever the case, the image haunted him to this day. She’d watched the blood drain from his face as he described the thing.
    Aaron’s choice of summer home was interesting, to say the least. The paradoxical situation was like a case study begging her to take it on. And here they were, arm in arm, following the ’80s couple in concert T-shirts, down the length of the pier. The couple’s matching long, dirty blond locks hung down to where they each had a hand on the other’s back pocket, caressing each other in a familiar way.
    In that instant, Emily understood what attracted Aaron to this place. The people. From the loving Mrs. Hersom, to the youths they’d watched testing each other on the beach, to Duke, to the couple trapped in a time warp but in love for the rest of the world to see. There was a real magical feeling present everywhere you looked. Emily gazed up at Aaron’s eyes. He was watching the couple too. His soft brown hair was dancing with the warm breeze blowing in from the ocean. She leaned her head on his shoulder. His free hand slipped across his body and caressed her hand by his shoulder. It was the sort of gesture inspired by true romance. Don’t swoon, don’t swoon, she begged her heart, but felt her resolve give in to love’s gravity.
    They stopped at the end of the pier, squeezing into the crowded spot a couple feet over from the ’80s couple. They kissed again. Longer, deeper. Their fingers intertwined, and despite the near shoulder-to-shoulder gathering of people at this gorgeous spot, the crowd faded away.
    “Excuse me. Miss? Excuse me.”
    Emily turned at the tugging on the bottom of her T-shirt. There stood a red-haired boy missing two of his top teeth, nose and cheeks spattered with freckles, and with a goofy look in his blue-green eyes.
    “Hi, sweetie,” she said. Still holding Aaron’s hand, she bent down to the boy’s eye level.
    “Whaaa…”
    She heard Aaron’s voice call out in surprise before his hand ripped free from hers.
    Her stomach dropped like an elevator with its cables cut. Aaron pinwheeled over the pier’s railing.
    “Oh my God,” the ’80s woman called out.
    Emily jumped up and watched, helpless, as Aaron spun toward his greatest fear. His body met the pulsating Atlantic with a smack. He disappeared into the sea.
    “Somebody help! Please, somebody help him!” Emily pleaded with the surrounding crowd that seemed to close in around her, swarming her as they tried to see what just happened.
    Matt managed to shove the lightweight hard enough to send him over the rail. Just as easily as he’d been able to move through the crowd to bump Aaron, he’d also managed to slither away nearly unnoticed and blend in with the crowd. He knew the people walking up must have seen him, at least a couple of them, but with all of the commotion, everyone’s attention was on the wimp falling into the water. Paying the freckle-faced kid to distract Emily had been an act of pure genius. Well worth the five bucks.
    Matt stopped by the trash can at the end of the pier, stripped off his white dress shirt and stuffed it into the trash receptacle. He strode over to the