New Plan: Shitfaced on your own today, drive home tomorrow.

There's not a lot of point staying, you decide. All of you are having a terrible time. It seems very foolish, very little-girlish, of you to have thought you could fix whatever's wrong between them. And it's not like it matters anyway. None of you are even going to the same school in the fall. Did you actually think this was going to last past this summer at the outside?

So yeah, fuck staying. And fuck spending another of these terrible days with them being so painfully polite about everything. And fuck this dumb house, that you thought was so cool, but if it were actually cool then it would have made your secret wish come true and fixed Scott and Dex. Fuck you too, house!

You're going to take a long walk and get hammered and feel exactly as sad as you want to, about this ignominious end to a dumb high school friendship you stupidly imagined would thrive indefinitely into adulthood because you were such good buddies—idiot—and then you're going to drive home tomorrow and that'll be that.

When you come back in, Scott is still asleep on the couch where he was when you went outside, and Dex is nowhere to be seen. You wash the bowl and spoon and put them on the drainboard to dry, then go over to the liquor cabinet and choose a bottle of rum that's about half gone. Then you find a small pad of paper and write them a note, since everyone's cell reception is shit out here: Let's go home tomorrow guys. Going to take a long walk on my own down by the water. Back later maybe.

The most weather-proof shoes you brought aren't very. They're just sneakers. But they're better than nothing, so you swap out your sandals for those, since you suspect the ground might not have dried yet from the hard rain the very first night you were here, which continued through most of the second day and generally turned everything into a muddy mess and put everyone in an even worse mood.

You feel a little guilty for not going to working a little harder to figure out where Dex is, since it's his turn with you today. Then again, it's not like hanging out with you was going to be fun or anything. He'll be fine. And your primary intent is to wallow, anyway. Mourning is something you prefer to do privately. You won't get to do it your style if somebody else is along.

When you get down the stairs there's a patch at the bottom where mud washed over the flat concrete pad. Dex must have been up earlier than you, since he didn't pass you while you at oatmeal on the deck, but all the same here are his familiar Bean-boot footprints leading through the mud and toward the little path that goes through the trees to the water. Because of course he thought to bring duck boots, and of course he was right. There's a patch of gravel that interrupts them, and then it looks like the prints continue down the hill.

Well, you'd originally figured on going down to the water yourself like you said in your note, but that might mean running into Dex, and since today's his day, it might also mean not being able to avoid having company without hurting his feelings.