“I’m so sorry, man,” Chad said, wondering why the hell he had sabered the champagne when there were people around? How irresponsible was that? He hadn’t noticed Paddy sitting on the deck; that was the thing. Paddy must have been alone in the dark, which made Chad feel even worse. Paddy didn’t know anyone at the party besides the three other Bucknell guys, and he was quiet by nature. Paddy had driven up from Grimesland at Chad’s insistence. You have to come, man! There are going to be so many girls!
When the ambulance arrived, some people scattered, thinking it was the police. Chad grabbed his phone but left the music playing and climbed into the back of the ambulance with Paddy, who kept insisting he didn’t need to go to the hospital and shouldn’t go because his parents didn’t have that kind of health insurance.
“I’ll pay for it, man. It was my fault,” Chad said.
The paramedic, a woman named Kristy who was actually kind of hot, managed to pry Paddy’s hand away from his eye. She said, matter-of-factly, “That’s going to need surgery.”
“I can’t,” Paddy said. “Afford it.”
“I’ll pay for it,” Chad said again and he thought about how what he meant was that his parents—who at that very moment were probably gazing across a candlelit table at each other, splitting a chocolate mousse—would pay for it. They would find out about the party unless Chad got everyone out of there pronto. He wondered how bad it would be if he didn’t go to the hospital with Paddy and instead stayed home and did damage control.
Bad, he thought. And for the first time in a long time, maybe ever, said a prayer.
When they got to the hospital, Paddy was rushed away; Chad heard someone mention an eye specialist. He was buzzing from the cocaine but also drunk and high and teetering on the edge of paranoia. A nurse gave him a form to fill out but he knew only some of the answers. He needed to call Paddy’s parents—or his own—but he was waiting to see what the doctors said. He was hoping it would turn out to be just stitches and a shiner.
When he handed the clipboard back to the nurse, he said, “Whatever this costs, I’ll pay for it, just make sure he gets the best care.”
They were at Bryn Mawr Hospital, which was where Chad had been born. He hadn’t had a reason to return here in twenty-two years and neither had anyone else in his family. They were just that fortunate, so fortunate that Chad almost broke down crying, but instead he stumbled over to the water fountain and tried to suck it dry.
His phone rang. It was Raj, which was not unexpected. After Paddy, Raj was the nicest guy that Chad knew. Raj was from Potomac, Maryland, and he was supersmart and driven; his parents were doctors. He was probably calling to see how Paddy was, but Chad couldn’t talk to him yet. He didn’t want to talk to anyone until he knew Paddy was going to be okay.
He declined the call. Raj immediately called back, and when Chad declined again, Raj texted: Pick up, bruh, it’s urgent.
I can’t talk, Chad texted back. Waiting room.
Raj sent a fire emoji, which Chad ignored. Then Raj called again and Chad whispered into the phone, “What?”
Raj said, “Someone set your house on fire.”
Chad hung up. Raj was drunk, stoned, high, and he thought he was being funny, great. A man in blue scrubs entered the waiting room. “Chadwick Winslow?” he said.
Chad raised his hand like he was in fourth grade. The man approached and said, “Dr. Harding, nice to meet you. You’re here with Patrick?”
Chad nodded.
“He’s gone into surgery. The cornea appears to have been sliced. We’re going to try to save the eye but there’s a better-than-not chance Patrick will have partial to full vision loss.”
Chad gagged, but no, he couldn’t yuke here in the waiting room. He breathed in through his nose. “I want to pay for it.”
Chad’s phone rang; it was Raj again. Dr. Harding clapped Chad on the shoulder and said, “We’re keeping him overnight. Why don’t you go home and get some rest. One of our nurses has contacted Patrick’s family.”
No, Chad thought. He’d met Mr. and Mrs. Farrell a handful of times. They weren’t fancy or sophisticated like Chad’s parents, but they were kind, decent people. Paddy had an older brother, Griffin, who was in the U.S. Navy, stationed in Honolulu; they FaceTimed once a week.
The doctor disappeared back down the hall and when Chad pulled his phone out to call an Uber, he saw another text from Raj.
Your house caught on fire. The fire department put it out but the deck and the screened-in porch are torched. You need to come home right now. Your neighbors are here. Also, man, I hate to say this in a text, but your dog is dead.
Lulu! Chad thought, and for a second he couldn’t breathe.
Chad’s phone rang again. The screen said DAD.
“I burned down part of my house,” Chad says to Ms. English. “That was the least awful thing I did. I killed my dog, whom I loved so much, whom my whole family loved, and my sister still won’t speak to me. She hates me.” He gets an aching lump in his throat. “All I can think about is Lulu’s fur catching on fire or her coughing from the smoke.” He stops. It was so terrible and it was all his fault! He pushes his beer away. He thought he’d be okay to drink again, but now his stomach is churning just like it did that night at the hospital. “And my best friend, a guy I loved like a brother and always wanted to protect, a guy who was kind of like Bibi, because he didn’t come from a background like mine, lost his vision in his left eye. Forever. And we’re not friends anymore. I haven’t heard from him since he went back home.”
Chad had stayed at the hospital until his parents and Paddy’s parents had shown up. Paddy underwent surgery and was released two days later. When the nurse wheeled him out with a patch over one eye, Chad started apologizing, insisting it was an accident, he hadn’t seen Paddy sitting there, but he could hear his voice ricocheting off a new steeliness encapsulating Paddy that Chad hoped was just the painkillers but that turned out to be anger. You’re shallow, thoughtless, and oblivious to your own privilege. You didn’t check to see who was sitting around you when you sliced the top off a glass bottle with a ten-inch chef’s knife, because you didn’t care, anyone sitting in your direct line of fire would have been in your way, spoiling your fun, and we both know nothing and no one means more to Chad Winslow than fun. Your whole existence is filled with empty, meaningless pleasure and this will continue to be true because no one is ever going to hold you accountable. You’ll never develop character and you won’t go to heaven or hell because you don’t have a soul.
Paddy had been at least partially right: Nobody held Chad accountable. His parents did extreme damage control, calling in a favor at the Philadelphia Inquirer so the incident didn’t make the papers and personally phoning the parents of every kid who attended the party and promising favors in exchange for their kids’ silence or threatening lawsuits because someone—Chad still doesn’t know who—threw a can of lighter fluid into the firepit. The can exploded, and burning fragments sliced through the screen of the porch and instantly ignited the sisal rug and the drapes…and the dog bed. Chad overheard his mother lying to people on the phone, saying they’d “put Lulu down.” She was so old and feeble, poor thing. Paddy didn’t tell anyone anything; he returned to Grimesland, which was far, far away from the gossip channels of the Main Line.
“I didn’t get in any trouble,” Chad says. “My parents were angry, of course, and they were disappointed. But mostly, they were worried about how the incident would reflect on them. They thought everyone would say they were bad parents, and so they did what they could to sweep it under the rug. They bought me a brand-new Range Rover as a graduation present and it was delivered to my house the day after Paddy went home, so it felt like I had done all these heinous things and was rewarded.” Chad shakes his head and his eyes flood with hot tears as he thinks, What the actual f—
Ms. English lays a cool hand on his arm. “But you corrected course on your own,” she says. “You came to me and I put you to work in a place where we don’t sweep anything under the rug.”
Chad wipes his eyes with the back of his hand. “You told me that you believed even the biggest messes could be cleaned up.”