I could feel my ears hot and pulsating as I sprinted in the darkness, away from the beach and into the safety of the villa. I desperately needed to call someone so they could tell me what to do, so they could take some burdening responsibility and try to find him with me. I couldn't do this alone. I felt the shame and fear burning in my throat, the cold goosebumps rising like those prickly plants sprouting in the grass. I halted midway on the walkway, turning dubiously back to the black abyss. What if Anthony was drowning and screaming for my help? What if one second of misjudgement could cause him to die?

Nausea tickled my nose and I stood in between, tears stinging my eyes. Deafening, empty silence. My head was hot and throbbing with life and vigour, but my hands were cold, numb and lifeless. A gust of tepid wind suddenly whipped my hair loose and the coarse strands slapped against my face. I felt a shock run through my body, the sense of doom flitting away to make room for urgency. My head throbbed harder and I felt the quivering nervousness in my fingers. I took off again towards the villa, this time faster and determined than before. There was no use searching for him alone, I couldn't rescue him in the obscurity and the mighty fierceness of the waves. I had to call someone experienced like Ramu. I had to call him as soon as possible.

I broke into the villa through the backyard sliding doors and darted first to the kitchen, then the living room, then the kitchen again. The emptiness confused me. There was no sign of Ramu or his wife except for the large vessels of food cooked and covered on the countertop. The silence of the villa suddenly trembled with hushed murmurs and suppressed giggles and I quickly followed it, rushing upstairs to where we had played that stupid, annoying game. I flung open the door and instead of finding Ramu uncle or his wife, I spotted Raul on top of Lila in the bed, his tongue deep inside her throat, both of them shockingly half-naked.

"You're here!" Lila squeaked with wide eyes, dishevelled hair and flushed cheeks, scandalized by my presence.

Raul fell back on his side and his features eased into a lazy grin and that was when I remembered why I had come here for, that I had no time to waste or think. I had to do something, but I couldn't bring myself to ask them anything, so I hurriedly shut the door and winced. With my cold, clammy hands, I clung to the wooden doorknob.

Focus, focus. Tears had smudged the normal intonation of my voice as I knocked on the door and asked with forced calmness, "Did you- did you see Ramu uncle? Anywhere?" There was no reply from the other end which caused me to vehemently bang my hands against the door, rattle it with the frail doorknob and I spluttered through the salty tears in my mouth, "Where the fuck is he?"

The door opened which made me step back and Lila asked in surprising humour, "What happened- Oh my God, Tulsi, you're crying!"

Scoffing at their foolishness and lack of understanding, I took long strides in the corridor, swinging open each door, but finding nobody. With every door I closed, the safer I felt. Somehow, I was less afraid now because I was accepting the possibility of never finding Anthony. How did it matter anyway? Tomorrow, everyone would talk about the reckless actions of three teenagers who sent their own friend to death. The day after tomorrow, everyone would forget. Lila and Raul would go abroad as planned and I would start fresh at college.

The cool doom had settled on me again, it's dead weight hugging me, caressing me. I scampered downstairs, dragging the weight with me. I was about to take a last, final look outside for Ramu or his wife before calling the police. There was nothing else to do now but wait for the day after tomorrow.

I went outside the villa, checking the front porch and the backyard with the growing knowledge that they weren't here.

"What happened?" I heard Lila's cautious voice.

"Anthony might be dead," I found admitting to myself in barely a mumble as I looked at the dark grove of trees. I could hear the satisfied sound of the waves, ebbing to sleep after having finished a meal. "No, I'm positive. He is dead."

"What are you talking about?" I heard the creeping panic in her voice when suddenly, she broke out, "Look! Look! Anthony is here! What were you talking about? He's here!" Indeed, there was his lanky, dark figure approaching us from the walkway with that white towel draped around his bare shoulders. Before he could reach us, Lila and I (I, in a daze) jogged towards him.

"She thought you were dead!" Lila laughingly pointed out and Anthony looked shaken at that as if the mere word "dead" was triggering to him. As if he half-believed that he had died. I clasped his awkward, wet hands, not to reassure him, but to reassure myself. Lila who had found the entire situation hilarious whipped out her phone and took a video with the flash on at which I turned away in irritation. Giggling, she dashed towards the villa with her phone in her hand, probably wanting to narrate to her boyfriend about my embarrassment. I was left alone with Anthony and I was sure that I could hear the crickets chirping somewhere behind.

"You-you thought I was dead?" he whispered the word "dead" as if that word was blasphemous.

"Not dead exactly. You weren't anywhere around when I searched for you. Maybe, in the darkness, I couldn't see you properly. So I thought you were just lost or something. Where were you anyway?"

"I was swimming there," he replied vaguely and I nodded in understanding. We headed straight upstairs with Anthony leaving a trail of water droplets dripping from his soaked shorts. His physique was the opposite of Raul's since he was skinnier. His brown skin seemed loose in some parts. Half-naked, he hunched a bit more than usual, accentuating the hard knob on the back of his neck. In contrast, Raul was a bit bulky and he never walked- it seemed like he always marched proudly. Especially half-naked like a boxer ready to enter the ring and fight in front of a wildly charged audience.

Anthony and I separated our ways in the corridor and I entered the wrong room- a storage room in my dazed, ambiguous state. There were dusty newspapers and magazines stacked up high on the tables on either side of the musty room which reminded me of Jenga pieces, one wrong move and the entire thing would come crashing down. I spotted a lizard leaping from under a cobweb and I quickly turned around to leave, but I heard Anthony's voice in the dark, "Tulsi?"

"Oh hey, what are you doing here?"

"Lila was in my room and Raul- he was in the bathroom so I didn't have any space to uh . . . " He was wrapping the white towel around his hand like a bandage, in a painfully, awkward manner. I stepped closer to him so I could reach towards the door and leave him alone to change, but he took that as a hint for what followed next. I heard him murmur something along the lines of him feeling courageous today (thanks to the dare that Raul gave him) and that he would just go ahead with "it." In a confusing moment, I felt the dampness of the white towel against my cheek and his chapped lips pressing to mine. My hands touched the loose skin on his abdomen which felt like dough and that stirred him. The kiss came down upon my lips, urgent and hard, but he didn't know how to kiss and I could feel his teeth inadvertently biting into my bottom lip. Fire flared in that region, I could barely suppress a cry. He realized what he had done which was probably why he stopped.

I hastened sideways in my muddled condition and smiled uncertainly into the dark, not knowing that my back was supporting the leaning tower of newspapers. I didn't dare to look up to meet his eyes and neither of us spoke. A long minute later, I shifted towards the door and the pile of newspapers dislodged. One after the other newspapers rained on him and I heard him cry out in spasms of pain. I snuck out, shutting the door after me, my heart flailing and drowning in mortifying guilt.

"Are you okay? You're okay," my voice faltered as I whispered to the closed door, hearing the stillness after the assault of the newspapers. I could never look Anthony in the eyes after this. What on earth had caused him to do that anyway? Suddenly, I felt the guilt solidifying into indignation and I clenched my hands which had grabbed his loose skin in disgust. I could hear him recovering and shuffling to his feet. Without entertaining any concern, I trotted towards my room, leaving him to deal with the mess inside the room and in his heart.

That night, I stayed awake for a long while, my thoughts switching between Anthony and Lila. Lila won over my mind eventually. She hadn't returned from Raul and Anthony's room and I was growing anxious with every passing second. Tossing on whichever side of my body that ached less, forgetting my aching centre, my throbbing heart. The image of Raul and Lila doing things to each other kept returning to me like a ghost with unresolved issues. I had to talk to her about Raul, to make her understand that his intentions were far from good. As a friend, it was my duty to warn her and I couldn't rely on her roses and cotton candy judgment.

It was 2 am when I heard the door creaking softly as she entered, hiccupping all the way. "We had so much fun!"

How did she know I was awake?

With my eyes partially open, I asked, "Fun? What kind of fun?"

"Oh, Raul and Anthony and I had so much fun! So, so, so much fun! We were playing card games and monopoly and I won all the time! All the time! You had to see their loser faces, so funny!" She giggled without any regard to time, climbing into the bed with an empty, glass bottle in her hand. "We drank a lot too! I got this from my father's bar . . . " She let out a warm breath that I felt on my cheek and her gaze danced towards me. I swiftly closed my eyes. "I'm soooooooo drunk right now!"

Lila never drank, she didn't like the taste of alcohol. The fact that she declared being drunk was a clear indication that she wasn't. I smiled at her innocent lie and brought the blanket close to my chin, falling into a comfortable slumber. Tomorrow, I would talk to her.

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