Ten years earlier:

There was a kind of waiting that felt gentle, like an onshore breeze kissing salty stones. It wasn't warm, but there was a sense of calm, of nature, of things expected. Then there was the kind that made you feel as if you were a prisoner on death row waiting for their execution day. And as we waited for the holiday to end, it was the latter...

Every day, we lied, deceived, and did whatever we could to know everything the police knew. And at night, sleep became a rare visitor because we kept waiting for the police to knock on our doors anytime to arrest us. And then, we would spend the rest of our lives behind bars.

The charred remains of the car have been found in the woods, and the police figured out that it was a car that had been reported stolen. We almost pissed our pants when we found that out; it was one of our biggest concerns. We thought, what if they knew it had been stolen in front of the bar we were at? What if the bartender told the police about us? What if there were any surveillance cameras we had missed?

But we later discovered that the owner of the car was so drunk that he didn't even remember whether he had driven the car to the bar or not. And he had no idea where he had lost his keys or where the car had been stolen from.

And then we heard that the bartender wanted to throw off suspicion of his bar so he wouldn't lose his precious visitors. So he told the police that he hadn't seen the car and didn't remember seeing anybody suspicious hanging around his bar.

And for the first time in what seemed like forever, we dared to let out a sigh of relief after what happened that night. And it seemed as if life wanted to give us a second chance, even though we never deserved it.

As soon as the winter break was over, we met Ethan when we got back to school, who looked surprised that we were talking to him. As if we had just noticed his presence for the first time even though he had always been in our class since elementary school. But he had always been unsocial and very withdrawn that when his name was mentioned, all I could remember was the skinny boy with the big glasses who was constantly bullied at school.

The three of us have never been bullies, yet we never stood up to those who were, and we never intervened when we saw something wrong happening when we should have.

We tried to befriend him, to get closer to him, but Connor was the one making the most effort. He even started spending more time with Ethan than he did with us. And we had to restlessly wait for Connor to provide us with detailed reports about what Ethan knew.

Ethan was primarily involved with the investigation, and the police questioned him every time they came up with something new in the case.

We knew that Ethan went out on his bike late that night to buy some medicine from the pharmacy for his little brother, who had been very feverish on that fateful night. And on his way, he found the little boy lying in the middle of the street, soaked in his own blood. So he hurried and called 911, but he had no idea who had caused the terrible accident.

And that poor little boy... We learned that he had walked out of his home without his parents knowing to look for his cat, which was nowhere to be found inside the house.

And for the second time, we felt as if life was smiling at us and that we could finally try to move on with our lives. We focused on college admissions, getting ready for prom night, and the preparations for the final exams and graduation day. And we were praying day and night for the boy to wake up from his coma so we could get rid of the overwhelming guilt that kept smothering us.

But he didn't, and doctors lost hope that he ever would, so his parents had to make the tough decision of taking him off life-support. And then, the boy's heart stopped forever, even though we knew his actual time of death was that night, on that road, because of us.

I had no idea why we did it, but we decided to attend the funeral. Maybe it was because of the guilt. Or, most likely, we just wanted to avert suspicion as almost all the people in town were going to be at that funeral.

I remembered that I had vomited more than once while putting on my black suit and getting ready to attend the funeral of a child whose innocent soul was ripped from his little body because of our foolishness.

And during the funeral, we barely held ourselves together as we looked at his poor parents, who had to bury their only child when no parent ever should. And I knew they must have felt as if they were burying their souls with him.

The three of us could not look at each other's faces, knowing very well that we were the reason behind this tragedy and that his blood was all over our hands. And the feeling of guilt was like an acid that kept burning through our flesh.

And after the funeral, we went to Connor's place, deciding that we were going to take his father's car for a ride out of town so we could breathe a little, as everything in this town was a reminder of what we had done.

And as we stood inside the garage in Connor's house, I couldn't shake the little boy's image out of my mind. "We weren't supposed to take that car. I should've stopped you, Connor."

"Oh yeah? So, you're going to put all the blame on me and make yourself a fucking angel, Erin! Why did you agree to leave him that night on the road in a pool of his own blood? Why didn't you call the police?" Connor seethed, looking at me with rage in his dark eyes. "Stop fooling yourself, Erin. You're no better than me, and not even him." He pointed at Aiden, who was watching our argument in silence—as he always did.

"I never agreed with you on anything you did that night!" snapped Aiden in return.

Connor let out a sarcastic laugh as he looked at Aiden. "Yes, you know why? Because you were acting like a helpless child. Tell me, Aiden, for how much longer will you keep being a coward, waiting for someone else to make all the important decisions for you?"

I watched as Aiden's face turned a few shades redder. He looked as if he had some timed bomb ticking inside his head. However, I doubted there would be any real explosion or even a backlash that would need me to intervene and stop any possible fight ensuing between them.

As expected, Aiden's shoulders slumped, and his eyes met the ground as he remained silent.

I watched as a proud smile found its way to Connor's lips when he knew he had proved his point. "That kid's blood is on all of our hands. None of us is innocent."

Connor had barely finished the last sentence when the three of us jumped when we heard something hit the floor. We quickly turned to see the source of the sound, and our eyes widened when we realized that another disaster was waiting for us...

Ethan's eyes were wide to a degree that was almost inhumanly possible. He stood by the door of the garage, not moving a limb as if he was paralyzed. And the look he gave us was enough to know that he had heard everything and that all our attempts to justify what happened would be futile.

"Ethan..." Connor said in a cautious tone as his hand carefully traveled to the garage door button. Then in a spur of a moment, he pressed the button, closing the door and locking the four of us inside the garage.

Ethan started acting like a madman, knocking with all his might on the closed door. "Get me out of here, Connor!"

"Ethan, calm down. Please," I said, holding my palms in a non-threatening gesture. "We need to talk about what you heard. The whole thing was just a mistake."

"Mistake?" he spat, giving me a disgusted look. "You killed a child, and you call it a mistake!"

My eyes narrowed as I studied him. "What are you going to do about what you heard, Ethan?" I asked in a warning tone, hoping it would scare him enough to make him say that he would forget about the whole thing and do nothing about it.

"What will I do?" he scoffed. "I'll definitely go to the police. You have to pay for what you did. You can't—"

Ethan didn't get a chance to complete what he was going to say as Connor hit him on the head with a rusty iron rod. Ethan crumbled lifelessly to the floor, blood gushing out of the wound on his head at an alarming rate and dripping on the ground below.

Neither Aiden nor I were surprised by what Connor did; we knew that there was no other option, and it was perpetrated with our help. I was the one who kept him preoccupied with talking to him as Connor sneaked in behind him. And Aiden stood there like a lifeless object, as usual, but this time, he didn't even dare to object.

"Help me put him in the trunk," I said calmly.

They didn't waste any time before hurrying to carry the body together while I opened the trunk. And after we made sure it was tightly shut, we cleaned the blood that had spattered all over the floor, and then we all got into the car. Connor started driving toward the woods, and all the way there, none of us said a word...

After a while, we parked the car in a well-hidden place. Then we started walking into the woods, the three of us supporting the weight of the body that was now fully wrapped in a heavy blanket. And when we made sure that we were in an area that was remote enough, we dropped the body onto the ground and started breathing heavily.

Then with one simple look we shared, we started carrying out our roles in the process to come without the need to utter a single word.

Whoever gets their hands tainted with blood once can do it over and over again without blinking an eye. That was the only idea dominating my thoughts as I picked up the shovel and started digging into the ground.

And after we were done with the digging, we lowered Ethan's body to the ground. Then we started covering the hole by throwing the dirt back over the body. But then something happened, and it made our blood run cold.

Ethan wasn't dead yet...

We heard a faint moan coming out of the hole that completely paralyzed us. We stood staring at each other with wide eyes and horrified looks on our faces. The sound started getting louder with every second passing. Then it was accompanied by a slight movement as Ethan struggled to get out of the blanket and push the dirt away.

Biting hard on my lower lip until I felt the metallic taste of blood, I tried to push the heavy feeling that weighed down on my chest. I knew there was no going back—we had to finish what we had started. It was either Ethan or us...

"Keep going," I said, throwing a spadeful of dirt over Ethan, all while trying to block the moaning sounds that were penetrating my ears.

Connor and Aiden were looking at me in shock without moving a limb. So I shouted at them again. "I told you to keep going!"

Slowly, they did as they were told and continued throwing dirt over Ethan as tears rolled down their cheeks. And eventually, the moaning sounds started to fade until we could no longer hear them at all.

And finally, Ethan's body was buried underground, and with him, our secret, too, was buried forever. Six feet under.

Or at least, that was what we thought at that time...