Colby Pier provides a quiet vantage point for a conversation that changes Auden’s understanding of Eli: at its far end, Maggie and the others explain Eli’s bond with Abe and the death that reshaped him. The pier’s open water, scattered fishermen, and encroaching darkness make it a place of both disclosure and watchful solitude.

Setting and Physical Details

Auden and her friends sit together on a bench at the very tip of the pier, looking out over the water. On their walk to the end, they pass fishermen standing with rods angled over the side, intent on their lines. At the bench, the group is alone in the immediate space, with only the wind and the splashing below breaking the quiet.

The pier is not empty of human activity: the fishermen remain within sight, absorbed in their work. Their presence gives the group’s secluded conversation a public, waterside setting, where private revelations unfold alongside an ordinary evening’s fishing.

A Place of Disclosure

At the pier, Maggie begins explaining Eli by first turning to Abe. She describes the two boys as inseparable friends since kindergarten, though very different in temperament: Eli was quiet, while Abe was more outgoing. Leah adds that before Abe died, Eli had been funny, a recollection that prompts Auden to realize she had not known of the death.

Maggie explains that Abe died the previous May while he and Eli were in Brockton for an event at Concrete Jungle. Both had been sponsored for a couple of years and competed as skilled bicycle riders. They had begun in BMX; Eli later focused on half-pipe, while Abe concentrated more on flatland competition, though both were good at urban riding. These events happened elsewhere, but the pier is where Auden hears the history and begins to understand the loss behind Eli’s reserve.

The Fisherman and the Departure

During the conversation, a sudden burst of noise draws Auden’s attention behind the group. One fisherman hauls something over the pier rail; it flops and catches the light before he lowers it behind a tackle box and out of sight. The other people fishing notice, then return to their lines. The brief interruption places a concrete act of concealment beside the personal history being brought into the open, without the scene explaining what the fisherman has caught.

When the group is ready to leave, Maggie asks whether Auden wants a ride back to Heidi’s. Auden looks down the pier toward the boardwalk and the road beyond, where streetlights break up the darkness, and declines. She plans to get more coffee before going home. Esther questions whether coffee will keep her awake; Auden says it will not. The exchange leaves the pier as a threshold between the group’s late-night conversation and Auden’s continuing solitude.