Georgie had continued his verbal assault, following Justin in a circuit around the room.
“SHUT UP!”  It had been rare that Justin actually raised his voice.

“MAKE ME, JUSTIN JEA–”

In an instant, Justin had grabbed Georgie by his shirt and shoved him against the day bed.

“Are you going to shut up now?”

“MOOMMMMMM!”  His alliteration had given way to his second-favorite phrase.  “MOMMM!!   MOMMM!!”

“STOP!” Chris had said, trying to pry them apart.

Chris’ aunt having been away that day at a house-construction symposium, Georgie’s strident pleas had brought Chris’ stepfather into the fray instead.

“ENOUGH!”  Like Justin, he too rarely raised his voice in anger.  His bald pate had begun to grow pink.  “DISENGAGE!”

“Disengage?” Chris had briefly wondered, safely inside his head.  His stepfather was prone to what seemed unwitting anachronisms.  Which were often funny to him, but on this particular afternoon, there had been no impetus to laugh.

“STOP IT!  All of you.”

Georgie had bolted from Justin’s just-released grip, running around the coffee table, tears streaming down his cheeks.  “HE-”

“I don’t want to hear it.”  He had looked at Chris, accusingly and with a hint of disappointment.  “I expected better of you.”

“I didn’t do anything!”

“You were GOADING HIM ON.”

“I was no–”

“Yes, you were!”

“You can’t blame m–”

“YOU WERE GOADING.  HIM.  ON.”  He had reached a level of sternness that, uncharacteristic as it had been, had both taken Chris aback and infuriated him.

“I’M GOING TO LIVE WITH MY FATHER!”

The door had slammed behind him, leaving that phrase in the already-charged air, looming over the childish squabble as if a large, hulking shadow had entered the room and towered over his stepfather, while invisible to his cousins.

Chris had stalked to the edge of the rock outcropping next to the dock, and made his way to the glistening, jagged landscape that, at low tide, was the mutually-agreed-upon playground where he and his cousins invented adventures involving Star Wars figures and whatever crabs were too slow to escape young and surprisingly deft hands.  Chris had always felt comfortable there; it was a place of imagination and laughter, and that day had been the first one that had brought other emotions — a sudden and new amalgam of rage and fear — into it.