Curiosity rose in me. Why was Grace here? Her kids were half grown and she had plenty of money. I mean, the mommune was fun and all, but didn’t it kind of have an expiration date? “Merit, come on. We live in the same freaking house. You can’t just brush me off and pretend nothing’s happening.”

He turned toward me again, examining my face, as if trying to decide something. Then he looked back at the water, picking up little fingerfuls of sand and letting them dribble back onto the beach. “My mom wasn’t good after my dad left. She just… I don’t know, couldn’t get out of bed, couldn’t take care of us. If it wasn’t for Julie…” He shook his head, and I realized his eyes were shining.

He looked at me again. “Look, my whole life right now is about making sure my mom doesn’t get upset. Because when she gets upset, she hides. She becomes someone else. So my whole job and Emma’s whole job is to make sure she’s okay.”

“Merit, that is so much pressure.” Guilt swamped me. Here I was bitching about moving to New York, and Merit was dealing with, like, real, heavy, grown-up stuff. “So that’s how you got to the mommune then?”

He nodded. “Julie finally took Emma and me. It was months before she convinced my mom to move in too. Julie and Alice just kind of took care of us all that time. It was awful, but I know we’re lucky. We had this awesome place to go. And my mom is good now. She’s better.”

I shook my head. “Gosh, Merit. How do you do everything you do and have all that on you? I mean, you have good grades, you’re the star quarterback…” I trailed off.

He shrugged. “I know this sounds crazy, but for a while I think I thought if I could just be good enough, just be the best, that maybe my dad would come back and then my mom would be happy.”

Sadness washed over me. Who would have imagined that Juniper Shores Prep’s golden boy was carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders?

“I realize now that that isn’t going to happen. But I still want to keep things perfect for my mom, just in case. I worry about her all the time.”

I patted his arm. “I guess I don’t worry about my mom enough.”

He shrugged. “It’s not your job. It’s not mine either. But here we are.”

“Being a good person is complicated,” I said, sighing heavily, somewhere between serious and joking.

Merit put his hand on my arm. “You are a good person. The best person.”