She thought about Ashley. A failure? Are you kidding? You’re a survivor. An inspiration.

Her marriage to Cliff had been complicated, but in the beginning at least there had been friendship and hope. Love? She wasn’t sure. Cliff had been there for her at the lowest point of her life, when she’d been bruised and vulnerable. She hadn’t felt lovable, and yet he’d loved her in his own way. It hadn’t been the kind of wild, romantic love she’d shared with Nate, but given the way that had ended, she’d been more than happy to consign that depth of emotion and all the emotional bruises that came with it to the past.

Cliff had been a friend to her, and in return she’d been a friend to him.

Nate rubbed sand from the surface of the shell and then glanced at her. “You’re saying I put you off love?”

In a way he had. “I was young. I didn’t know what to do with all those feelings when you—”

“When I ended it. I didn’t mean for you to leave, Joanna. Not for one moment did I think you’d leave.”

She remembered the way she’d felt when Nate had kissed Whitney. She’d decided right then that she didn’t want to live her life watching Nate kiss his way through a succession of other women and pretending that she didn’t care. Maybe if they’d lived in a city it would have been different. They could have led separate lives, their movements rarely intersecting, but here in Silver Point where everyone knew everyone, she’d be caught in a web of emotional connections.

She hadn’t wanted to have to wear her brave face every day, and she hadn’t wanted people feeling sorry for her. She’d wanted to start again. She’d wanted to wipe the past where she’d been Joanna-and-Nate and redesign herself as Joanna. She couldn’t imagine how to do that. She hadn’t known how to hear a joke and not laugh with him, how to see something beautiful and not share it with him. He’d been there for every one of the low points in her life, but then he’d become her low point and she’d had to find a way to get through it on her own.

“For me there was no other way. If Cliff hadn’t come along when he did, I would have left, anyway.” And maybe what she’d felt for Cliff wasn’t love in the way she’d known love, but she’d been happier, felt safer, with the simpler friendship she and Cliff shared.

“I’m sorry you felt you needed a new life.” He hesitated. “Joanna—”

“We don’t need to talk about it, Nate.” She turned her head and smiled at him. “It’s all in the past.”

“What if I want to? What if there are things I need to say? Would you listen?”