“Yes. And I didn’t feel it was fair to confide in Mel. It felt as if I’d be forcing her to pick sides. So I went home and I shut myself in my room. My stepmother came in. She wanted to know what was wrong. Normally I wouldn’t have told her. We didn’t have that kind of relationship. But I was upset, and she was there, so I told her and—” She paused, feeling the pain of it even after so many years.

“Knowing Denise, I’m guessing she wasn’t sympathetic.”

“Worse. She said she wasn’t surprised you’d ended it with me. That I wasn’t an easy person to love. Unlovable—she used the word over and over. She said that if I had been easier to love, then maybe her relationship with me would have been better. She accused me of destroying her relationship with my father. Without me, they’d still be together. She thought my broken heart was karma.”

Nate threw the shell back into the ocean. “She was a cruel, vicious woman.”

“Yes. But when you’re feeling vulnerable it’s easy to believe bad things. Her words soaked in. Unlovable—that’s what I took from that day, and when I dragged myself to work in the café that night, it was how I felt.” She’d wondered if people could see it in her as she walked around taking orders and clearing tables. She felt as if it was stamped on her forehead. Unlovable.

“And then there was Cliff, with all his money and charm.”

“He paid me attention when I’d all but decided that I deserved none. He gave me a way out. I hadn’t even known I wanted a way out at that point, but when he asked me to go with him it felt like a fresh start. The thought of staying in Silver Point and seeing you all the time—I couldn’t do it. Nor did I want to go home. My stepmother was there and I didn’t want to speak to her again. Living there with her was unbearable. I hated it as much as she did. I knew we couldn’t share the same space.”

“She had a responsibility toward you. You shouldn’t have been the one to leave.”

“I needed to.” She watched as a couple walked hand in hand along the shoreline.

“Can I ask you a question?”

What could he ask that she hadn’t already been asked by someone else, probably a stranger? “Yes.”

“I know better than to believe everything I read, but—” He looked at her. “Did he make you happy?”

Once, she would have found that question difficult to answer, but talking it through with him had given her a clarity that had been missing for her over the years.