“Then I heard you crying for help in the sea, and there was no doubt. You have a hot-girl voice. You should narrate books or something. Don’t go,” he says again as he goes to retrieve my dress, leaving me with all this information and my heart in my throat.

Basking in the compliment, I use my alone time to run my fingers through my tangled hair and wipe the runny mascara from my eyes. It’s going to be hard to seduce him when I probably look like a swamp creature. When he comes back, he is holding my dress and my purse, where I keep my cash and phone. He disposes both of them next to his backpack.

“Thanks,” I say.

“Are you feeling better?” He plops beside me.

“Eons better.” I shove my arms through my sleeves, dressing quickly. My body is pale and slender, peppered with freckles everywhere the sun touches.

“Good. I met Mainstream by the fire and told her you were with me and that you were fine.”

“What did she say?”

“That I’m fine too,” he deadpans.

I laugh.

We catch up on these last couple of weeks. I tell him about Barcelona. He tells me about Sevilla and Madrid. He’s here with three friends. All four of them are from Boston. The rest of his party is going back to their respective colleges at the end of the week. Joe is staying in Spain a little longer, then will go backpacking through Europe alone in hopes of finishing his book. “Romania, Poland, Hungary, Italy, and France.” He uses his fingers to count the countries. “I mapped it all out, including the hostels and bed-and-breakfasts I’ll be staying in. Shouldn’t take me more than four months to write the entire thing.”

Four months? He can’t be on a different continent for four months. He can’t be single and ridiculously attractive for four months. He can’t just continue existing like we never happened.

Only he can, and there is nothing I can do about it.

Tucking my crazy in, I decide not to broach the subject of us. The conversation flows, despite my crushing disappointment. I tell him about growing up in San Francisco. About Renn and his surfing, and about Mom’s gallery in the Castro. He tells me about his upbringing. Two Catholic parents, one sibling, and an ocean of unsolved issues.

I tell him about my art.

This is the part where I expect him to freak out. It’s not every day you meet an eighteen-year-old who designs headstones as a hobby.

“It’s less sinister than it sounds.” I lick my lips, already on the defense.

“You design headstones, not kill babies for a living.” His eyes sparkle with amusement. “But I’m sure there’s a story behind it.”

“When I was, like, eight, my cousin Shauna died in a boating accident. She was only fifteen. My mom wanted me to attend the funeral, but Dad thought I was too young. There was a lot of back-and-forth between them. In the end, they left it for me to decide. I wanted to go. Shauna and I had been close. It was the first time I’d visited a cemetery. I remember looking around and thinking, All these headstones look the same. How is that possible? We’re so different from each other when we’re alive. Why are our personalities reduced to nothing when we’re dead?