“I don’t know.…” His brow furrows like he’s a little unsure, and he finally admits, “I wanted to get back in touch with you somehow, but I didn’t know how to go about doing it. When I found out about your website, at first, I thought it was the perfect way to reconnect. But then I lost my nerve to speak up, so I just sort of stayed in the shadows. I’m sorry. I should have told you sooner.”

“You should have told me!”

“You’re mad.”

“I’m not mad, I’m …”

“What?”

“I don’t know. I guess I’m hurt that you didn’t reach out to me and say hello,” I say, getting flustered. “No one in my family communicates normally, so I was led to believe … I thought your family moved away from Beauty, okay? I didn’t even know you were still here. We could have been friends online. Mom and I have come to visit every year or so—were you at Evie’s dad’s funeral?”

“We were out of town that weekend. We went to the wake the night before—”

Oh. Mom and I didn’t make it into town until late that night, after the wake.

I shake my head, “It doesn’t matter now. You should’ve told me it was you online.”

“I’m sorry, okay?” he says, a little angry … a little desperate.

We were so close, yet so far. Connected by my photos but separated by his anonymity. The sorrow of this catches me off guard and tightens inside my chest.

“I checked that old email account of mine for years, hoping you’d reply to my last email. You don’t know how lonely I was, Lucky.”

“About the same as me?” he challenges, dark eyes narrowing. “Or maybe a little less, seeing as how you got to leave, and I was stuck here, all alone. You were off seeing the world, but I was trapped.”

“Lucky, Mom and I were literally living in Section 8 housing before we moved to Beauty. Do you know what that is?”

“So? You haven’t been trapped. You’ve traveled. You’ve seen things.”

Oh, I’ve seen things, all right.

But … But. I guess I never thought about it that way. Maybe he has a point.

He lifts a hand. “Now look at you. Don’t even want to be here anymore. All you think about is running off to Malibu to live with a man you don’t even know—that’s how much you hate it here?”