Every night Katie checked on the moon to make sure it still hung by the invisible forces above, as if the moon could be anywhere else but the sky. She always wanted to know that Luna followed her as her grandfather had told her it did. It hadn’t disappointed her yet.

Spring in Bluffton, South Carolina, was thick and swollen with possibility and, running outside, Katie felt the earth in her body. She and Jack walked down the stone pathway that led to the May River—her river—a flowing body of water so wide and rich that Katie believed the world must have been born in its basin. Scientists were wrong about where the world started because her river was the original Garden of Eden. Jack took her hand, winding his fingers through hers like the kudzu that twined over her front porch lattice.

They sat on a shattered oak log, quiet until Jack spoke. “I can’t believe you aren’t grounded. I mean, my dad would have made me pick out my belt if I’d been caught by mean Mr. Proctor like that.”

“Well, you’re a boy and you can’t say that around girls, but the best I can figure is that it matters more why you say something than if you say it. If I’d have said that to my stupid little sisters or the teacher, I’d have been locked in my room for a week, but I said it because I fell and landed almost inside the earth.”

Jack laughed. “I love the way you say things. You’re funny, Katie.”

And then he did the one thing, the only thing, she’d ever wanted him to do—he kissed her right there under a half moon next to her favorite river. It was a quick kiss, his lips brushing hers and releasing before she could fully kiss him in return. He turned away. “Guess I should’ve asked first,” he said.

“Ask me now.”

He looked at her and smiled. That kiss—the second one—was even better than the first. Katie considered it the real first kiss because it lasted long enough for her to taste the lemonade on his lips.

They sat in silence, crickets singing their praises, or so Katie believed.

Jack dug his forefinger into a hole of the log, plucking out dirt and flicking it onto the ground. “So, you’re my girlfriend now, right?”

Katie stared at Jack with what she hoped was an adorable wide-eyed look. “Of course.”

“You know, today is the first day of spring,” Jack said. “And my crazy mother believes that anything you promise on the first day of spring is a promise you can never, ever break.”

“I didn’t promise anything today,” Katie said. “So nothing to break…yet.”

“Me neither.”

“Well, I better get home for dinner or I will be grounded,” Katie said.