From this point on, I kept thinking. From this point on. But I didn’t know how to finish that thought.

In my bedroom, Tuck and I stood by the window, looking out at the lawn, the dock, the dark water. We leaned toward one another and our shoulders touched.

“Why didn’t you wait for me?” Tuck asked.

“I meant to. But it just tumbled out. I don’t know.”

“Well, it’s progress I guess. The police will find him; the whole story will come out. This is good news. We should have a party. We should make a cake,” Tuck said.

Tuck lay on the floor beside my bed. I climbed under the covers and let my hand fall down to him. He held it.

“You never told me why you were all wet,” I said.

“I got off the ferry, and I saw you immediately,” he said. “I saw you swimming along the shore down by the landing. Yeah. I thought you’d gone totally crazy. And I yelled to you, but you wouldn’t look at me.”

I closed my eyes and leaned back on the pillow. I was so tired now, and it was that sweet heavy exhaustion, as powerful as a sleeping pill. “I was on the houseboat. And then I was in a rowboat,” I said. “You couldn’t have seen me.”

“It was you,” he insisted. “You were swimming out farther and farther. I went in after you like a fucking maniac. I followed you to the houseboat, but no one was there. I thought you drowned,” he said.

I squeezed his hand. “Still alive,” I said.

Cole didn’t show up in the night, not even in my dreams. But I couldn’t sleep for long. I woke up hearing voices. Tuck’s voice. Outside somewhere, out where it was cold. Then I realized he was here, with me, my hand still in his.

In the morning, my head ached. I was hungry, and we ate mountains of scrambled eggs, slice after slice of toast. Then Kim and Eddie showed up with bagels and cream cheese and we ate those, too.

“I don’t know exactly what happened last night, but it doesn’t sound good,” Eddie said. “I saw Sean Alameda this morning.”

“I don’t even know where to start,” I said.

Later, once Kim and Eddie had gone, Tuck and I sat at the end of the dock.

“Is Tuck your real name?” I asked him. I wasn’t sure why it occurred to me so suddenly.

“My real name,” he said, “is Jonathan.”

“Jonathan?” We began to laugh. “I don’t even know why that’s so funny,” I said.

“Jonathan Edward,” he said.

We howled with laughter. Laughed until tears rolled down our cheeks.

“It never felt right,” he said.

“Maybe names don’t matter after all,” I said.

When the laughter ended, we grew serious.