Walking back to the house, I thought about how solid, how real he was, how warm and human, the dust-and-pollen scent of his hair, the seawater smell of his neck, the sound of his voice on the phone, the way life seemed to run through him like water through a sieve, coming out the other side cleaner and colder and better, his laugh, as refreshing as a cold drink. For several weeks now I’d known that I wanted to be the one to make Tuck laugh. But something new occurred to me. It wasn’t just that I liked Tuck, it was that I wanted to be like him. I wanted to laugh. I wanted to be alive like he was alive. When I said I wanted to be a normal person, what I meant was I wanted to be like Tuck.

Lucas didn’t come out of his room. All day there was the smell of Tuck grilling bluefish and scallops in the chilly yard. I stood outside Lucas’s bedroom and begged him to eat with us. But he wouldn’t. The dock stretched out into the blue water. The afternoon galloped into evening. We stood by the grill in the smoky winter light.

We made love in the dark in my narrow bed. In the morning we had breakfast at Mady’s. After breakfast, we walked to the empty information booth and Tuck kissed me there, in the shadowy booth, near the empty brochure racks.

“You want to sit?” he said.

Jim Cardoza came out and stood near us. He shook Tuck’s hand. Everyone knew something had happened. They knew Cole had hurt me. They knew he had vanished, and that the police were looking for him. They knew Tuck was here to help.

That night we walked to Jack’s for beer. We sat so our knees touched under the table. It went on like this for a few days. I felt again as if I were holding something fragile and precious in the palm of my hand. More precious because I knew any moment I might close my hand and feel it crushed beyond repair.

We waited for word from the police. We waited to hear they’d caught up with Cole—I mean Anthony—but as I suspected, they didn’t.

Then one night in bed, Tuck turned to me, touched my face. “I have to go,” he said. “I mean leave the island.”

“Oh,” I said, deflated but not surprised. “Okay. Of course you do. But I guess I just—when exactly?”

“Soon,” Tuck said. “I’ve decided to go back to school. Spring semester starts in January.”

“I guess you figured out what you want to do next.”

“Maybe,” he said.