“I did love you,” Lulu says. She sounds as helpless as she feels.

“I do love you,” he says. This is the worst, best thing about Owen. He’s so smart, and he’s so brave, and he’ll just say things. True things. Important things. “But it’s a good thing for both of us that we’re over.”

Lulu feels something leave her. It’s effortless, like a wave rushing away from the shoreline. She’s been clutching at the edges of her old life like if she clung hard enough she might get to keep it. As if everything hadn’t already changed. As if she really would have wanted it back if she could have it.

And now, just like that, she understands: It’s gone. It’s been gone.

And now she’s nothing but scared. She has no idea what happens next.

“I love you,” she says. “I still love you.”

Owen comes to sit next to her. When he wraps an arm around her, she turns into his embrace and lets him hold her.

It’s not until she’s done crying, and raises her head to see the wet spot that she’s made on his T-shirt, that it occurs to her that it was sort of a gross thing for her to do.

Owen is the first person she’s ever been unself-consciously gross around. Sometimes it still feels like he’ll be the last too. The only.

“I love you too, Lulu,” Owen says. “Always, okay?”

It’s the first time he’s ever said it and not kissed her after. Lulu notes the absence. She allows herself to notice that it aches, but also that the pain is duller than it used to be. It’s a little bit distant now. No longer a fresh wound. Instead she feels the particular dullness of the beginnings of a scar.

Downstairs, Kiley is asleep in the tent. Owen kneels at the entrance, about to crawl in and wake her. “I’ve got to get her home,” he says. “She has curfew soon.”

“You good to drive, man?” Ryan asks.

“I’m good,” Owen says. “I quit drinking a few hours ago.”

Ryan turns to Lulu. “What about you, Shapiro?” he asks. “Up for more?”

“You know,” Lulu says. “I’m not.”

She can’t remember the last time she was this tired. She can’t remember the last time she went home before she was sure the night was well and truly over. She never admits to her friends that she’s tired. She never says out loud that sometimes, she’d really rather be alone. “I might call myself a Ryde or something.” It’ll be expensive, and even pricier to get back to pick her car up tomorrow. But she can’t stay here anymore.

“Suit yourself,” Ryan says. He turns away.