I push a strand of hair behind my ear, try to find my feet even as the ground shifts. How many times have we had this conversation? “How long have you been back?”

“N . . . n-ot long; only a couple of weeks, actually, and in case you’re w . . . w-orried”—his smile is warm, eyes soft, and I feel my neck muscles relax the tiniest bit—“we ran into each other for the first t . . . t-ime yesterday. You wrote it down.” He shifts his weight, seems hesitant. “Do you, um, do you want to . . .” He pauses again, mouth shaped in a half whistle, and I wait because this I remember so well. The stuttering and the way some words catch in his throat, refusing to come out. When he was a boy, the effort would turn his cheeks red, and he would often give up, choosing silence over talking. But not with me. It never bothered me because I loved whatever he had to say, and I would wait for however long it took for him to say it. Finally, the words escape his mouth: “Have coffee or tea or something?” His hair is cut shorter than when he was younger but messy in the way I remember. My fingers tingle with a desire to run my hands through it. “We have a lot to catch up on, Claire.”

“You’re married,” I say, and nearly wince at how blunt it sounds.

His eyes widen. “I was, but that was a long t . . . t-ime ago, Claire. She’d already left when you called, and n . . . n-ow I have . . .” His mouth is open but nothing comes out.

He only stuttered badly around me when he was nervous. Why is he nervous? I breathe through my teeth. Because I’m brain damaged?

He slumps forward, seems to change tactics. “I didn’t w . . . w-ant to run into you like this. I’m sorry.” He gives me a look. “Do you w . . . should you write this down, Claire?”

My body jolts into action, and I’m relieved to have something else to focus on. I’m writing before I’ve even had time to think about the words. Tate Dunn is back in Whittier and he’s old. I scratch out old and write older.

“Are you living here now?” I can’t meet his eyes, afraid he’ll hear the excited thumping of my heart or sense how desperate I am for his answer.

He rubs the back of his neck, shakes his head. “Yes . . . I am.”

I tilt my head, skeptical. Tate said he’d never move back to Whittier. Not as long as his dad was alive. “Why?”