Sleep had escaped me again last night, and as I’d lain awake staring up at the ceiling, I’d kept replaying the question, have I missed what’s been right in front of me this whole time? over and over in my head. Sure, Bell had been two years younger than me, but she’d been adorably cute. Had I missed all that she brought to my life because I’d been distracted by Violet’s classic beauty? Vi and I had made sense. Starting string of the football team and one of the varsity cheerleaders. It seemed so cliché now, so…empty. I’d loved her in the way an eighteen-year-old boy could, but we had no real depth. We knew each other’s coffee orders and each other’s bodies, but did we know anything that lay below the surface? I wasn’t sure anymore.

“That’s life, Ford. Nothing is as black and white as we want it to be. It’s all shades of gray. All we can do is try to make the best choices with what’s placed in front of us.”

I started out down the beach, kicking a rock as I went. “That’s the problem, I don’t know what the hell to do. For the longest time, I thought Bell hated me because I was the one driving that night. I was sure she’d never be able to forgive me. So, I stayed away. Turns out it was the staying away that hurt her more than anything. She never blamed me.”

“Of course she didn’t. It was an accident.”

“But now, we’re in this weird space of getting to know each other again, and there are all of these landmines. You never know if one false step will make one blow up in your face.”

Austin sighed. “I know how that feels.” He certainly did. Austin and his now-wife, Carter, had a falling out that had lasted a year. When they came back together, it had been more than a little dicey for him. “You just have to give her time. And more than anything, you need to prove that you aren’t going to leave her again.”