“Oh, I don’t know,” he says. “The shitty ones?” But then he stops. Puts the cigarette to his lips again. Takes another long drag. “Actually, the happy ones, maybe. The really good ones. Like the best fuckin’ ones. Those are the memories that hurt the worst sometimes. Right?”

It’s quiet for a long minute, and I stare out into the fog. It plays tricks with my depth perception. The light on the front porch of the big farmhouse, just across the little field, looks like it could be the light on a cargo ship far out at sea.

“Do you ever wonder,” I ask, “if maybe you’re dead?”

I feel like we’re drifting. Untethered. The only two people in the world. And that’s probably why I say it. Because it’s not something I’ve ever asked anyone else before. Not something I ever would have asked. Not in a million years.

But even though I’ve only known him a few hours, there’s just something about Lex that feels right. Something about him makes me feel seen.

Recognized.

Safe, maybe. As weird as that sounds.

He’s watching me. His cigarette smoke mingles with the fog. It floats lazy and thick around our heads. “I know this is crazy,” I tell him, “but something happened to me. A long time ago. And sometimes I have this thought that maybe I’m living out a scene from one of those movies where the main character doesn’t know she’s dead. You know? That she hasn’t survived the accident. Or whatever.”

Lex thinks about that for a few seconds, like it’s a totally normal question to ask an almost stranger.

“Sometimes I wonder if I’ve ever really been alive,” he finally says. “Is that the same thing?” He offers me the last of his cigarette, and I take it from his fingers and suck in hard before I hand it back to him so he can put it out on the porch steps. It makes me cough something awful, but I like the way it starts my head spinning.

“Yeah,” I choke out. Words wrapped in smoke. “I think maybe it is.”

A long, low sound reverberates through the still air—a sort of soothing, sustained baritone—and at first I can’t figure out what it could be. But then it comes again, and I realize it must be a foghorn.

I like the lonesomeness of it.

“I better get to bed,” Lex says, as if the foghorn had been some kind of reverse alarm clock. He stands up and stretches. “Night, Av.”

“Good night,” I say. I’m already falling in love with that Tennessee drawl of his. It makes me think I could get used to having a nickname. “See you in the morning.”