As soon as we break for lunch, I grab a few slices of pizza off the buffet and hurry over to where Willa is waiting in the doorway with her own tray. She leads me down the hall, through what looks like a conference room, and toward another door. I figure maybe she’s taking me to her office, so I’m surprised when the door opens directly out onto the sea porch.

“I thought we could eat out here,” she says. “The afternoon breeze is always nice after being cooped up inside all morning.”

“Sure,” I say, and I slide onto the picnic table bench across from her.

For just an instant, I have another flash of five-year-old me hiding under the table. Hands over my ears.

I see my mother’s gold strappy sandals. Her pink toes.

And I freeze.

But then Willa reaches across the table and takes my hand, and there is so much warmth in her touch that it pulls me back to the present. My eyes fill up with tears, and I don’t even know why. I’ve never been a crier. Ever. At least not before I came to Whisper Cove.

“Oh, Avril,” Willa says. “I don’t even know where to start.”

“Me, either,” I say, and that makes us both smile a little.

“You probably know this, but Nicole and I weren’t much older than you when we met as college freshmen. Very first day of classes.” Something so sad crosses Willa’s face. It’s almost like looking into an open wound. She lets go of my hand and picks up her fork, but she doesn’t touch her salad. “We were inseparable for the next four years,” she says. “Just the two of us against the world.”

“I wish I could remember her,” I admit, and that is the hugest understatement ever. But anything more than that feels precarious. Dangerous, even. I might slip and fall. And I learned a long time ago that hurt is like quicksand. It’ll suck me under if I let it. Best to tiptoe around the edges. Not say too much. Hold on to the rope.

“Why didn’t you tell us who you were when you sent in your application?” Willa is staring at me like she’s looking for clues. Or resemblances, maybe. I wonder if she sees that I have my mother’s eyes.

“I didn’t want that to be the reason I got accepted. I wanted to earn it on my own, you know?”

“That’s exactly what your mother would have said.” Willa forks a little tomato and pops it into her mouth, and I force myself to take a nibble of pizza. I have to choke it down. It’s like I’ve forgotten how to chew. “It would mean so much to Nicole to know that you’re an actress. Like she was.”