Silas could still remember driving to see Sarah after Lily told him. It was May, so close to graduation, and spring had sprung all over their small town. He drove the whole way with shaking hands, Lily’s tears still wet on the collar of his T-shirt. When he pulled into the school parking lot, he saw Sarah waiting for him, bare legs nestled in the grass of the baseball diamond.

The truth was this: in Silas’s brief but only time on this earth, happiness had been a beautiful lie. An intended kindness, like Santa Claus or God, just convincing enough to make him feel ashamed of his skepticism, and double down. But then he kissed Sarah Kelly for the first time, and he knew that his happiness was only a fraction of the real deal. The appetizers at a buffet. A cut drug. But happiness can be cruel. If they hadn’t gone for that first walk, if he hadn’t felt her tongue in his mouth as they pressed against that tree in the dark, Silas would’ve thought—rather satisfied—that the happiness he had known thus far was as much happiness as any one person could know. He would’ve felt lucky for his crumbs, mistaking them for meals. Because the truth was he didn’t know he was starving until he tasted her. Until then, he believed himself fed.

Silas watched her in the sun, his hands on the steering wheel. But he was just seventeen, and his words had yet to catch up to his feelings. So eventually, he turned the key in the ignition and left.

—

NOTHING WOULD’VE LASTED WITH Sarah; he knew that. He would’ve met another girl in college, maybe a handful. Maybe more. The names Lily and Sarah would have become nothing but rose-colored associations—or some other, murkier color. Soft-skinned girls who contributed to his creation, who pulled off small parts of themselves to make him more durable. Other names would’ve taken on meaning. Annabelle, maybe. Or Elizabeth.

Or Ruth.

As soon as he thought it, as if by his will alone, there she was.

She stood on the edge of the clearing like the rest was dangerous. Or maybe it was the opposite. Maybe she was the danger and the rest was sacred.

“Mr. Harrison?”

“Hi, Ruth,” Silas said, not looking up. He found the plastic that once held a six-pack and threw it behind him.

“I don’t mean to bother you.”

Silas sighed and straightened up, wiping his brow again.

“You’re not bothering me.”

“I want you to know—last night wasn’t Mickey’s fault. It was mine. It was my idea. I basically made her do it.”

Silas looked at Ruth, using one arm to block the sunlight, and realized what it was about her that kept him looking long after he should stop. She looked like Sarah.