“THANK YOU FOR COMING all the way to New Hampshire to get me,” Lily said when Gavin picked her up from the local diner, his front seat stained from an ice pop that had dripped down the chubby wrist of his little girl, and warm all over from the long ride. “Where should we go now?”

Lily had relaxed some during dinner; just the act of eating until she was full was so novel, it made her a little high. But now she didn’t know what she wanted. The thought of a motel room turned her stomach; all that anonymity felt like a step backward.

She wanted to go home, but she didn’t know what that meant.

“Hello to you too,” Gavin said, adjusting his mirror.

“I’m sorry,” she said, stroking the hair behind his ear. “Hello.” But when she leaned in to kiss him, he didn’t meet her.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

Gavin laughed. It sounded unlike any of his other, more inclusive laughs.

“You weren’t thinking about that before you told Silas everything, so why ask now?”

Lily froze. She had never heard Gavin talk like that. Like he was acquainted with spite. But, she realized, she hadn’t even thought about what this would mean for him.

“Shit, Gav,” she said. “I’m so sorry. He saw your text. And I thought—because of all the conversations we’ve had—I guess I wasn’t thinking, really. I can tell him it was all me; I could tell him you—”

“Stop,” he said, shaking his head. “What’s done is done.”

When he said nothing else, Lily made a conscious effort to suck every meager drop of comfort out of those words that she could. Even after she ate her fill, parts of her remained hungry.

“Why did you text me?” she asked, after the silence started to hurt. “It wasn’t in the code we came—”

“Don’t pin this on me,” Gavin said as he flicked on his turning signal and pulled onto the road heading north, back toward the house. But then he softened. “You’re right; I’m sorry. I think it’s just being here.”

Lily opened her mouth to ask why but caught herself just in time.

“Of course,” she said.

It was too dark to see the woods, let alone the lake. But it was there. After a few minutes, he pulled over and turned off the lights.

“I know this isn’t the best time for you, but I can’t leave until I see it.”