I stared at her. She was deflecting, trying to unload the responsibility of her decisions on me. The moment was maple-candy brittle. “I don’t want to be anything, El. I’m just done. We’re done.”

Elodie inhaled, but it sounded like a horrible, shaky gulp. “But I want to be with you.”

“You say that, but for how long?” I challenged her. “I want more than a summer, El. I want more than keeping secrets and sneaking up here because you’re too scared to go anywhere else. I don’t judge you or hate you for not being ready, but I’ve been out for years. I’m not ready to go back in just so I don’t draw attention to you. I’m sorry.”

“Do you want me to—”

“No,” I blurted out, reading the question in her eyes. “I don’t want you to do anything you’re not ready for. Especially if you’d only be doing it for me. If you come out … it should be for you. But I don’t think I can do this again.”

She shoved her chair back, hard enough to scrape, and stood, shoulders quaking. I was a bystander to her pain, too shattered myself to do anything to help. Tears streaming down her face, dripping from her chin, she streaked past me.

I followed after her. She’d left the front door open on her way out. I wrapped my arms around myself as I stood in the doorway, eyes focused on the road Elodie had taken to return to town. My shoulders ached with renewed discomfort. The weight of a first love was no small burden. It was a heavy anchor. Looking out the window, at the beach tinged with the dusky pinks and purples of sunset, I knew my best thinking wouldn’t be done at home.

I could see the moon. The sky was a purple gray, and the houses of Oar’s Rest twinkled with light. Lorcan’s crab shack still boasted an impressive mini-army of couples and families within a twenty-foot radius.

A book lay in my lap, a page fluttering in the breeze. Walt Whitman’s words swayed, an unintelligible rippling of letters. I dropped my finger from where it was keeping my place. Though I had been out here for a while, I was no closer to figuring out what to do.