Penny’s words from this morning ran through my mind. Seconds later, they overlapped with Elodie’s until I couldn’t even hear the words anymore, just the barrage of noise. Penny wanted me to be different, but when Elodie came to the lighthouse, she was clearly counting on me to be the same. What was the balance? Did anyone know, or was this a struggle that only my own fucked-up life dished out? Everything I thought I knew about my friends, about myself, now it was just replaced by giant question marks. My world was shaken, unsteady. I still couldn’t believe Elodie’s gall in coming to the lighthouse, in thinking our relationship was suspended in the same place after all this time.

Feet padded through the sand. Stopped right in front of me. “Hey.”

“Hey.” The words came automatically. I looked up, squinted.

Levi loomed above me, a large waffle cone in each hand. One was starting to drip. He folded his knees and sank into the warm sand beside me. He licked the white river of ice cream and held out the other one to me.

I took it, held it uncertainly for a moment, then scooped the tip of the ice cream off. “Thanks. What’re you doing here?”

“I was out for a walk. I saw you sitting here, so I went back to the ice cream shop to grab us a couple cones.”

The vanilla was cold and sweet on my tongue, coating my throat. “What if I’d left?” I asked, unable to hold back my curiosity.

He chuckled, the noise reverberating in his chest like the soft purr of an engine. “Then I guess I’d have eaten them both.” He saw my book and his smile deepened, his top lip thinning even further as his mouth stretched to accommodate his amusement.

“This?” I lifted the book, closing the front and back. “I found it on the beach. Half buried in the sand, like maybe someone left it here, went for a swim, and forgot about it.”

“You’re smiling.” He bumped his shoulder against mine. His eyelashes looked particularly golden in the twilight hour, the color of his eyes a haunted gray instead of a keen, piercing blue.

I took a swipe of ice cream. “I am. I came here to think, be alone—”

“Oh, sorry, I can just go—”

“No!” I blurted out. “I didn’t mean for you to leave. I can be alone with you here.”