“See ya!” Lucy called over her shoulder as she jogged toward her boyfriend, waiting on the beach for her with his dogs. He took off his cap and waved it at me.

As the warm sunlight outside enveloped me, I almost—almost—forgot the cold dread that had gone through me when I heard of Elodie’s return. My eyes sought out my lighthouse, small and distant above me. The place where we’d met most often, the one place in town no one would see us. And so, of course, it was the place where El felt the most comfortable. It was the only place she could be herself. The only place we could be a we.

What would I say to her if she really was coming back? Would she even want to see me? Did I even want to see her?

A boat coming back to shore blew its horn, a sharp, trumpeting sound that rattled me out of my thoughts. I felt like a girl overboard.

But it turned out there was no mayday call for returning ex-girlfriends.

It was at the most beautiful moment of firefly twilight, when the sun had dipped just beyond the water, that I reached my best friend Penny Wang’s houseboat. It was far enough from the beach that we were away from everyone’s prying eyes, so Penny probably didn’t think twice before waving me onto the deck with a bottle of beer in one hand and her phone in the other.

“Hey,” I said, flip-flops thwacking against the pier.

“You took your sweet time getting here,” she said in response, tipping the bottle to her lips. She sat cross-legged on the deck, phone balanced on one thigh. “I was just about to text you.”

I joined her, sinking down and letting my back rest against the wall. “Everyone we know is out on the beach. Hard not to stop when everyone wanted to talk. Isn’t it weird how all the people we didn’t talk to in high school are suddenly acting like they’re going to miss us?”

Penny snorted. “Graduation messed with their brains.” She twirled her finger in circles next to her ear. “They’re living in some parallel universe where we give a shit.”

“Maybe in some universe we do,” I said, laughing.

She typed something furiously on her phone before turning it facedown on her thigh. “All the me’s in all the universes hate them unequivocally.”

I didn’t even have to think about it. “Then all the me’s do, too.”

“That’s why you’re my best friend,” she said, bumping her arm against mine.

We stared out across the water, letting the silence last. I hoped she felt just as warm and squishy inside as I did. “So you won’t believe this,” I said.

“Hmm?”

“Elodie’s coming back home.” I let the bombshell drop, satisfied to see the surprise on Penny’s face.