“What the hell else was I supposed to think?” The man glowered at her and strode off, his toddler still reaching for a box of crackers. Fighting with Kate felt familiar and good. “You never told me you were lonely. How was I supposed to believe you? I never knew. I missed every sign. How am I supposed to trust myself now?”

“Trust yourself—oh, Morgan.” Kate’s face cleared, and she put her hands over Morgan’s white-knuckled one. “I’m the one you shouldn’t trust, not yourself. I’m the one who didn’t say anything, who kept hoping I would find a way to make it work instead of telling you I was struggling. None of that was your fault. Do you really not know that?”

Morgan couldn’t speak.

“There is nothing wrong with you, Morgan.”

Her ex searched her eyes, and it occurred to her that Kate had no reason to lie now. They were no longer partners. They were no longer even friends, and while Kate’s face was full of compassion, her own heart did not ache at the tenderness in those eyes. She’d moved on. So had Kate. And if there really was nothing wrong with her, if the only thing keeping her away from Emilia was her own fear, then—

“I’m a fucking idiot,” she said to a very confused Kate. “Sorry. It was good to see you.”

“Morgan?”

“I have to go.” Abandoning her cart, she cut through the lines of people jostling around the cash registers and out into the parking lot. Early September sunshine blinded her as she jogged to her truck.

Emilia was still here, and she could either be a coward for the rest of her life or beg the woman she loved to forgive her for running.

She punched the accelerator as she hit the main road, cursing the slow drivers in front of her. Emilia probably wouldn’t vanish between now and when Morgan got to her house, but the depth of her own idiocy spurred her on. She couldn’t bear to let another minute pass.

Emilia’s car wasn’t in her driveway. Panic closed around her throat as she stared at the log house.

“Breathe,” she told herself. She could wait here. Emilia would be back eventually.

The seconds ticked by. A dog’s face appeared in the window, then vanished. Nell, at least, was home. She drummed her fingers on the steering wheel.

The dock. Putting the truck in reverse, she sped toward the harbor, spraying gravel, and slowed down to some semblance of the speed limit only when she left the back roads and hit traffic.