“Please do not say you need space, because that’s a bullshit excuse.”

“I miss Finley so much I can’t breathe,” she says.

“And breaking up with me is gonna fix that?”

“Probably not.”

He sits there for the longest time, softly drumming his thumb against the steering wheel. Finally, he sighs and says, “Okay.”

That one little word rips Taylor open as though Brady is the one doing the breaking up. Tears trickle down her cheeks as she opens the car door and rain batters her face. “I’m sorry.”

Brady doesn’t look at her, but he nods. “Me too.”

As Taylor walks down the dock, she isn’t sure she made the right decision. There’s so much she’ll miss about Brady, like picnics on the rocks at the Marblehead lighthouse. Sharing an armrest at the movies as they held hands. Kissing him in the driveway until her dad flickered the porch light to signal that it was time to come inside. But Brady deserves someone who loves him as much as Taylor loved Finley.

Willa notices her tears as she comes into the cabin. “Are you okay?”

“I just broke up with Brady.”

“Wow.” Willa blinks with surprise. “Do you, um—do you want to talk about it?” The sympathy in her voice touches a raw nerve. Taylor is not used to sharing such personal things with anyone other than Finley.

“Let’s just go.”

“Sure. Okay.” Willa is already wearing her foul-weather overalls, but she pulls on her jacket and twists her curls up into a bun. “For what it’s worth, I’m really sorry.”

There are no other boats on the bay as they motor through rain and sloppy waves past Cedar Point and beyond the breakwall into Lake Erie. Willa turns the boat toward the east, keeping a healthy distance between them and the shoreline. Sometimes, on a clear day, you can see hints of the islands to the north, but today the lake disappears into a gray haze. At the dock, the boat seemed sturdy and safe, but now it feels vulnerable, and all of Taylor’s fears slam into her at once. The bagel she ate for breakfast comes back as a puddle on the cockpit floor, but Willa doesn’t even spare a glance in her direction. As the rain slowly washes the vomit down the scupper holes in the floor, Taylor tucks herself into the smallest shape she can manage and tries not to cry.

She grows accustomed to the relentless rhythm of the waves after a couple of hours and some ginger ale to calm her stomach. Taylor is able to go into the cabin long enough to make sandwiches for lunch, but Willa does all of the driving. Willa is the one who stands on the wet deck to adjust the sails, the one who keeps the compass pointing in the right direction.