If Willa were to look up, she would see slivers of clear sky and a few stars peeking out from between the clouds that plagued her all day. But she keeps her head down, her footsteps in concert with her head—I hate her, I hate her, I hate her—as she walks back to the boat. She climbs aboard and sits on the cabin top as she punches the speed-dial button for home.

Her mom is working tonight and usually silences her cell phone while she’s on the clock, but Willa wants to leave a voice mail to warn her that she’s coming home. Except someone who is not her mom answers on the second ring. Steve. The guy who sleeps over at their apartment whenever he and his on-again/off-again girlfriend are off. Sometimes he stays a night, sometimes several, but he always leaves.

Willa doesn’t dislike him. In fact, she can tell he was kind of cute in high school because the outline of his eighteen-year-old self is still there. She understands why her mom likes him, but what Willa can’t understand is why her mom is content to be someone’s backup plan when she deserves to be someone’s first choice.

“Willa? You there?” His voice is gravelly, and in the background her mom sings along to an old Foo Fighters song.

Not at work.

Something inside her cracks open and Willa is just . . . done. Done worrying about the car repairs. Done making sure the bills are paid on time. Done being afraid her mom will lose her job (again). Willa pivots her arm and flings the phone as hard as she can. It arcs high before it drops into the water and disappears. She feels a surge of panic as she realizes she will have to pay for a replacement, but Willa is done worrying about that, too. It’s her mom’s turn to worry.

“Did you just—” Taylor stops in front of Willa, her mouth falling open as she looks at the spot where the phone splashed down.

“I have nothing to say to you.”

“I came to offer you a ride home,” Taylor says defensively. “Campbell can bring the boat back to Sandusky tomorrow.”

“You completely ruined my summer.”

“You can come work at the farm stand.”

Willa gives a strangled cry. “You stood in front of Finley’s ashes, called me a bitch, and I still showed up! Now you get to just walk away? Fuck you, Taylor. I’m going to Key West.”

“For real?”

Willa has no idea if her money will hold out the whole way or how she’s going to sail by herself for two months, but she is not going to give Taylor the satisfaction of seeing her uncertainty. Her voice is cold as she says, “It’s what Finley wanted.”

Taylor looks away first.