At her next turn at the helm, Taylor cues up the playlist she made together for the trip. Or, more accurately, threw together in the middle of the night because right now there is no music that feels good to Taylor’s soul. It hurts to remember the adventures that went along with her best friend’s favorite songs. She wants to believe that one day she will be okay, but that day seems so far away. Taylor touches the face of her phone and the music stops.

“Why’d you turn it off?” Willa comes out of the cabin with a bowl of white rice drizzled with Tiger sauce. Taylor never quite understood the appeal of plain rice, even with a splash of peppery sauce, until Finley quietly explained that rice is super cheap and stretches a long way on a budget. Taylor has never known an empty pantry—they even have a second refrigerator in the garage for beer and soda—so she wonders now if Willa actually likes rice.

“This playlist sucks,” Taylor says.

“Sounds fine to me.”

“It’s just a bunch of recycled stuff from other playlists,” she says. “It doesn’t have any meaning.”

Willa pokes at the rice with her fork. “Kind of like this trip.”

Taylor wants to be pissed, but Willa is not wrong. So far, this trip sucks too. “Kind of.”

“Without Finley, we’re adrift . . . some of us more than others obviously.”

At the note of humor in Willa’s voice, Taylor scratches her nose with her middle finger and they both laugh.

“I thought for sure you were pissed about that,” Taylor says.

“I was,” Willa admits. “But, I mean—the Coast Guard showing up is exactly the kind of thing Finley would have loved.”

“Totally.”

They fall silent, and Taylor thinks maybe this trip isn’t the kind that comes preloaded with a soundtrack. Maybe they have to find the music as they go.

Willa

ONE OF THE BIGGEST MYTHS about sailing is that it’s romantic. The ads in fashion magazines feature impossibly beautiful people draped across the glossy teak decks of old wooden sailboats, clad in jaunty nautical stripes or glamorous ball gowns. Holding ropes that lead to nowhere. But Ralph Lauren never mentions the bugs, the inescapable heat of the midday sun, or the long stretches of boredom—the kind Willa and Taylor experience as they huddle beneath the beach umbrella, trying not to get fried as they make the crossing to Port Colborne.