“Hey. Hey.” Reese reached over, taking an exit. His hand touched my leg, softly rubbing back and forth. “I’m sorry, okay? My brother shit? It’s just that: a shit show. I’m sorry for being short.”

“I don’t care if you’re short. Honestly. Just…”

We were back here. I was pushing, or prompting, and scared to do that. But that’s what was normal, right? Or was I wrong?

I started laughing, wiping away the tears. “I don’t know how to do this, whatever this is.” I motioned between us. “I went from a seven-year relationship to a three-month regret. Now I’m here, and…” It wasn’t the same, so not the same. “Is this healthy?”

Reese slowed at the intersection, taking a right. We were pulling away from the city, moving onto a road that wound along the shoreline. It was gorgeous. Trees. Long stems of grass sticking up in the air. White tree limbs on the ground. Rocks.

I thought Minnesota was pretty, but this was different. It has a more majestic, grander feel to it. Larger.

“My house isn’t too far ahead,” Reese said. “Traffic normally sucks here, but we got lucky today.”

“That’s nice.”

We’d been on the interstate for most of the trip, but now on the smaller roads, I felt a calm settling into my bones. It didn’t make sense, though I wasn’t going to fight it or try to explain. Watching the ocean, the waves rippling over the surface, I was struck by the vastness.

“We have lakes where I live. They’re pretty and calming, but they’re small.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” I wasn’t at all sure what I was saying. “You know there are boundaries. Your danger is more from drowning, not being pulled away by an undercurrent and taken out to sea.”

But despite the danger, there was something freeing about driving along the shore. And just like that, I knew I wasn’t talking about the different bodies of water.

Damian was a lake. He had made me feel trapped. Caged in.

Reese was this shoreline, the edge of something new, something freeing.

“You okay?” He slowed the truck, turning onto another road.

We moved away from the shoreline to drive past houses now.

“Yeah.” The word caught in my throat. “So. Roman…” My voice squeaked, and I smoothed my one hand down my leg. “You share now.”

He grinned, glancing over. “Need a subject change?”

“Drastically.”

“Fair enough.” He inclined his head. “But we’re almost to my place, and you’ll see for yourself.”

“What?” Did he mean…?