I shake my head. Was I hurt at the time? Of course. Does it still sting remembering how devastating it was to lose not one of the most important people in my life but both? Of course. But that was so long ago. And who we are now couldn’t be further from who we were then.

“We were kids, Fitz. I wasn’t your responsibility. But I liked seeing you that way today.”

“Like what?” he asks.

“Looking out for others.” I smile softly. “I bet you made a lot of core memories for those students. It’s nice to see how much of a role model you are.”

Fitz flinches awkwardly. “I’m not much of a role model. I⁠—”

He’s interrupted by his phone, which he silences. It’s Mr. Foller.

“Answer it,” I tell him.

Fitz slides his phone into his pocket. “No, he doesn’t matter as much as you.”

For a second, right on the dock, the world stops. It must be my brain taking a snapshot. Fitz has given me a core memory too, one I’ll want to hold onto when I’m on my own again.

I look down at my lap.

“What’s wrong?” Fitz asks.

I let out a trembling breath. “I just don’t think anyone’s ever said that before”—I lift my eyes to his before I finish my thought—“about me.”

“Said what about you?”

“That I matter.”

The admission, I realize, sours the mood. It scratches the surface of the truth that I’m too shattered, too embarrassed to ever even speak out loud. That I only matter to people when I serve a purpose to them, when I fit their mold. It’s sad. It’s exhausting. Conditional love is like strangulation you want terribly to break out of but can’t because something has to be better than nothing. Someone, no matter how they treat you, has to be better than no one. But I know now that’s not true. Because if people only love you at your best, they don’t really love you at all.

Tilting my head forward, I let my hair curtain my face so I can clear the tears that have gathered.

“You matter to me,” Fitz whispers. “You always have.”

I squeeze my eyes shut.

“Hey.” Fitz’s warm, thick finger tips my face up. “Can I remind you where you always mattered?”

Chapter 20

“They put up a gate?” I ask as Fitz slows, pulling over to the side of the road. “A wall?”

“Looks like it.” Fitz turns off the engine. “My mom sold her place not long after I left for college.”

My mouth falls into a pout. There was so much charm to the front of the house, to the quaint yard lined with shrubs. It was a joy to just drive past. With this cinderblock border, it’s unapproachable.