“What’d you think?” he said when we got off at the park.

I pretended to check my limbs and count my fingers and toes. “Looks like everything’s all there.”

He laughed. “It’s not that bad.”

“It’s only terrifying,” I shot back, but I was smiling too. See, I thought. Not uptight.

Morgan Falls Overlook Park lived up to its name with trails, a dock, and a beautiful area with swinging benches that opened up into a huge reservoir below.

We leaned against the safety railing together, looking out at the water, its calm surface glistening faintly under the moonlight.

“Come on,” Jack said, getting up. I followed him down to the dock, which was just a plastic floating platform that extended out into the water. “I love it here at night, when no one’s around.” He took off his shoes and rolled up his pants to dip his feet in the water.

I slipped out of my flip-flops before swinging my legs into the water too. Jack lay down, arms overhead, hands under his head. I joined him and we looked at the stars as we swayed softy with the water. It felt like all the times Elise and I hung out in the Pink Caddy at night, our eyes on the sky, but also different. Brand new and thrilling, yet quieter, more pensive.

“Do you ever get hit by a weird sense of longing?” Jack said.

“What do you mean?”

“Like a sharp and sudden pang. It’s almost like feeling homesick, but homesick isn’t the right word for it,” Jack said. “You might not be far from home, or you might even be at home and still get hit by it, this—this yearning. The feeling of being incomplete, like you’re missing something.” Then he turned to me and laughed. “You think I’m crazy, don’t you?”

“No, I—” I was surprised by his sudden admission, but even more surprised that he had put into words a feeling that, for my whole life, I had known so well but could never describe. “I think I know that feeling you’re talking about.” It was more like a yearning for an alternate past, an alternate life. “I think it is a kind of homesickness,” I said. “But not for home. It’s like a piece of you is missing. Maybe you lost it, or maybe you never had it, but something is just not there and you don’t know where to even begin looking for it. A homesickness not for a place but for another life entirely. Another you.”

“Yes!” Jack said, springing up to sit. “Exactly. It feels almost like I veered off course somewhere and ended up in the wrong timeline of my life. The wrong version of myself. And now I don’t know where to go.”

“But you can’t go back,” I said.

Our eyes locked and I found a spark of recognition in him. A small smile appeared on his face and I knew he was thinking the same thing.