“Sure, I don’t mind.”

We store the extra food in the microwave while Lana sits and watches us.

“I rinse, you dry?”

“Sure.”

“What brings you back to North Carolina so early?” Melanie asks me.

Guess we’re diving right on in.

“I came to talk to Wyatt,” I tell her. I try to make sure it doesn’t sound like a lie, which is ridiculous, because it isn’t, but still, there’s something about this woman that scares me. I was mean to Wyatt, then a little over twenty-four hours later I’m sleeping on her couch without her knowing, so she has every right to be cautious about me.

Melanie chuckles. “Yeah, we covered that. But what are you here to talk to him about?”

I hesitate, unsure of what I should say.

On the one hand, I’ve known this woman for fifteen minutes. On the other, she has this energy that, while frightening, makes me feel like I could tell her anything.

“I want to apologize to him,” I say.

“Would you be willing to tell me what happened? Wyatt was so beat up when we picked him up, and he barely came out of his room yesterday.”

“I … made some mistakes,” I say, careful of my language around Lana. “And I want to make it up to Wyatt.”

“And you think that showing up on our front porch in the middle of the night was the way to fix that?”

“You know, the entire flight here I really thought it would be. I had these dreams of Wyatt, like … embracing me or whatever, being so happy that I came all the way here to see him, left the wedding early, all that,” I tell her. “I think the reality is setting in.”

“Well, good. Reality can be good,” she says, rinsing the soap off a spatula. “But you know, dreaming is good for the heart too.”

“I just hope Wyatt can forgive me.”

“Come on now, you’ve got to be a little more hopeful than that,” Melanie says as she rinses a plate of the yellow stains left from runny eggs. “God, you teenagers. You make one mistake, and you think it’s the end of the world.”

“It doesn’t help that it does feel like the world is going to end,” I tell her. “Love isn’t exactly an easy feeling to navigate.”

“Oh, so you’re in love with Wyatt?”

I sputter, dropping the fork I was drying. “No, I mean. That’s not what I meant, I—”

Lana laughs at me. “Neil loves Wyatt!” she chants.

I shoot her a look.

Melanie comes to my defense. “Lana, be nice!”

“Things are … complicated right now,” I say, picking up the fork and putting it back in the sink.

“Are they actually complicated? Or are you making them complicated?”

“I don’t get what you mean.”

“Just … be kind to yourself,” she says. “You’re seventeen?”

“Sixteen.”