“I believe you,” Carys said. She stroked Greta’s back and her hair and her cheeks.

“But they’d be so hurt if I leave.” And if Greta hurt them, they could hurt her back.

“Why would they be hurt?”

“Because it means I don’t love them.”

“Does it?”

“No!” But that was what they’d think, wouldn’t they? That she was abandoning them, breaking the unspoken Russakoff covenant of sticking together, their family unit against the world.

“You think they’ll interpret you leaving as not loving them?”

She nodded.

Well, okay, not all of them would.

Maggie wouldn’t. Maggie would think it was kick-ass if she moved to New Orleans. She wasn’t even going to be on the island after this semester. Tillie would miss her, but she’d never be mad about it. Sadie would make her feel bad. But Sadie made her feel bad even when she was there.

Her dad would miss her too. But he would get over it. He got over everything.

Adelaide. What would her twin think if she left? They’d spent their whole childhoods doing everything together. But in the last few years, Greta realized they had less and less in common. She loved her sister fiercely and knew the love was returned. But they couldn’t spend all their time together effortlessly anymore. Their interests had grown in different directions.

Her mom. Greta loved her mother, but they just didn’t mesh. She didn’t like how her mom treated her. Like an extension of herself. Something she had rights over, like an arm or a leg. Like she understood everything about Greta, only she didn’t—she just interpreted it all as if Greta felt the way she’d feel in the same situation.

When Greta would tell her, no, that wasn’t how she felt, her mother would look at her with surprise. Oh, she’d sniff. And that would be all. But Greta knew that it meant How did you go from being a person I knew and understood to one who insists on thinking the opposite of everything I do just to prove you’re not like me?

How would she take Greta’s leaving? Like a power outage or a fraudulent credit card charge: something that wasn’t behaving as she wanted it to.

And damn, that didn’t paint her mom in a very flattering light at all.

She said as much.