“For the time we spent together. For giving me a day where I felt like a normal, functioning human being again. I haven’t felt this way since losing my mom. I can’t begin to tell you what it means to me to know there’s some hope, to experience what it feels like to actually be happy again. Ryan, if anyone’s the angel here, it’s you.”

“Oh, Amy.” He brought his hand to her face, ran his thumb down the side of her nose, across her cheek, down to her lips, collecting stray tears along the way. “We did have a pretty good day, didn’t we?”

“The best,” she said, smiling.

Then came a drastic change. It was Amy who noticed it first, alerted by a stillness in the air and a strange absence of sound. When she turned her head, she saw the ocean had stopped moving. It was as though someone had hit a magic pause button and turned the sea into a giant frameless painting—every drop of water had been frozen, every wave and whitecap suspended in state. Not only that, but Chloe and Ryan’s mother had vanished.

“Wait,” Ryan said, suddenly confused. “What’s going on?”

“This town you created, it’s all about to disappear. You know that, right?”

“I know, yes, but . . . I didn’t think it was going to start happening so soon. Can we control this? Is there something I can do to slow it down?”

Amy shook her head.

“How long do we have?” he asked.

“I was told we’d only get a few minutes, but I’m thinking it could be less.” She drew his eyes to the ground, where the beach was now shining like a sheet of gold tinsel, with grains of sand fast glittering off into oblivion.

“Dammit,” Ryan cried. “Why does it have to be so fast!”

“Because you don’t need this place anymore.”

“But what if I decide that I do need it? After all, it’s my creation, right? Why can’t I decide to stay with you a bit longer?”

“I don’t think you can. That’s not how it works. This was all created for you, not for us. It’s served its purpose, Ryan. There’s nothing we can do.”

Ryan began looking around more frantically. “This isn’t fair. A few minutes isn’t enough.”

“I wish we had more time too,” Amy said. “I wish we had met . . . before.”

“If only I could go back and change what happened. If only I’d locked Little Dipper away before the storm set in. If only I hadn’t wrapped that damn rope around my damn wrist, then I’d still be—” But then a thought swept through Ryan’s head, and his voice died in his throat.

“Ryan? What’s wrong?”

“I just realized something.”

“What?”

“That none of that actually matters, does it?”

“What do you mean?”