“They’d have a better chance of staying on that thing than I did, hooves and all.” I knew I wasn’t athletic, but that had just been embarrassing. There was a definite difference between thin and fit, and I was not fit. Grief had eaten away at my appetite and my muscles.

“You can always get better through practice, if you want. I do happen to know of a nearby beach…”

I rolled my eyes.

“Speaking of beaches, it’s really narrow here.” I changed the subject as we reached a particularly tight strip of 12. “What happens when the storms come?”

“It gets hit. Hard. All of 12 does, really. Hurricanes like Irene and Sandy can cut us off from the mainland for weeks. They have to dig out the roads or rebuild them. We can usually get ferries going, but tides make it difficult.”

“So they just keep rebuilding roads that continually get destroyed by hurricanes? I mean, those were both in the last decade.” Being cut off for weeks? Did I have supplies for that? I’d need to store some food. Maybe get a generator for when the solar panels we’d just installed with the roof didn’t hack it. Oh God, I was going to turn into one of those crazy doomsday preppers.

“Well, yeah, people live here. Love it here. You’re one of us now, so you should appreciate the tenacity of the North Carolina Department of Transportation.”

“It just seems so…futile to keep fighting for something you know won’t last.” Beach erosion was a serious issue—I knew that when I bought the house—and houses here had been known to float away into the Atlantic even without hurricanes. Just living here was a risk.

He glanced my way, and then his hands tightened on the wheel. “Maybe it is futile. Maybe one day we’ll be forced to abandon it. But it’s okay to fight for something you love, to dig it out and build it back up in hopes that this time the foundation will be strong enough to withstand the hurricane. It’s just like what you’re doing with the house.”

“I guess it is.” Fixing a house that could eventually sink into the ocean, fixing a heart that might end up useless anyway. Fixing a friendship that I’d all but ghosted?

“And it’s okay to do all you can and still lose, still get washed away. It sucks, but it’s a far less tragic ending than never having tried.”

The air between us thickened as he glanced my way and then back to the road.

“Yeah, it’s those lost chances that end up hurting the worst,” I said quietly.

“How did the foundation set on the house, by the way?”

“Went without a hitch.” If we didn’t count the stupid weathervane.