In the end, spent, she wiped her face on her mother’s silk dress and sat, stunned, relieved to have wept at last. She had thought she was broken somehow.

“Everyone is on the brink of death.” Lara heard her own gravelly voice like a stranger’s. “Living is like walking on the edge of a knife. It’s weird how people don’t talk about that, they just act normal.”

Mac looked at her, the moonlight painting his gaunt face a greenish hue.

“You think like that because of what happened,” he said gently. Lara suddenly felt as though Mac knew her better than anyone on earth.

She lay back in the sand, her hands behind her head, and enjoyed the helpless voyage of Mac’s eyes traveling down her body and up again. He looked back at the sea, but it was too late—he had revealed himself. Lara felt primitive pride in the power of her body, yet she’d gotten it wrong this time; that wasn’t what attracted him.

“Most people numb themselves from painful things,” he said. “From their own pain, and especially from other people’s pain. If they didn’t, the world would change like that.” He snapped his fingers.

“Change how?”

“If people allowed themselves to really feel other people’s pain, they wouldn’t be able to not help them. You look at these folks,” he said, “at this place. All this hoarding of wealth. All this privilege. None of this would be possible without a healthy dose of denial.”

“I wouldn’t want a world where no one could have a really nice house,” said Lara.

“It’s a question of degrees,” said Mac.

Lara moved her foot so that it touched his ankle.

“So why are you marrying such a rich girl?” she asked.

“I’m marrying the woman, not the parents. But—I suppose maybe that’s naïve.”

“I don’t care what you do,” said Lara, looking up at the stars. “I don’t care about anything.”

Mac shifted beside her, and she saw his head obscure the sky. His face was suspended above hers for a long moment. In the dark, she could make out only the shape of his head and the glint of his glasses.

His rough lips grazed hers, then she tasted his smoky mouth. This was her first real kiss; she struggled to answer his tongue with hers. Abruptly, he sat up.

“Fuck,” he said. “I’m sorry.” He stood. “You’d better go up first.”

“You go,” she said.

“Will you find your way?” he asked.

“I live here.”

He paused a moment, his shoulders hunched, hands in his pockets. “You’re really all right?”

“Yeah,” said Lara. She watched him hurry away, and actually start running, before reaching the stairs to the house, which he took two at a time until he crested the Palacios’ lawn, and a little cheer went up to greet him.