The minivan sailed over the bridge from Newburyport to Salisbury, and Alexa cracked the window to let the ocean smell move in. They had crested the hill of summer and were heading down, down, down.

They’d also spent a lot of time talking, Cam and Alexa, in a way that she hadn’t talked with another person in a long time—maybe ever. They talked about Alexa’s former friends, and they talked about Tyler, and Shelby McIntrye, and they talked about Cam’s favorite philosopher (some guy named Blaise Pascal), and they talked about Peter and Morgan. They talked about how Alexa tried to pay her mother back the five-hundred-dollar deposit to Colby that she’d put down in April, but her mother refused, because, even though Alexa had the money, it wasn’t about the money. They talked about what it was about: her mother’s disappointment that Alexa didn’t want what she’d wanted, and her fear that Alexa would move far away and never come back.

Now they took the turn off Route 1 and toward the beach, passing the dingy motels with their cracked pools, the newer condos, the defunct ice cream stand where Alexa used to love to go as a kid. Foote’s. Funny name for an eating establishment, but there you were.

Every now and then, but not very often, in hushed voices, they talked about Sherri and Katie, and Alexa learned that it was possible to be scared and happy at the exact same time.

They had kissed, a lot, and more than that too—though not yet everything. This was starting to make Alexa wonder: come September, would she be the only eighteen-year-old virgin on the North Shore? (Cam was such a gentleman. But was he too much of a gentleman?)

“Where are we going, anyway?” she asked Cam now.

“The reservation. I thought we could have a picnic. I picked up a couple of things after work today.” She looked behind her at the center row of the minivan: sure enough, there was a Market Basket cooler bag there.

Even the drive toward the parking lot, with the marshes on the right, and the ocean air suspended around them, was sort of breathtaking, especially at this time of day, when twilight was turning the sky a purplish-mauve.