I followed the path to the bluff, hiked part of the way down. It was late October. It was cold. No one was out here. Below me were rocks and ocean and there was no reason to be afraid. I sat, arms around my knees, ready to watch the sunset. But I saw someone, then, far below me, close to the water. I saw someone and then saw him more clearly.

“Lee!” I called out. I waved. He didn’t wave back. What was he doing, so close to the water, all alone and so late in the day? I rose and began the descent, and as I got closer I could make out his expression. He looked the way he had that first school day.

Pale and trembling.

As I neared, I thought I saw him begin to move and then change his mind, as though held back by some force not his own.

“What are you doing down here?” I asked when I reached him. “You know you shouldn’t be here alone. You shouldn’t be here at all this late.”

He shook his head. He wouldn’t meet my gaze. His fists were clenched, hiding something.

“What is this?” I asked, trying to keep my voice steady and kind. I could tell he was afraid, but I was not someone to be afraid of. Maybe once, but that was so long ago. That was in another life.

He shook his head.

“Show me,” I said. But by then I was able to see what he was holding. I could see, also, that his pockets were full. I didn’t understand, at first, why he’d be hiding them from me. And then I realized.

My vision darkened. My face grew hot.

“Show me,” I said again.

He unclenched his fists and let their contents fall.

“And your pockets?”

He emptied his pockets. More fell.

Shells. So many of them.

I wanted to believe I had misunderstood. That the shells had nothing to do with what I told him that night in the living room, when we sat on the sofa with the fire crackling, and he told me he was afraid and I confessed that I was, too. But there was no ambiguity in his guilty expression, no doubt in the hunch of his shoulders, his shame over being found out.

I brought my hands to my face and covered my eyes. I couldn’t look at him. The waves crashed in. I wanted to be taken out to sea. The black, freezing depths of it. The pain of this, gone.

I lowered my hands.

“You tricked me,” I said.

“But—”

“The poppies?”

He nodded. “But I didn’t know—”

“The earrings?” I shrieked.

“Yes, but—”

I pushed my hands over my ears. I didn’t want to hear what else he might say. It was ruined, it was gone. All that I thought we had shared.