“I knew you’d like it,” Mom says, and my first thought is to comment on how there’s no way that she’d know. But I don’t, because I’m still tired and my tea is delicious, and it’s hard to be mean when I know I have to see her every day. I sit down at the little table and we sip from our mugs in silence until Mom finally breaks it. “How was the thing this weekend?”

She doesn’t know what a loaded question that is at this point. If she had asked me Sunday, I would have said it was unequivocally one of the coolest things I’d ever done. But after a few days of radio silence, it’s starting to lose some of its magic. “It was really cool,” I say, finally, because it’s true. Even if I went with a jerk, the event was amazing.

Mom nods, and I hope she won’t ask me about details. Instead, she looks down at the mug between her hands. “We need teacups,” she says. “This is embarrassing.”

“I like the mugs,” I say, taking another sip.

She laughs, and I don’t get it, but I just keep sipping my tea.

Late morning I shove a bottle of water, my notebook, and some fruit into a bag and ride my bike to the state park. I’ve never been here before but I expected it to be busier for some reason. Maybe because Aiden made it sound like such a hotspot. I’m not entirely sure what I’m doing here. Maybe I secretly hope to run into him. Even though I know he’s working today. We were supposed to be off on the same day, but he owes Ellis for Monday.

I’m not brave enough to hike out into the dunes by myself, so I lock my bike up and walk toward the little peninsula that juts out into the tiny lake. I haven’t been here since I was a kid. It felt bigger then. I’m not even sure I can call this a lake and not a giant pond—the water is shallow, not deeper than my knees for as far as I can see. A quarter of the lake is engulfed in lily pads. The grassy peninsula that pushes out into the lake is crowned by a giant weeping willow, the branches reflecting in the water all around it. I sit under the tree and toe my shoes off. My notebook on my lap, I stare out across the water.