“Boats?” Think of something to say about boats, Joey. “Boats are really…wet and cool.”

Wet and cool? She’d wanted to be cool for this boy, somehow, but she suspected she hadn’t achieved it.

Leo started down the stairs after his parents, but then paused and turned back. He stared at Joey straight-on so that eventually his green eyes consumed everything else. “I made up a secret language this year. If you want, I can teach it to you.”

“Really?” Joey’s heart soared. “Sure!”

“Okay.” Leo nodded. “Gagoose then. That means see you later.”

“Gagoose.” She smiled a little at him, and he smiled back, and she felt in their gaze that there had been some kind of test, followed by a mutual understanding that she’d passed.

*  *  *

Sidari, on Corfu’s rocky western coast, revealed itself in a sweep of endless beauty that felt wrong, twisted. Joey and Leo dismounted the bike in quiet and followed the blacktop trail to a secluded pocket of flat, sandy rock. The water glittered calm and green below.

Leo said, “I’m gonna walk a little.” He struck off. Joey shed her cover-up, squinting at Leo through the glare of the sun. His back was to her, shoulders slumped. At some point, he moved farther, a speck against the Monet-idyllic watercolor of a day. If they were intimate already, if even they’d kissed, it might have been different. Joey might have known how to touch him. But she didn’t, so she sunned alone for a bit, her towel a too-thin barrier against the scorching rock.

Finally, Joey climbed down to the sand, pausing to investigate a colony of clams. Then she waded into the sea, out to a shallow reef hosting clusters of spiky, purple sea urchins—but nothing could distract her from the sick feeling that Leo’s parents didn’t really want him. Sure, her own mother could be a trip, to put it lightly. But Bea wanted Joey, and she wanted Lily—and so did their father.

Periodically, Joey started in the water, her eyes seeking reassurance that Leo was still out there somewhere. She’d thrash a bit and then latch onto him and calm. After she’d exhausted her capacity for swimming, she waded back to shore and sat for what seemed like an eternity on a rock, waiting. It was only when the sun went down though that Leo finally returned.

“Ready?” His tone betrayed nothing.

On their way home, they stopped for gelato by St. George’s Bay.

“I’m sorry,” said Leo as they waited in line. He rubbed his eyes, the green of them not their usual lively but deadened, like a lawn that hadn’t been watered all summer.

“For what?” said Joey. “Leo, they can’t have meant—”