The wind whips my hair all around my face, and I look up at the sky, the first star of the night blinking back at me.
“Ethan,” I say, his name now foreign on my lips. I straighten my shoulders and look him square in the eye, see his chest puff in and out, his lips parted and his nostrils flaring, and he says nothing. He’s going to make me be the bad guy. But I can handle that. I can be the bad guy if it means moving forward. “I want to break up.”
Ethan blinks once, then again, and shuts his mouth. His whole body goes very still, almost like he’s stopped breathing.
The night air slows, the wind ceasing, as if it’s waiting for him to move, as if the entire universe is on pause, waiting to see what Ethan will do.
He could hug me and tell me we will always be friends, that we willalwaysbe in each other’s lives. Or he could scream and yell and turn to tell everyone that Lucy Gold is afucking bitch. Or he could run.
He takes off so quickly, sprinting on the beach so fast that sand flies into my eyes, and when I wipe it away, I can’t tell which direction he went or where he headed.
“Ethan!” I yell, calling into the darkness.
But it’s no use. My voice is nearly drowned out by the sound of the waves crashing, and for a split second, I stand still, wondering if he’s about to come back.
“Lucy?”
I spin around and see Millie climbing down from the walkway.
“You shouldn’t be out here.” I brush the hair away from my face, blink against the stinging in my eyes.
“What’s going on?” she asks, rushing to me. She’s close now, her hands on my elbows, and it only takes a moment before she knows something’s wrong, her eyebrows drawing close to each other, her grip tightening on my skin.
“We broke up,” I say, and watch Millie’s eyes turn into saucers. “Just now. He took off and…”
Millie’s eyes flick to the water, the darkness, the never-ending expanse of beach, then back to me. “Are you okay?”
“I don’t know,” I say.
“Oh, Luce.” She wraps me in a hug, pressing her cheek to mine, and I let her hold me, feel the weight of her comfort for a moment when I realize I don’t really want to be around anyone, not even Millie. All I want is to be alone.
“I need some space,” I say.
I walk up the steps to the pathway that leads to our house before she can protest. The sea breeze is light on my skin, the air damp and thick.
All my life, I’ve craved freedom without knowing I didn’t have it. All my life I’ve craved somethingdifferent, and tonight I gave myself that gift. I wish I didn’t have to hurt Ethan in the process. Tomorrow I’ll try my best to mend what I broke. But tonight, as I climb up the stairs to my bedroom and shut the door, I allow myself to grasp the greatest feeling of all: release.
Millie
“Ethan!” I call his name, but my voice drifts away in the night sky, drowned out by the crashing waves. Footsteps are etched in the beach in front of me, and I know he ran toward the dunes. The wind picks up, pushing me forward, sand flying up against my legs.
I don’t have to take off after him, but Lucy doesn’t want comfort, and after all that Ethan’s been through this summer, the idea of him alone out here at night frightens me, like one wrong step could send him into the sea—or worse, toward someone who might want him to meet the same fate that took Billy. We can’t lose him.Ican’t lose him.
“Ethan!” I shout again, though no one responds. I stumble ahead, away from our homes. Finally, a few hundred yards down the sand, I see him, walking away from me, hunched as he trudges toward a dune.
I pick up my pace, calling his name, until he turns around and his eyes widen with surprise as he registers me. The way he looks at me—with relief and gratitude, like he can’t believe I would come after him—sends an electric shock through me, but it doesn’t slow me down, doesn’t stop me from running right at him so fast that in an instant, we’re both on the ground, his limbs tangled in mine.
“Sorry,” I say, pushing myself to sit. “I didn’t mean to tackle you.”
“It’s all right,” he says, shaking out his hair.
“I saw Lucy and heard what happened. I wanted to make sure…I was worried about you.” I try to compose myself and tuck my hair behind my ears, but the wind whips it right back up again.
“God, what a nightmare,” Ethan says. His voice is hoarse, and he makes no motion to stand, instead hugs his shins to his chest and rocks back and forth.
“I’m sorry,” I say.
He lifts his head up, and I get a good look at him. His cheeks are pink, and his hair is disheveled, grains of sand sticking to his curls that fall away from his face.
