“He’s committed.”
“There’s a fine line.”
Rosa brought two slices of key lime pie without being asked.
“You looked like you needed sugar,” she said.
“What did we look like?” Ellie asked.
“Complicated.”
Then she left.
I watched her go.
“Does she do that often?”
“Judge people accurately and then feed them?”
“Yes.”
“Constantly.”
We carried the pie down to the sand and walked toward the old pier while the sky deepened from peach to orange.
The pier stretched over the water on weathered posts. Part of the far railing was missing, and a sign warned:
PROCEED WITH CAUTION.
Ellie stepped around it without slowing.
“Are we allowed out here?” I asked.
“Define allowed.”
“Legally.”
“Oh. Barely.”
“That’s not comforting.”
“I know which boards are loose.”
“That is somehow worse.”
She stepped onto the pier and held out her hand.
“Trust me?”
It should not have been a complicated question.
It was only a hand.
A few uneven boards.
Shallow water beneath us.
But my life had become an ongoing calculation of trust. Who wanted what. Who might sell a photograph. Who might repeat a conversation. Who liked me and who liked access to me.
