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I raise a brow in silent disagreement. Mentally, I saw myself as an adult at fifteen, maybe because I’d lived through such hard things. I couldn’t possibly have been as small and uncertain as the kids I see in these photos.

“You don’t believe me,” Donna says. She walks out of the kitchen, and Luke and I share a glance.

I worry that I’ve offended her. I worry that what Luke and I did last night has shifted the balance here, and we are—once again—misweighted, destined to crash what remains of the Allens into the ground.

But she returns with a photo. “Danny took that picture of you the night you met.” Her smile flickers and her voice catches. She’ll never stop being sad about him. She’ll die sad for him. And that’s entirely my fault.

It’s a picture of me on stage at the county festival where he first saw me. I’m standing with two other girls after we’d performed an acapella version of some Taylor Swift song. I’m the smallest of the three of us, smiling like a little kid, apple-cheeked and wide-eyed. I wasn’t a fucking adult, not by any stretch of the imagination.

Justin blamed me for what happened. He said I’d seduced him, that if I hadn’t wanted it, I wouldn’t have walked around the house in my pajamas, that I wouldn’t have walked out of the bathroom after a shower with a towel wrapped around me. That I wouldn’t have dressed the way I did for parties and worn so much makeup. And no matter what I said aloud, I believed him. Some part of me has thought all along that I must have been gross and wanton in ways other girls my age wouldn’t have been.

But I was little. I was naïve. I had no one to turn to for guidance about anything. I’ve spent the past decade blaming the little girl in the photo for sometimes responding to what he did, for not pressing charges against him though I’d have been absolutely defenseless if I had. I’ve blamed myself for not telling more people, though the people I did tell accused me of lying. Even after he went to jail for manslaughter, after being arrested dozens of times for other shit, I blamed myself.

And I really, truly was not at fault. I see that now. But forgiving yourself for the past is a slippery slope. Because if I forgive myself for the way I handled what happened in high school, it’ll become easier to forgive myself for everything else. One day, I’ll look back at a photo of me at twenty and think she was a kid too. I might convince myself that the mess I created with Danny and Luke wasn’t my fault, that I handled things poorly because I was so damn young.

And I might start thinking it’s safe to come clean about what really happened. I glance across the table at Luke, his eyes on that photo of me, his jaw tight.

For his sake, I’ve got to hang on to my guilt. It’s the only way to make sure he’s safe.

22

THEN

JULY 2014

The night before Luke and Danny are due to leave for training camp, we head to the beach to celebrate Luke’s win earlier in the day—a shortboard contest at Steamer Lane that finally got him the attention he deserves from potential sponsors. When we arrive, Luke’s just getting out of the water and wearing nothing but a wet suit, peeled down and hanging off his waist. His body is a symphony, every muscle a separate instrument, coming together to make something so beautiful it hardly seems real. As he takes a seat, I have to look away.

“Someone should call the police,” Grady says, on another of his rants, which are a regular occurrence. “It’s disgusting.”

He’s carping about “the gays” again—the guys who hang at a beach nearby, minding their own business. I’ve never seen them do anything but ogle the surfers and listen to music, but Grady insists it’s a hotbed of sexual depravity somehow. I wish Libby would tell him to stop, but she says nothing.

A joint is passed around. Danny demurs and I do, too, and from the other side of the fire, Luke lifts a beer bottle to his lips, watching me. “Hostage,” that look says. “Ask yourself if this is really what you want.”

I already know the answer to that question. It isn’t what I want, not anymore. I don’t really have the money to leave now, but the bigger issue is I’ve assumed I’d end up with Danny for so long that it’s hard to seriously consider another outcome. We’ve been together for nearly three years, a sixth of my life, and it’s the only relationship I’ve ever been in. Not being with him, somehow, never occurred to me.

Ending this also seems so…ungrateful, after all they’ve done. Thank you for sheltering me throughout high school. I no longer need you and am moving on with my life. But do I repay my debt by weathering something that isn’t serving any of us, or do I pay it by letting them hate me for walking away?

And for better or worse, the Allens are my family. The only family I have. There will be no one to spend holidays with if I leave. No one to worry if I’m home late, no one in the entire world who still cares.

“Luke will care,” a voice says at the back of my head. But I dismiss it. Luke is off limits because I can’t do that to Danny, and Luke is never going to come find me in LA.

Danny’s telling anyone who will listen that he’s definitely going to be starting quarterback this year and describing his workouts in grueling detail. Libby keeps trying to talk to me about a group she’d like to start at the church for teenagers, suggesting I can do it this coming year since I’m staying home.

I press my fingers to my temples. I don’t want to be out here tonight. I don’t know how I’ll survive remaining in Rhodes at all without Luke. I’d love to tell Donna I don’t want that internship, but she’s freaking out about some upcoming surgery for the pastor to fix a blocked artery. It just doesn’t seem like the right time.

I’m beginning to wonder if it ever will.

Grady picks up his rant where it left off. “I’m sure it’s illegal,” he says. “Public indecency, at least. Who even knows what they’re doing down there?”

“Bro,” Caleb finally groans. “Enough already.”

“It’s in the Bible,” Grady counters. “Leviticus calls it a detestable sin, point blank.”

“Maybe Leviticus was fighting his own impulses,” says Ryan. “If not, he just didn’t know what he was missing.”

My eyes widen. I’ve never seen Ryan without a girl.

“So, you’re saying you’d…do that with one of them?” Grady sputters in disbelief.