in the back of my throat.
“Scarlett is my older sister. By two years.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m sixteen years old,” I say very slowly. “I—I lied.”
“You’re serious?”
“I’m sorry,” I croak.
He backs away from me. His hand comes up to his mouth. He stops and stares at me again.
“I’m so, so sorry.”
“Holy shit.”
He bends over, his hands on his waist. When he stands back up, he’s grimacing, his teeth clench. “I think I’m gonna be sick.”
“I’m sorry,” I repeat.
“You’re sorry?” His voice cracks. “Oh my God,” he says and squats down with his face in his palms. “Oh my God,” he says to his hands.
The moon tugs at the waves, at the sea. I want to tug Andrew back to me. Tell him it’s just a joke—a different science experiment. Bring him back and tell him about the comet. Startle him with all of my knowledge.
But I cannot find the lighthouse in his eyes.
“You don’t look sixteen,” he says.
I swallow hard and say, “I’ve only been sixteen a few weeks.”
He shakes his head. “All that shit about MIT.”
“Andrew,” I say and take his hand. He’s frozen to the spot. His hand is cold in mine, he doesn’t squeeze back or caress my skin. His lips are tight. “I did this,” I say. “I did it. I didn’t know what would happen when I met you. I never thought you would want to be with someone like me. And then you did. And it was too late. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
His eyes flicker across the pavement, he does not look at me as he says, “Sarah . . .”
I wish he wouldn’t say my name. My real name.
“I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t say you’re sorry. I could lose everything I’ve worked for. Everything I—”
“I know. I know that now. I didn’t realize.”
He drops my hand.
“Stay away from me,” he says. He points at me while backing away. “Stay the fuck away,” but it’s a hiss of a whisper.
“I love you,” I say. “That was true.”
He turns on the spot to walk back to the dock. I watch him for a few paces. He takes long strides and the small burn on the back of his calf is still red. He stops and turns back to me. Hope. Horrible, unfair hope prickles in my chest.
“I can’t,” he starts to say, but it comes out as a sigh. “I can’t tell anyone why this is over. I have to live with what you’ve done.”
He walks toward the dock. With a whip of his hand, he chucks the water bottle against the ground so hard that it explodes. I jump, surprised by the force of the water splashing everywhere.
I have to watch him walk away. I have no choice.
I watch him get on the boat.
I watch him pick up the hammer and begin hitting whatever it was he was hitting when I walked onto the parking lot. He pulls the brim of his hat down over his eyes even more.
The girl who I wished I was, the one going to MIT? She would have told him the truth from the beginning. She would have let him go because it wasn’t her time yet. He slams the hammer now and Andrew’s lips break from a thin line into a grimace for the barest of seconds. He’s crying.
My pain burrows deep inside where I know the first person who I ever loved was someone I manipulated.
So I do what any scientist would do. I study his frame for a few minutes. Then the curve of his muscles, so I won’t forget. I try to remember the glimmer in his eyes too. Science can’t explain a glimmer. Can it? Can science explain the soul?
I do what I have to do.
I turn and walk away.
THIRTY-FIVE
One Year Later — Late June
ETTIE, CLAUDIA, AND I MAKE A CHAIN WITH OUR hands. We run out of the Seahorse and onto Main Street Orleans to my car, Nancy’s old Volvo. We admire our purchases—on sale from last year’s shipment. We bought three of the geode slice necklaces I admired in the window last summer, before I met Andrew.
Before the lie.
Ettie snatches the keys from me. Claudia gets in the back and I slide into the passenger seat. Ettie got her license a month before me, which means that she is more experienced. Or so she says.
We’ve been in Orleans for two weeks and all three of us are bronzed from the days on Nauset. I have searched for Andrew on the beach but haven’t