We stay up talking most of the night. Until morning breaks over the ocean and Dad comes to take her back to bed. I watch them walk away together and gratitude swells within me for the gifts I have been given.

Nick

I spent today fishing with John. Patty tells me to call him John, but he scowls at me every time she says it. So I call him John in my head and Mr. Michaels when I’m with him.

Actually, John was fishing and I was working. I have a friend who owns a fishing boat, and sometimes I go out and help him. I convinced him to let John go with us. He had a good day, I think, but now he’s looking at his watch and I think he’s ready to head back.

The Michaels have been here for two weeks now and Patty is starting to get thinner and thinner. She’s finding it harder to keep down the protein shakes they give her, and she ends up throwing them up more than she takes them in. Sometimes she hides it, but I think it’s getting harder for her.

Every night, Patty and Carrie walk down to the lighthouse. They sit at the base of it and talk. But last night Patty was too tired to walk, so they didn’t go.

I followed them one night, just so I could see what they do when they go there. They sit at the base of the lighthouse in a sandy spot, and they lie down side by side and stare up at the stars. With Carrie’s hand clasped in hers, Patty talks. Carrie talks. They talk to one another. Then they walk back, and Patty and John go to bed. Together.

Today I follow John in the back door and find Carrie and Patty on the couch. Patty is sitting, and Carrie is lying with her head in her mom’s lap. They’re watching some romance movie on TV and they’re both crying.

“Dude,” John says to me, stopping in the doorway. “We should go to your house instead.”

I laugh. John is actually pretty fun. I nod at him. “Yours looks like dangerous territory.”

He walks inside anyway, and goes to take a shower. I wish I could too. Carrie and Patty don’t even look up, so I go to the kitchen and get a soda. As I lift it to my lips, I feel arms slip around my waist and I smile.

“I missed you,” Carrie says quietly. “Did you have a good day?”

“Yeah, but I kind of stink,” I warn her.

She laughs and buries her face in my back. “I don’t care,” she murmurs. Her voice is soft and low and it shoots straight to my dick.

“I need a shower,” I protest. “I’m going to run home for a few minutes.”

“I’m going with you,” she says. She doesn’t give me time to respond. “Hey, Mom!” she yells. “I’m going over to Nick’s for a few minutes, okay?”

“Sure,” her mom yells back, but her voice is weak. “Don’t be gone too long. Your dad is making dinner.”

She takes my hand and pulls me to the door and to my jeep. I get in and she puts a hand on my knee. I look at her. “You sure you want to go to my house?” I ask.

She nods, and draws her lower lip between her teeth. “I’m positive.”

“Okay.” I close my eyes and take a breath.

Carrie has been to my house, and she’s even been inside, but she has never stayed long. Just long enough for me to grab something or to change clothes. Now I’m going to be naked in one room while she’s in another.

We’ve been together for two weeks now. Two weeks since I told her not to make me fall in love with her. I’m doomed. Absolutely doomed. I’ve been in love with her since I was fourteen. Since that day I was walking on the beach with my friends and I saw her. I fell on my butt trying to impress her, and she just laughed at me.

We walk inside, and it’s so damn hot inside the trailer that I immediately regret bringing her here. “Sorry,” I say.

“I love it here,” she says. She ambles around and looks at the pictures on the wall. “I remember when you looked like this.”

“Will you be okay out here while I grab a shower?”

She nods and keeps walking around, engrossed in memories.

I turn on the water and step under the spray. I steady myself, trying to figure out what I’m going to do about Carrie. She’s leaving in a few weeks to go to college, and I don’t know if she’ll ever be back. She’s going to take my heart with her.

I hear the curtain shift behind me and I can’t even force myself to turn around. I know it’s her and I know she’s naked. I know she’ll give me all of herself because she loves me too. I can feel it inside me, but I don’t know what to do with it.

“Nick?” she asks, and she lays her fingers tenderly on my back. I look over my shoulder at her and she has a question in her eyes. “Is this okay?”

“Yeah,” I say. “It’s okay.”

She picks up a bar of soap and slicks her hands with it, and then she lays them on my back and slowly sweeps them around. She traces my tattoos with her fingertips and I have to brace myself on my elbows on the wall. My knees feel like they might give out at any second.

“Do you want me to go?” Her voice quivers.

I couldn’t kick her out now for anything. “No.”

“Okay,” she says.

She picks the soap up again and slides it over my shoulders and my back, then down over my butt and the backs of my legs. Her hands aren’t hesitant at all, but I can feel her shaking. Her breaths brush the backs of my knees and then she pushes my hip to make me turn around. She’s still down by my feet, but I squeeze my eyes closed tightly and turn. She makes a little noise, but I’m a chicken so I don’t even look at her.