The First Day, Part 1

When Laura woke, it was to a world so bright and sharp she nearly screamed. Light seared through the glass walls, ricocheting off marble and chrome and the blue of the bedding. She’d expected blackness—or the drowning blur of river water—but instead the Suite blazed with morning, every detail glinting, haloed, too real.

Her heart thumped, hard enough to bruise. She squeezed her eyelids shut, but the pink inside her eyes was electric. The light seemed to pierce her skull, a ringing, chemical blue that made her want to claw at her face. She gripped the blanket tighter, searching for something soft—and found warmth instead. Andy's arm lay across her ribs, his breathing steady and even. He sat on a chair but had fallen asleep, dozing without ever releasing her. Her panic stuttered. The weight of him was anchoring.

For a moment, Laura thought she might be dead after all, and that this was just another trick of whatever afterlife had claimed her—some celestial waiting room where everything felt too real to be real. The bed beneath her was impossibly plush, the air sweet like artificial peach, the faint mechanical hum from somewhere in the walls so crisp she could hear each tiny vibration. But Andy's breathing continued its slow rhythm, and with each exhale, her own chest loosened fractionally. More than that: there was something else, something she couldn't name, a kind of hum running underneath her panic—a frequency that matched his, as if the space between their bodies was conducting something vital.

She didn't move. Moving felt like it might break whatever spell was keeping him here, keeping her here. Instead, she focused on the simple fact of his presence: the rise and fall of his chest, the slight tremor in his hand where it rested on her waist, as if even in sleep he was afraid she'd vanish.

After a long moment—minutes, maybe—his fingers twitched. His breathing changed. Andy stirred, lifting his head with the careful slowness of someone waking from deep water.

He looked up. Their eyes locked, green meeting blue, and the rest of the world flickered out. The moment their gazes connected, something shifted in the space between them—not a sound, not a word, but a kind of silent recognition, as if two halves of the same frequency had just found each other again.

"Hey," he said, his voice hoarse but somehow softer than she expected. "You're awake."

Laura's throat was still tight, but not with panic anymore—something else had loosened in her chest during that sleep, something that his presence was now quietly reinforcing. She tried to answer, but her voice wouldn't come. Instead, she reached out slowly, her fingers finding his forearm where it still lay across her body. The contact steadied her enough to speak.

"I'm awake," she finally echoed, the voice coming out hoarse and two octaves lower than she remembered. Her hand stayed on his arm, afraid to let go. "You didn't have to stay here."

He smiled—crooked, sheepish, a flash of the boy he used to be. His hand shifted, curling gently around hers. “You think I was gonna leave you after all that?”

For a moment, she was thirteen again, and Andy was the gangly neighbor boy who showed her Jupiter through his dad's telescope. But the moment shattered: the man by the bed with her was so much more than the boy she remembered, and at the same time, exactly him. She became aware of how close they were, of the warmth radiating from his body into hers. It was grounding. It was real.

She reached out, her fingers trembling. This time, she touched his cheek deliberately—a conscious choice rather than a panicked question. “Is it—” She didn't finish, but the question hung between them, and somehow he understood it completely, as if her uncertainty was something he could feel in his own body. The words felt childish, and she was suddenly aware of the fact that she was not a child anymore. Her arms were long, her hands larger. She caught her own reflection, just a glimpse in the mirrored closet door, and her heart did another terrible lurch. She didn’t recognize herself.

"Still real," he said softly, answering not just her question but the need underneath it. Instead of pulling back from her touch, he leaned into it. His voice was softer now, less raw than it had been when she woke. He moved closer, shifting so that he was facing her fully, their foreheads nearly touching. “Yeah. It’s real. Although I have asked myself the same question for the last two hours.”

She touched his cheek. The stubble there rasped her palm, and the sensation was so shockingly intimate that tears erupted behind her eyes before she could stop them. He didn’t pull away. Instead, he covered her hand with his own—gently, like she might break—and pressed it to his face. His eyes closed for a moment, as though her touch was something he needed to absorb. The contact seemed to settle something in him too; his shoulders, which had been held high with tension, dropped an inch lower.

Andy didn't move away. Instead, he reached for her other hand, the one that still gripped the blanket, and gently uncurled her fingers. He laced them with his own. “Do you need anything?” he asked, voice scratchy and raw. “Water? Food? I can call Mildred for, I don’t know, Tylenol or something.” It was so perfectly Andy, so stupid and kind, that she laughed through the tears.

“It’s okay,” she managed. She squeezed his hand, needing to confirm that he wouldn't let go. “Just water,” she said, then, after a beat, “And maybe a donut. If this is a hallucination, I’d like to hallucinate a donut.”

Andy smiled, and the lines at the corners of his mouth deepened. He padded into the kitchen. She watched him go, cataloguing every new detail: the way his calves bunched when he walked, the torn button down shirt, the breadth of his shoulders. She didn't feel the vertigo she'd felt moments before. With every step he took, he kept glancing back at her—checking that she was still there, still awake, still real. Somehow, his presence felt grounding, right. Andy was here. It was as if her body responded to his presence, calming down, feeling safe.

The effort of holding her head up made her dizzy, so she let it fall back against the pillow and looked around the room, blinking away the tears. The room was a jewel box, bigger than her entire house had been. The bedding was a plush, navy blue, one wall was paneled in pale wood, while the other was floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking a tropical island. Every surface was sleek and curved, like the inside of a spaceship. There was a living room through an open door, where sunlight glimmered off a some glass. It was still too bright, still too strange, but it was less alien now. Andy was coming back. He'd said so.

Andy returned with a tall glass of water and a handful of mini-croissants. She accepted both, drained the water in three gulps, and found herself ravenous enough to eat half the croissant in one bite.

Laura let her gaze drift from the food to the man at her bedside. He perched on the edge of the bed, close enough that their thighs almost touched. His eyes were still rimmed with red, still exhausted, but the frenetic energy from before had settled into something watchful and patient. He didn't reach for her—didn't rush anything—but whenever her hand trembled, his would steady it. When she looked away, he remained exactly where he was, present and solid. And whenever she looked back at him, she felt that hum again.

She **** herself to breathe, slow and even, matching the rhythm of his breathing. For the first time since waking, the panic began to feel manageable—not gone, but like something she could hold alongside the reality of him sitting beside her. For the first time, she noticed the cuts on his knuckles, the ragged scrape across the heel of his hand, the line of dried blood under one fingernail. His shirt, if you could call it that, was splotched with mud and river water, the collar puckered in a way that made her want to reach out and fix it. She did reach out, this time, letting her fingers smooth the fabric. Andy held still, allowing her to touch him, to confirm his solidity. “I didn’t know how much of it you’d remember,” he said. “The river, I mean. Or what came after.”

Laura chewed, swallowed, then looked at him. “It’s all in there,” she said, tapping her temple. “Like someone pressed record, then fast-forwarded to now.” She traced a line along the inside of her wrist, as if searching for a scar or a mark to explain it. “I remember the fight. I remember the water. I remember…” She hesitated, but Andy's steady presence gave her permission to continue. “I remember thinking I’d never see you again. I was so mad at you, but also… I don’t know. I wanted you to jump in after me.”

He looked down, hands twisting together. “I did,” he said, voice thin. “But I wasn’t strong enough. Not then.”

“Yeah, but you are now.” She smiled, tentative. “I guess you got your act together, huh?”

Andy gave her a look—equal parts pride, guilt, and a kind of sheepish longing she hadn’t seen since they were small. “I’m a work in progress,” he admitted. “But I guess this was my final exam.”

She wanted to say something snarky, something that would cut the tension, but all she could manage was: “Thanks for coming back for me.” It wasn’t enough, but it was all she had.

He nodded, and the silence fell again, neither heavy nor awkward—just the quiet of two people who’d crossed the distance between worlds and now had to figure out how to make small talk. He gave her a crooked smile. “You want coffee?”

The question was so ordinary that Laura had to laugh, a thin sound that wavered at the end. She nodded, and Andy crossed the room to a metal carafe on the sideboard. He poured her a cup, careful not to spill, and brought it back. The mug was warm against her palm; the smell—rich and dark, more chocolate than bitterness—made her stomach lurch with hunger despite the croissants.

She sipped. The coffee was strong, a little sweet, and the taste made her think of Andy’s kitchen, of lazy Saturdays spent sketching together on the back porch while his parents made pancakes.

“You okay?” he asked.

Laura blinked. She tried to find a word for what she was, but nothing fit. “I’m not dead,” she said. “That’s a start.”

Andy's smile crumbled entirely, his jaw tightening as he looked away. "I saw you go under again." His voice cracked on the last word. "I couldn't—" He pressed his knuckles against his mouth. Laura's fingers froze on the rim of the cup as fragments flashed behind her eyes: the cold shock, her hair floating upward like seaweed, the burning in her chest that became a strange peace.

She tried to swallow but couldn't. "I remember my lungs—" she whispered, then shuddered violently, coffee sloshing over her fingers. The liquid felt too warm, wrong against her skin that remembered only river-cold.

He grasped her hand, tightly. “But I saved you, Laura. This time, I saved you, and I don’t care if that was a dream, because you’re here now.” She could hear the rawness in his voice, the pain accreted over years of grief, and it shook her to the core.

They sat together, not speaking, the silence a living thing in the room. Laura tried to catalog the strangeness of her own body: her hands were too long, her fingers thin and elegant. Her arms were lean, dusted with tiny freckles she didn’t remember. She ran her palm over the blanket, marveling at the softness of her skin, the new curves of her body, the unfamiliar ache in her shoulders. She wanted to hide, but also wanted Andy to see, just to confirm that she was really there.

He noticed her discomfort. “It’s weird,” he said. “I keep thinking you’ll disappear if I look away.”

Laura snorted. “You’re the one who changed.” She gestured at him. “When did you turn into a giant?”

He laughed, and the sound was as sharp as the sunlight. “Sometime after sixteen.”

She watched the light pool on his face, picking out the lines at the corners of his eyes. There was a kind of sadness in his expression, but it was different than she remembered. Less brittle, more anchored. She wondered how much of that was her, and how much was the years.

Laura wiped her nose with the back of her hand, embarrassed. “This is the worst way to come back,” she said, voice muffled by the blanket. “If I’d known I’d have to see you again, I’d have tried harder not to look like a complete mess.”

Andy frowned. “You look perfect,” he said, and the words fell so simply that Laura had **** but to believe him.

He stood, stretching, and offered her his hand. “You want to see the rest of it?” he said, gesturing to the Suite. “It’s kind of ridiculous.”

She hesitated. Then, slowly, she swung her legs off the bed, the blanket clinging to her waist. She was surprised to find herself clothed—she remembered nothing of putting on the pajamas, or a t-shirt four sizes too big, but the fabric felt expensive, too nice for a hospital or a prison. She took Andy’s hand, the size of it enveloping her own, and let him lead her to her feet.

Standing was strange. She was taller than she’d been at thirteen, but not by much, and she was shorter than Andy by a head and a half. Her legs felt like stilts, the world tipping and teetering as she adjusted to her new center of gravity. Andy steadied her with a hand on her elbow, his touch gentle but certain.

The first step was terrifying. The second was easier. By the time she reached the bedroom door, she had almost convinced herself she’d always known how to walk.

They started with the bedroom, which looked like the after-party of a wedding. She had been resting in a king bed (no, bigger than that. What was bigger than that? An emperor bed?) with a duvet that looked like it cost more than her dad's car, and a full wall of glass that overlooked the ocean. There were two doors at the back: one led to a walk-in closet with enough suits and dresses for a small army, the other to a bathroom bigger than the top floor of her entire old house.

Laura gaped. "This is insane," she said, touching the marble counter as if it might bite her. "Do they let you keep any of this?"

Andy shrugged. "Arabella isn't really clear on what happens when this is over. But the perks aren't bad."

She stepped to the full-length mirror, stared at her reflection for a long moment. She didn't look much like she'd expected. She wasn't much taller than she'd been at thirteen, maybe 5'0'' altogether. There were echoes of the child she'd been—same shape of nose, same cleft in the chin—but her face had lengthened, matured. Her hair was longer, almost to the middle of her back, and when she pulled it forward, she realized it was the exact color she'd always wanted. There was a small, L-shaped scar on her jaw, paler than the rest of her skin, a fossil of the day her dad had caught her climbing out the window with Andy.

She raised a hand to the scar, and Andy caught her in the mirror. "I can't believe it's still there," she said.

He moved behind her, resting his chin lightly on her shoulder. "It's a good scar," he said. "Gives you character."

She snorted, and the sight of the two of them in the mirror—taller now, older, Andy at least one foot and a half taller than she was, but still unmistakably themselves—made her laugh. For a second, she let herself believe this might all be okay.

The painting hanging over the chest of drawers stopped Laura short—a portrait of a naked girl, black hair to her ankles, standing in a field of wildflowers, eyes so sharp they felt like they could cut glass. The painting was huge, the size of a movie poster, and at first Laura thought it was a trick of the light, the way the paint seemed to shimmer at the edge of her vision.

She squinted. "Who's that supposed to be?" she asked.

Andy flushed, actually flushed, the color blooming high in his cheeks. "That's, uh. A contestant who lived here."

Laura looked at him, then back at the painting, and then snorted. "She's not wearing anything," she said, a little too loud for the echoing hallway. "You realize this is basically porn, right?"

"I didn't pick it out," Andy mumbled, steering her gently past. "It's a hotel. They do all the art."

She shot him a look. "Sure, Romeo."

As they passed, Laura could have sworn the girl's eyes followed her down the hall, but when she looked back the painting was as still as ever—no sign that it had ever been alive.

When Andy nudged her out of the bedroom, she moved with the careful hesitation of someone expecting the ground to tilt beneath her feet, like this new world might at any moment decide it wasn't ready to keep her after all. She let him lead, half a step ahead, and kept her hand in his the entire time—not because she was afraid, but because it felt like the only real thing in the room.

They made their way through the suite. The next room was impossible, bigger than her whole house had been. There was a kitchen with a marble island, an enormous red velvet sectional couch, and a wall of glass that looked out over the island and the glittering water beyond. The Suite expanded upward and downward—three stories high, wall-to-wall glass overlooking the ocean, every surface sleek and curved like the inside of a spaceship.

But it was the far end of the room that drew Laura like a magnet. Over a white stone fireplace hung a massive watercolor painting of a riverbank at dusk, three children huddled together at the edge of the water. Two girls and a boy, legs dangling off the dock, heads thrown back in laughter.

Laura stopped, her heart stuttering in her chest. She knew this place. Knew the bend in the river, the birch trees with their wet white bark, the haze of mosquitoes that always drifted above the reeds in the summer. This was her river, the one behind the house on Twin Yews Road, the one she and Andy and Emi had jumped into a hundred thousand times.

Andy followed her gaze. “You recognize it?” he asked.

"That's us," she said, nodding, not a question. "That's—me and you, and Emi." She reached out, fingertips just barely grazing the surface of the canvas.

Andy walked to the painting, staring up at it with a softness she didn’t understand. “It’s a new addition.”

Laura felt the urge to look away, but couldn’t. “It’s beautiful,” she said, and meant it. The brushwork was wild, the colors layered in a way that made the river shimmer and the trees vibrate. The riverbank was just as she remembered it—grassy, the river flowing placidly there. And she could see the emotion with which the painting had been made—every brushstroke soaked in longing and memory. "Who painted this?" she asked.

Andy hesitated, then said, "Emi. She's here, too."

The words didn't compute at first. Laura blinked. "Emi's here? On the island?"

"Yeah," Andy said, and his voice was careful, as if he was worried she might shatter if he spoke too loudly. "She's… it's complicated, but yes."

Laura let the words sink in, let the implications ricochet through her. Emi was alive. Not a ghost, not a memory, but a real, living person, somewhere on this impossible island. Her heart did something strange—a skip, then a lurch, as if the universe was trying to jump-start it back to the right rhythm.

She pressed a fist to her mouth, the guilt swamping her in a single, icy wave. "I don't know what I'm supposed to say," she admitted, her voice small. "I hurt so many people."

Andy joined her, careful to keep a respectful distance. She saw his surprise and realized he didn’t know. But he chose not to ask. “You were hurting,” he said. “It wasn’t your fault.”

She shook her head, refusing the comfort. “I was so angry. I thought if I was mad enough, it would stop hurting. But it never did.”

He nodded, as if he’d known this all along.

They sat in silence for a minute, Laura counting her heartbeats, waiting for the world to go blurry again. It didn’t. The air in the room was so clear it made her want to weep.

“Come on,” Andy said, standing. “I want to show you something.”

He led her to the wall of glass. A set of doors opened with the gentlest click, and they stepped onto a balcony overlooking the sea. The morning sun was higher now, the sky a blank, endless blue. The breeze hit Laura’s face and filled her nose with salt and flowers and the faintest memory of river mud.

Down below, a white sand beach curved around a cove, dotted with shells and driftwood. The water was impossibly blue, the waves breaking in perfect, rhythmic lines. The world outside was impossibly bright, the air so thick with salt and heat it felt like walking into a sauna.

For a second, Laura couldn't breathe. She'd never seen the ocean before—never been further from home than Wisconsin Dells—and the scale of it, the sheer unbroken blue, was almost too much to take in. She gripped the balcony rail, knuckles white, and let the vertigo pass.

"It's big," she said, which was the understatement of the century.

“It’s yours,” Andy said. “Or at least, it’s for you. There’s a path down to the sand, if you want.”

Laura stared, overwhelmed. She’d never seen the ocean in real life—only in books, or on the ancient, square TV in her parents’ den. The scale of it made her dizzy.

“I can’t,” she said, a little breathless. “I mean, I want to, but I—” She stopped, embarrassed by the tremor in her voice.

Andy didn’t press. “We don’t have to go now,” he said. “But when you’re ready, I’ll take you.”

She nodded, her eyes glued to the water. A single gull wheeled past, its shadow darting across the sand. For a moment, Laura let herself believe that she could stay here, that the world would wait, that nothing bad could happen as long as Andy was by her side.

They stood like that for a long minute, just breathing. Laura tried to picture her old life—her dad, her tiny bedroom, the sour smell of her locker after gym class—and found that it felt very far away, as if it belonged to someone else. Maybe it did. Maybe that girl had drowned in the river, and this new version of her was just borrowing the bones.

She glanced down at her hands again. They were shaking, a little, but not from fear. She realized, with a start, that she was hungry again.

"I could eat another croissant," she said.

Andy grinned, and for the first time since the river, she felt a real smile bloom on her face.

They made their way back inside, and as they passed the living room, Andy paused. "Actually, there's something I want to show you," he said, reaching for the remote on the coffee table. "Just—don't freak out, okay?"

He switched on the TV, and let the familiar rumble of news anchors fill the space. Laura flinched at the sight of the screen, which flashed an aerial shot of an island and the ticker: Harem Hotel: The HH, Season 200—Next: Laura’s Resurrection Twist Highlights! Stay tuned for Host interviews!

She turned to him, raising an eyebrow. "You're kidding me. You brought me back on reality TV?"

He grinned, the mask of guilt gone for a moment. "Technically, it's a sex cult. But the ratings are good."

She giggled—an actual giggle, as if her voice needed to practice being alive again. The sound shocked her almost as much as the resurrection. "Well, I always said you'd be famous someday."

They let the TV run for a few minutes, not really watching, just letting it fill up the cracks in the morning. The sunlight crawled higher on the wall, and the more Laura took in the room, the less terrifying it became. Yes, the world had moved on sixteen years. Yes, she was technically an adult and in a body she barely knew. But there was warmth, and food, and Andy was there.

She caught him watching her, and it was a look that mixed terror and awe, like he was still afraid she'd flicker out if he looked away too long.

"You okay?" she asked, softer.

He nodded. "Just making sure you're real."

"I'm real," she said, pinching the inside of her arm. "See? Hurts and everything."

He hesitated, then asked: "Are you cold? You're shivering."

She looked down, and sure enough, her hands were trembling, her arms dotted with goosebumps. "It's just nerves," she said, though the truth was more complicated: it was nerves, and hunger, and the sense that the air in the room was slightly too sharp at the edges. "Or maybe I'm just not used to being alive."

He smiled, scooted a little closer on the couch. "There's a rooftop deck," he offered. "Private beach access. More food in the kitchen. Whatever you want."

Laura looked at him—really looked at him, at the way he was trying so hard to be steady for her, when she could see the trembling in his hands, the exhaustion written across his features. She thought about asking him how this was possible, about the sixteen years that had passed, about Emi and this strange hotel and the girl in the painting upstairs. But looking at his face, she realized that some answers could wait.

"Show me," she said instead. "Show me everything."

Andy's face broke into a smile—genuine, unguarded, the smile of a boy who'd gotten his second chance. He stood, offering her his hand with the same careful respect he'd shown all morning, and together they climbed toward the rest of the suite.

They explored the Suite until Laura’s legs gave out, and Andy helped her back to the couch. She was exhausted—soul tired—and she curled up on the cushions, pulling her knees tight to her chest. Andy brought her more croissants, and she inhaled them.

Andy moved around the Suite, cleaning up, changing into fresh clothes, pouring himself another cup of coffee, never straying far. Every so often, she caught him watching her, his face half-hidden behind the mug, and she felt a warmth that had nothing to do with the sunlight.

After a while, she dozed. When she woke, Andy was at her side again, studying a charcoal sketch of a woman in multiple positions, multiple situations, as if the sketch chronicled a journey. He glanced over, put aside the sketch, and smiled.

“Ready to try the sand?” he asked.

Laura nodded. "Yeah. I want to see it."

Andy fetched her a zip-up hoodie from the closet. She pulled it on, relishing the scratch of the fleece against her skin, and followed him down the long hallway to the elevator.

"Do you like it here?" she asked, as the elevator doors pinged open and the cool, earthy scent of wet tile rushed in.

Andy considered. "It's weird. But there's good weird and bad weird, and this is mostly good. At least now." He punched the button for the lobby. "You'll see."

The elevator dropped, not fast enough to jolt but just enough to make Laura's stomach flutter. She watched the numbers on the LED display, the slow countdown to ground level, and wondered if every version of herself in every possible universe had wound up in an elevator at some point, wondering if it was going up or down.

The elevator opened directly onto the beach, nestled into a small natural cave. The beach shimmered, the sand so white it looked fake. Andy guided her through the sliding doors, and the blast of salt and heat nearly knocked her back a step.

The beach was empty, not a soul in sight. Andy explained, "It's private. Only people in the Master's Suite can get down here."

Laura blinked at the expanse of sand, the width of the ocean, the way the horizon curved like a bowl of possibility. Andy offered her his arm, mock-gallant, and she took it. They stepped onto the sand, and immediately Laura's feet sank. The grains were finer than any she'd felt before, almost powder. She wiggled her toes, delighting in the sensation.

She was quiet for a while, letting the water's roar and the hiss of wind fill her ears. The world outside was impossibly bright, the air so thick with salt and heat it felt like walking into a sauna. The sand was cool and fine under her feet, and when she breathed in, deep and trembling, she let the salt and light fill her up.

"I never thought I'd see the ocean," she said, her voice breaking.

Andy's arm slid around her shoulders, pulling her close. "There's a lot left to see," he whispered.

They walked together, slow and unsteady, until Laura found herself at the edge of the surf, waves curling around her toes. The tide was low, the sand damp and yielding under her feet. Andy walked beside her, never quite touching, but always within a half step—just close enough that she could have reached for him if she wanted.

The ocean was louder here, not like the shushing of the river but a steady, living roar. The first time a wave reached them, Laura squealed and jumped back, laughing at her own reflex. Andy smiled, the tension in his jaw easing, and she realized he'd been holding his breath for her this entire walk.

The sun warmed her skin, already erasing the last of the river chill. Laura could feel her body recalibrating, the muscles in her legs waking up, her lungs expanding with each sharp inhale. She let her hands drift out to her sides, fingers splayed, the air so heavy it almost pushed back. She felt alive in a way she never remembered from before, and for the first time since the bridge, she wondered if being alive could be enough.

They walked in silence for a long time, the only sounds the surf and the call of distant gulls. Laura looked down at her footprints, amazed at the delicacy of her own arch. She'd always had flat feet, but now the prints left behind were elegant, almost perfect. She felt like a foreigner in her own body, but a happy one.

After maybe a hundred yards, she turned to Andy and said, "I thought it would be scarier. But it's just water."

He smiled, watching the way the sun caught in her hair. "It's not scary when you're not alone." Andy said, "You want to sit?"

She nodded. He picked a spot well above the tide line, where the sand was dry and warm. She sat with her knees to her chest, arms wrapped around them, chin tucked between. Andy settled next to her, cross-legged, elbows resting on his thighs. She was quiet for a while, letting the water's roar fill her ears.

For a while, they just watched the ocean.

"It's big," Laura said, finally.

Andy nodded. "Makes you feel small, doesn't it?"

She shook her head. “It makes me feel… possible.” She bit her lip, then glanced sideways at him. “Did you ever see the ocean, before?”

He looked out at the horizon. “Yeah. The first time was senior year, my parents drove to Florida. I hated the drive, but when I got there—” He shrugged. “I thought of you. Wished you were there to see it.”

Her chest squeezed, but it was a good ache. “I always wanted to,” she said. “But my dad… he never wanted to go anywhere. And Mom… she just went with whatever he said.” Her voice was bitter.

Andy looked at her, green eyes steady and kind. “I know.”

Another silence, this one comfortable.

Then Laura said, softly, “You’re going to have to tell me what happened. After. I only remember the bridge and the water.”

Andy exhaled, slow and deliberate. “I was **** for most of it,” he said. “You jumped in after me. You saved my life.”

She looked at her hands, unsure what to do with them. “But I didn’t save myself.”

He didn’t argue, didn’t correct her. He let the words settle, as if they needed to exist before they could move forward.

“I used to dream about that day,” he said. “Every night, for years. I kept thinking if I replayed it enough, I could change something. I could save you.”

Laura’s eyes burned, but she didn’t cry. Not yet.

Andy picked up a shell, rolled it between his fingers. “You want to know what really happened that day?”

She nodded, bracing herself.

“There was a kiss,” he said. “But it wasn’t how you heard it. Chloe kissed me, right behind the gym, and I was too stunned to react. I never said you were a freak. I never said anything bad about you. She was going to ask me out in public, and I wanted to spare her the humiliation. I told her I liked you—like, really liked you—and she panicked. She kissed me, and then ran away, mortified.”

Laura let the words crash over her, waiting for the pain, but it didn’t come the way it used to. There was only an ache, more regret than actual hurt. “Why didn’t you just tell me?”

"I tried," Andy said, so simply it made her want to scream. "That day by the river, when I ran after you—" His voice caught. "You were already on the bridge railing when I reached for you. I called your name three times."

"You were my best friend," he continued, "and I didn't know how to say I wanted more. I was too stupid to realize I'd been in love with you since we could hold our heads up and first saw each other.”

She turned to him, meeting his eyes. "I loved you too," she said, voice trembling. "I just—I got too mad to listen. When I heard that Chloe had kissed you, and all the rumors… something broke inside me."

Andy nodded, silent for a long moment, and when he spoke his voice had a new steadiness to it, as if he’d been rehearsing this confession for years and only now, with her finally beside him, could he say it all out loud. “I know.” He picked up a handful of sand, let it sift between his fingers. “We were just kids, Laura. I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about those last two days. About how everything happened the way it did, and why. After you were gone, it was all I could think about. And eventually, after coming here, I found out the last few pieces.”

He shut his eyes, as if summoning the memory. “Riley was the one who told you to meet me at the footbridge. She meant well, but she was always the type to rush things. She thought she was helping. She was loyal to you, and saw you hurting, and wanted to make it stop, but she didn’t stop and question whether the rumors could be false.”

Laura’s fingers curled in the sand. “I remember. She urged me to go. She said it was the only place where I could get you to admit the truth.”

Andy nodded. “She was so sure you’d stop hurting, if you confronted me. She didn’t know about Myra.”

Laura’s stomach twisted—not at Andy’s words, but at the name. “Myra,” she said, spitting the word like a pit. “She was nice to my face, and the whole time—”

“She was spiteful,” Andy said, gently. “That doesn’t excuse it, but… she has suffered a lot, Laura, and tried to make amends for years. She wanted to punish you for getting close to me. She didn’t know how far it would go. She told you about Chloe. She made it sound worse than it was.”

Laura stared at the sand, her vision blurring. “She made it sound like you never cared about me.”

Andy’s face softened. “I know. And I know Chloe only kissed me because Nina, her best friend, found out I wanted to meet Chloe behind the gym and thought I wanted to tell Chloe I liked her. Nina thought it would help her. She didn’t think it would matter.”

“Everything mattered,” Laura said, the words half a sob. “Every fucking thing.”

Andy didn’t move or try to touch her, but she could hear the pain in his breathing, the way he left space for every one of her hurts. When he spoke again, his voice was rough. “I wish I could change it. I would do anything to change it. But the only thing I can do is be here now. With you.”

Laura pressed her fists into her eyes, hard enough to see firework patterns. After a moment she looked up at him, and the world was painfully sharp, outlined in salt and tears.

“There’s nothing left to change,” she said. “We’re both ghosts.”

Andy laughed, a startled, helpless sound. “Maybe. But I think we deserve to be more.”

“What if we can’t be?” she shot back, her anger flaring and then fading just as quickly. “What if this is all there is—sitting on a beach, talking about everything that broke us?”

He let the words hang. The tide was just starting to reach their feet, cool and insistent. Andy pulled his knees up, arms around them. “Then we sit,” he said, “until we’re ready to get up.”

Laura glared at him, but he didn’t look away. She waited for him to break first, but he only watched her, patient and unafraid, the kind of steady she’d never seen in him before. Finally she looked out at the horizon, the blue so endless it made her feel dizzy, and she realized she didn’t have it in her to stay angry anymore.

She hugged her legs to her chest. “I thought it would still hurt. But it doesn’t. Not like before.”

Andy smiled, a little crooked. “Me neither.”

They sat together, the sun on their faces and the sand between their toes, letting the world remake itself around them.