"Well then I don't know what you're trying to say, Lucy. In one breath you're telling me staying here isn't going to work and in the next breath you're saying you're not willing to go. I don't know where that leaves us."
She swallows. "I don't either. But I don't want to go to parties at Jake's anymore and I don't want to hang out with Natalia and Betty and Sandra for the rest of my life. I'm sick of it. The way they know everything about you, literally everything. Things I don't know."
"Why do I feel like you're breaking up with me, Lucy, before we've even begun?"
She bites her bottom lip, looking away. "I just don't know if I can do this."
"We haven't even tried."
She twists her lips. "I think I'm going to go home."
“After all this," I ask, "you're just going to leave? I can go talk to my commanding officer tomorrow," I tell her. "I can stay or I can go. Whatever you want. Let's at least give ourselves a chance."
But she's shaking her head, standing, walking toward the ladder. "I think maybe you were right."
"Right about what?" I ask her.
"That one way or another, the way things were can no longer be the way things are."
"But I thought you were my boo,” I say, my heart fucking breaking.
She licks her lips before looking away. "I thought you were too, Noah. I thought you were too."
Chapter Ten
Lucy
I'm fuming all the way home, frustrated with myself for turning what should have been the most romantic night of my life, in the tree house with Noah, into our first ever blowout fight.
I pushed him away, scared of it all being too good to be true.
When I walk into the house, my aunt immediately knows something's up. "What are you doing home? It's not even ten o'clock." Her porch light is still on, there are trick-or-treaters down the street, costumed like superheroes and fairies. And I'm jealous of them, these children who are still playing make believe when my fantasy seems totally crushed.
"It was a disaster," I say, tossing the sheet in the chair and walking into the kitchen. I pull open the fridge and grab a bottle of white wine, pouring myself a glass and taking a sip.
"What happened?" she asks softly as she pours herself a glass too.
"Everything," I say, and the tears start falling again; this time I don't fight it, they're splashing down my cheeks. My aunt knows me second best in the world, right after Noah, so I tell her what happened. All of it — the costume store, the fight, the checklist, Natalia, the kiss… though I don't tell her everything about the kiss.
How my belly flip-flopped in the most delicious way, how my heart beat hard and my spine straightened and my soul danced and my eyes glazed over as his lips met mine. How I felt like that wish I had made to the sky had just come true.
Noah kissed me and made love to me and it was perfect, too perfect, too good to be true. Nothing lasts forever.
My aunt understands. "You're scared you're going to lose Noah. Just like you lost your parents."
This time I press my hands to my eyes, covering them, shaking my head. Not because she's wrong, but because of how right she is, and I'm scared. This is why I've never given myself to anyone fully, why I've been single all twenty-two years of my life. Why I put on a sweater with a skull and crossbones warning anyone who might come close that I was off limits, that this heart was taken, already used up.
"Sweetheart,” my aunt says, "that's not how love works, you know?"
"How do you know?" I say. "You've been single since I've known you, my entire life."
"I know," she says, "but I loved before, you know that. I was married once."
I swallow, knowing it's true — my aunt was married to a firefighter who died in a fire, a cruel way to go if there was one, fighting for someone else to live and losing your life along the way.
"What am I supposed to do?" I say.
"Why did you leave?" she asks me. "What happened?"
I swallow. “He offered to stay in Monday Harbor. But I know Noah, he doesn't want to stay here. For his whole life, he's wanted to see the world. He's wanted to experience things and be on an adventure. He doesn't want to be tied down. That's why he's never had a serious relationship."
My aunt chuckles. "Oh darling, that's not why he's never had a serious relationship."
My eyes widened. "What do you mean?"
"I mean, Lucy, Noah's loved you since you were little. He's never been with anyone seriously because he's been waiting for you, waiting for you to see him as more than a friend, as your forever."
"You think that's true?" I ask. "Because it's impossible to be here and be with him. He's dated half the town and I don't care about that — I really don't, I get it. Your past is your past. But the history here, it's never going to leave us."
"Then why don't you go with him?" she asks me simply, plainly, as if it's the most obvious thing in the world.
"I can't go," I say, "I have to finish school."
"This is your final semester, aren't you done in a few months?"
"Yes, right before Christmas. But-"
"But what, Lucy? You have your whole life to live, too. What's your dream? What's your adventure?"
"I want to be a nurse," I say.
"You can be a nurse anywhere."
"But you're here and you're my family. And I can't just leave you. You took care of me all my life and-"
"Honey, I love you, but I don't need you to take care of me. I still have a whole life to live too, I'm not even 50." She laughs. “Lucy, truth is, I've been seeing someone."
"What?" I say.
"Is it so shocking?" she asks. "It's not serious, but it could be. His name's Dale, he works down at the butcher shop."
"You're dating a butcher?" I ask.
She smiles. "I am. Why do you think we had such good stew last night?"
"Are you telling me you don't need me?"
My aunt nods. "That's exactly what I'm saying."
"So now what? I'm just supposed to-" I swallow, biting my bottom lip. "I don't know how to do this."
"You can try,” she says. "If Noah made a checklist and you ticked off all the boxes then maybe you should make one too. Find out if he ticks off all of yours."
I smile. "I know he does."
"Maybe you need to let him know that."
"Maybe you're right," I say, kissing her cheek and squeezing her shoulders. And then I take my glass of wine and walk down the hallway to my bedroom, closing the door tight.
I put on pajamas, ones with pumpkins and black cats, and I look for a notebook and a pen. Then I sit down on my bed and make a checklist. The one my heart memorized a long time ago.
Chapter Eleven
Noah