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“Oh jeez,” I said, laughing.

I was mostly silent as we drove, trying to concentrate on the road and not think about Gray. Owen could tell I was nervous, so he tried to distract me by making up corny songs. For all his messing around, Owen had a beautiful voice. Not throaty and raw like Flynn’s, but clean and pure.

“There was a short girl named Emma,” he sang, “who had a major dilemma. She tried to write . . . a song about her height . . . but nothing else rhymes with Emma!” I was cracking up, trying my hardest not to drive off the road. “Hey,” he joked, “be careful with Dolores!”

This only made me lose it more. “You named your car Dolores?”

“Don’t diss Dolores,” he said, patting the dashboard.

Owen dropped me off in front of the Newmans’ house and I gave him a hug to thank him for the ride, feeling somewhat abandoned as he drove away.

Gray’s mom, Simona, answered the door looking stunning as always with her strange combination of auburn hair and olive skin. “Emma,” she said, pulling me into her warm embrace. But there was something sad in her expression when she looked at me, a pitying expression that made me uncomfortable.

The ride to Cape May was awkward. I was sitting in the backseat with Gray’s sister, Anna, a precocious eight-year-old whom I adored. Simona made chitchat for the first hour, asking me about school, but then she seemed to run out of things to say. Gray’s dad, never warm and fuzzy to begin with, was silent for most of the ride, so Anna and I ended up playing games on her iPhone. But I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong.

We checked into a hotel that night, and Simona came to our room to make sure Anna and I had everything we needed. She had ordered us a pepperoni pizza, so Anna and I camped out on one of the queen-sized beds and ate while we watched a Harry Potter marathon on TV.

“Who do you like better, Harry or Ron?” Anna asked me.

“Harry,” I said. “What about you?”

She blushed. “Ron.”

“Why?”

“Because he has red hair like me,” she said. “Duh.”

I laughed, and she nestled against me, looking sleepy. I cleared away the pizza box and paper plates and turned down the sheets on the other bed.

“It’s nine o’clock, kiddo,” I said. “Time for bed.”

She immediately sat upright and pretended she wasn’t tired. “Do I have to?”

“At least brush your teeth and get into your pj’s.”

Dutifully, she went into the bathroom and changed while I did the same. When she came out, she smiled and rubbed her finger along her teeth. “All clean,” she said.

We crawled into our respective beds and I turned the volume down on the TV. Anna looked triumphant sitting in the middle of that enormous bed by herself, pulling the blankets up to her chin. “This is fun,” she said. “Like a sleepover party.”

“It is,” I agreed.

“Want to play Truth or Dare?” she asked. I laughed because Gray and I used to play this all the time.

“How do you know about that game?” I said.

“Gray plays with me. Only, I just play Truth with him now because the last time I chose a Dare, he made me sing the Scooby-Doo song in front of Kyle Weaver.”

“Who’s Kyle Weaver?”

“A boy,” she said, smiling coyly.

“Does he have red hair?” I asked.

“No, brown hair. And brown eyes, too. Girly eyes.”

“Girly eyes?”

“Long lashes.” Oh boy, Anna was in trouble already.

We played a few rounds of Truth or Dare during which I made Anna say tongue twisters while hanging upside down off the bed and she made me go into the hallway with toothpaste on my nose. For the final round, I chose Truth.

“Do you love Gray?” she asked. Without hesitation, I said yes, and she smiled. “Emma?” she said.

“Yeah?”

“I wish you were my sister.”

“That’s sweet,” I said, getting up and giving her a kiss on the forehead. “I wish you were my sister, too.”

“It’s lonely without Gray. I wish I had somebody to talk to.”

“Tell you what,” I said. “I’m going to enter my number into your phone. Anytime you’re feeling lonely or want to talk, you give me a call or text me a message. And I’ll do the same.” This seemed to please her because when she took her phone back, she pulled it to her chest and smiled.

Just before she fell asleep, she turned to me and said, “Emma?”

“Yeah?”

Our voices had that late-night hush to them, like no one else in the world existed.

“I love Kyle Weaver,” she said, burying herself under her covers so I couldn’t see her face. We were both fools for love.

The next morning, we arrived at the gates of the Coast Guard’s training center around 9:30. After parking, we walked over to the parade field and found seats on the bleachers with the other parents and relatives. The sky was a clear lapis blue, and the sun kept me warm despite the chill in the air. We listened to a Coast Guard band play military marches while the recruits filed onto the field, a sea of white peaks and shirts over navy pants. I scanned the lawn for Gray, feeling my chest tighten, wondering if our connection was so strong he’d sense my presence.

And then I saw him—standing straight and tall, his face so stern and focused I almost didn’t recognize him. His hat was pulled low over his eyes, casting half his face in shadow, but I knew it was him from the set of his jaw, from a certain way he had of standing. Watching him out there on that field awaiting this new mission was bittersweet. I felt a surge of emotions, the most overpowering of which was pride—pride at how far he’d come since last year when he’d been a broken boy haunted by his past. Now he was a committed Coast Guard recruit. And he was mine. The thought made me giddy.

I practically had to sit on my hands during the ceremony so I wouldn’t accidentally rush the field and attack him. The recruits recited the Coast Guard oath and went through a highly choreographed drill with their guns. Then the instructors awarded various honors and awards. Gray was given an honor graduate ribbon, bestowed on the top 3 percent of his graduating company. He was also voted “Best Shipmate” by the guys in his company. Anna and I beamed with pride.

When the ceremony was over, we headed onto the field to congratulate him. I watched as he took off his hat and shook his father’s hand. With his haunted eyes and close-cut scalp, he looked so vulnerable, like a warrior who’d finally come home from a long battle.

I hung back a little to let Gray’s family congratulate him first, but even so, I was expecting some eye contact, some sign that Gray was as impatient to see me as I was to see him. But he didn’t even look at me until he had hugged everyone else, until I was standing right in front of him, giving him no other choice.

“Hi,” I said brightly, trying to disguise my concern.

“Emma,” he said. His voice was heavy with some emotion.

I flung my arms around him, expecting him to pull me tight in his grasp, maybe sweep me off the ground and spin me like he’d done so many times before. He hugged me back, but it was cool and distant, a consolation prize of a hug.

I wanted to tell him how much I’d missed him, but Simona started talking about lunch plans, and we all began walking toward the car, and there wasn’t any time. Or privacy. I couldn’t exactly tell Gray I loved him with his entire family standing by.

We piled into the car and went to an elegant beachfront restaurant that looked like something out of
The Great Gatsby
. It had immense white columns and a wraparound porch with black-and-white-striped awnings. A pianist was playing jazz songs in the lobby, complementing the mood. In fact, everything was perfect. Except that Gray and I were barely speaking. When the waitstaff held chairs out for us, Gray took the chair opposite me instead of beside me. As we looked over the menus, he and his dad got embroiled in some conversation, leaving me smiling uncomfortably at Simona while Anna wandered the front porch.

The ride home was even more uncomfortable, as Gray and I were sitting in the back with Anna wedged between us. He still hadn’t looked me in the eye. And all of our conversation had been of the most bland, innocuous variety, the kind usually reserved for the dentist or hairdresser.

When we reached my house, Simona and Mr. Newman decided to go in and say a quick hello to my parents. Finally, I would get a chance to be alone with Gray. Anna was hanging outside with us, but I drew her aside and asked if she could go in with the grown-ups. “For me,” I said. “As a favor. I want to tell Gray something important.”

I winked at her, and she totally got it, winking back and heading inside. The air was cold, and the sky was brilliantly clear and punctured with stars. “So,” I said, teasingly, “we’re finally alone.”

The old Gray would have raised an eyebrow and grabbed me around the waist, stunning me with a passionate kiss. But when he turned to me, his eyes lowered, and for just a moment, I thought he was going to cry.

“Emma, I have to talk to you,” he said. Oh God. Suddenly, it all seemed wrong, like I’d imagined everything, like I was just some foolish girl who had let herself believe in true love. “Come with me. To the beach.”

The surf was rough that night. I could hear distant flags snapping against their poles. The wind whipped fiercely across the sand, flinging it at our ankles.

“Gray, what’s wrong?” I asked when I couldn’t take the suspense any longer.

He shook his head, casting his eyes to the ground. “I can hardly look at you.”

“Just what every girl wants to hear,” I said, trying for a joke.

“I mean, it’s hard for me to look at you and tell you this.”

“Tell me what?”

He finally met my eyes, and there was such sadness and regret in them that I would have done almost anything to comfort him. “Emma,” he said. “These past eight weeks have been the most difficult of my life. You have no idea what it’s been like without you.”

“I have some idea,” I said.

He took my hands in his, and for a moment, my hopes soared. This wasn’t going to be calamitous after all. Here we were, back at our favorite stretch of beach, the beach where we’d almost made love this summer. There was the lighthouse in the distance, its beacon flashing steady and true. “These last few weeks I met guys from all walks of life,” he said. “And each of them felt the same calling I did. They each wanted to be part of something bigger than themselves, to give up their pasts and forge ahead on this dangerous path, this . . .” He stumbled on his words, seeming overcome with emotion.

“Gray, you sound like a spokesman for the Coast Guard,” I said. “This is me, remember? Just tell me what you want to say.”

He gazed out at the water, which hammered onto the sand and then hissed its way in retreat. “I finally figured out what I want to do with my life. What I’m meant to do.”

“I know, Gray,” I said. “I think it’s wonderful.”

“The thing is,” he said, “those plans can’t include you.”

My heart lurched into my throat. “What do you mean?” I said.

“Because I’m leaving.”

“I know you’re leaving. I’ve always known that. But I don’t mind waiting—”

“That’s just it, Emma,” he said, gripping my hands tightly. “I can’t ask you to do that for me. You’re seventeen. I don’t want you waiting around for me while I go off on assignment.”

“Why? Where are they sending you?”

“It’s not where they’re sending me. It’s where I’m choosing to go. I’m going to train to become a rescue swimmer,” he said. “I leave for St. Petersburg next week.”

Florida. That wasn’t so bad. At least it wasn’t Alaska. “So we’ll just have to spend every second together before you go,” I said.

“Emma, you don’t understand. St. Petersburg is just my first boat station. I’m on the waiting list for the Airman Program.”

“Airman Program?”

“Rescue swimmers have to be trained in basic aircraft knowledge. If I get accepted there, that’s sixteen weeks.”

“That’s only . . . four months.”

“But that’s just the beginning. When I’m finished the Airman Program, I enter AST School in North Carolina to become a rescue swimmer. It’s one of the most intense training programs in the military. That’s another four months. Followed by EMT training. We’re talking about a year that I’ll be away from you.”

My legs wobbled, and my spine felt like it was dissolving. Because I knew where all this was going. I think I’d known it from the moment Simona opened the door yesterday. “I’ll wait as long as it takes,” I said.

“Emma, I can’t let you put everything on hold for me while I go away for a year, maybe even more. You should be enjoying life and school and having fun. Not writing letters to some guy who doesn’t even have the time to write back.”

Oh God. All those letters I’d sent. All the stupid words I’d written, pouring my heart out to a guy who’d been waiting to break up with me.
Idiot!

“So it was the letters,” I said, my voice growing defensive. “They scared you off.”

“No, Emma, the letters were beautiful. They kept me going. It’s just, I can’t hold you back anymore. Being with me . . . it’s not good for you.”

“How can you say that?” I said, hating the desperation in my voice.

“Because I need to do this alone.”

“Why?” I pleaded. A cold wind ripped through us, like it was trying to separate us by force. “You don’t have to give me up.”

“I do, though. I can’t be with you and do this,” he said, gesturing at his uniform. “Each one takes too much out of me, and you deserve more than I can give right now. All my life, I’ve never had a purpose, and now I do. And I want it more than I’ve ever wanted anything.” Silence hung between us as I took in his implication: He wanted this more than he wanted me.

“So you’re breaking up with me?” I said. “Because that’s what it sounds like. I just want to be sure.” My voice had grown clinical and detached. Self-protective.

Gray turned toward the water and ran a hand across his scalp. “That sounds so brutal,” he said. “But I have to, Emma. Don’t you see?”

No, I didn’t see. I swayed a little, and Gray gripped me by the shoulders to steady me. Everything was starting to go numb, like I was raising some sort of force field around myself to protect me from further damage. Releasing myself from his grip, I staggered backward and began walking away, not toward the house, but toward the ocean.