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“Being useful instead of honest.”

He made himself look at her.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “Not for being scared. For what I did with it. For busy week. For inventory. For standing on that ladder and nodding at you like you were a stranger.” His jaw tightened. “I heard you stop in the snow. I heard you turn around and walk home. And I let you. That’s the part I can’t get past.”

Her eyes had filled.

“You didn’t deserve that,” he said. “Not for one minute. Next time I’m scared, I’m going to ask you. Not decide for you. Not go get useful somewhere. Ask. Even if I don’t like the answer.” He held her gaze. “You have my word.”

She looked at him for a long time.

“Okay,” she said.

The sky was going gray now at the edges of the mountains. She wiped her face with the back of her glove.

“My turn,” she said.

He looked at her.

“His name is Ryan,” she said. “We were together two years. Except we weren’t, really. I was together. He was around. He’d text me at eleven forty-seven at night, wyd, and I’d drive across the city in the rain. His friends called me Ryan’s friend Allison for two years and he never corrected them once. He forgot my birthday until nine at night and made it a joke. I learned how to want less so it would hurt less when I didn’t get it. I got really, really good at wanting less.” She pulled her knees up and wrapped her arms around them. “And then he told me across a restaurant table that he just didn’t think he was in love with me. Like he was telling me it might rain.”

Shane’s jaw went tight. He just listened.

“I almost didn’t come here,” she said. “I almost didn’t click apply. I sat there at eleven at night with my cursor on the button, thinking, who do you think you are. Thinking I wasn’t the kind of person who got to start over somewhere beautiful.” She let out a breath. “I clicked it anyway. I don’t know why. I think the town was waiting for me.”

“It was,” he said quietly.

“On Monday he texted me. First time since March. Just hi. Lowercase.” She laughed without any humor in it. “And my whole body remembered him. That’s what I couldn’t stand. I knew better, and my body didn’t care. I sat at The Brook and it felt like the whole world got smaller. The coffee tasted like nothing. I sent him hi with a question mark, and I hated myself the second I did it, and he wrote back in under ten seconds. Wyd. Hru. Miss you.”

Shane made a sound low in his throat that she had never heard him make before. It sounded a lot like a growl.

“And then you walked in,” she said. “And I turned the phone over. Not because I was hiding something from you. Because I didn’t want him anywhere near you. Not even on a screen.” She looked at him. “You’re the clean part of my life, Shane. He was mud. I didn’t want to track him in.”

He was very still.

“You asked me if I was okay,” she said, “and I said fine, and you believed me, and you left. And I sat there and realized that he had asked me how I was in three letters and didn’t care about the answer. And you asked me with your whole face.” Her voice broke. “So I wrote back and told him I’d moved on and I was happy and to never text me again. And he said wow ok. And I laughed. I laughed so hard Rick fell off his stool, because I’d spent two years of my life bent around a man whose whole vocabulary was wow ok, and you were right across the street.”

The sky was silver now over the peaks.

“And then,” she said, “I walked into Helen’s office and told her I want to sign on for next year. And the year after.”

He went completely still.

“Monday,” he said.

“Monday morning. Before the nod. Before inventory.” She held his eyes. “I’m not getting well and going back, Shane. There’s nothing to go back to. I’m not passing through. I’m here.”

He looked at her for a long time.

“I’m not him,” he said. His voice was rough. “I’m never going to be him. I’m never going to text you wyd.”

“I know,” she said. “That’s what scares me.”

He frowned. “Why.”

“Because I know how to do not chosen.” She was crying now and didn’t bother hiding it. “I’m good at it. I’ve had so much practice. If you turned out to be him, I’d know exactly what to do. I’d survive it. I’ve survived it before. But I don’t know how to do this. I don’t know how to be somebody’s first choice. There’s no practice for it.”

The lake was completely still.