| photo by Fabrice Villard from Unsplash |

Noah walks out of his shoes and sits on the edge of the pool, so he can dangle his feet in the water. He's completely relaxed. So obviously comfortable it makes me sad—and maybe a little jealous—because I should feel at home here too. I hate that I don't remember this part of my life.

"Sucks that we won't get moved in before it's too cold to swim," he says.

His tone is warm but there's a hint of this like...intensity that makes it feel like he's including me in that statement. I'll be welcome here anytime: to plant flowers in his grandmother's fountain, to sample one of his grandfather's homemade vanilla milkshakes. Noah is offering me a place in his life—without hesitation—but our history is proof that it's not going to work out for us. Not if we leave all these questions unanswered.

"I'm sorry it took me so long to call you back," I say. "Not that I called. But..."

"Yeah. That's not a problem, Ally. Take as long as you need, all right? I haven't changed my mind. I'll do whatever you need—even if that means backing off."

"No, that's not what I want. Not at all. I just..." I squat down, meaning to settle, but I can't. I have to keep moving.

"When did you leave Drew's house?" I ask. Loud, because I'm halfway around the pool before I can get the words out of my mouth. "Because if you know everything I know about what a horrible person I was—I mean, I already read that you didn't agree with some of the things I did to Lindsay, but those things were just...they're nothing compared to..."

Ugh. Just ask what you want to ask!

"I want so much to be able to tell you that I'm not that person now," I say. "But I'm not convinced that's true. Because I've made some pretty bad decisions since my accident. All I can say for sure is that I'm trying to be a better person."

Noah watches me complete the lap. He waits until I'm close enough to read his face—which is entirely readable with all the moonlight reflecting off the water, and off the pale concrete patio surrounding the pool. That complex network of multi-directional wrinkles is etched into his forehead, but it's not confusion. He knows exactly what and why I'm asking.

"Lindsay asked for your purse," he says. "I was halfway out the door when Samantha called my name. When I got to my car, I thought about what you said: you didn't want me there because you wanted to keep the mistakes you made before the accident separate from the way you feel about me now."

He lets the thought hang out there for a moment. Waiting for me to nod in confirmation, apparently. Because when I do he says, "It was hard as hell for me to drive away from that house—one of the hardest things I've ever done—but I knew you were safe and I wanted to give you what you asked me for. Did I do the right thing?"

"Yes. Thank you. But. I can't remember the um. Sequence of events? So. I don't know if you heard Samantha ask Drew if...like..." I use my hands to cover my face—which is stupid, because the action reveals my embarrassment, whereas the moonlight probably would've concealed the color on my cheeks. "Samantha asked if Drew and I had um...if we'd been like, together."

"No, I didn't hear that."

I'm almost disappointed. Because I think I'd feel better about the whole sex or no sex thing if Noah had seen Drew's face—or even heard his voice. If Samantha and Noah thought Drew was telling the truth, then I think I could believe it.

"He said all we did was kiss," I say.

I don't know if it counts as withholding information—since I can neither confirm nor deny that anything else happened—but it feels dishonest. So. I guess I need to bring this up in my next session with Dr. Greene.

"That doesn't bother me," Noah says, but then he sighs. "Of course it bothers me. The guy's a..." He swipes his hand through the air. "Mostly I'm just pissed at myself because I didn't talk to you when you first joined the swim team, you know? If I had lifted my head out of my own ass, then maybe you wouldn't have felt the need to hang out with an asshole like Drew Watterson."

I don't want Noah to blame himself, but I know from experience that there's nothing I can say to take away his regrets. Because I have them too. I can't stop thinking that if I'd reached out to Samantha when Lindsay first asked me to, she wouldn't have ended up in Drew's car looking for drugs.

"Hindsight," I say. Because that's what Dad called it. He said hindsight is twenty-twenty. Meaning it's easy to look back on your life and see places where you could've made a better choice or chosen a different path.

But I say hindsight sucks.

I say it out loud and Noah smiles. "Yeah," he agrees. "It really does."

"But for me, there's this whole other thing that seems like hindsight but isn't. Because I'm looking back on events I can't remember. I have all this regret for decisions that feel like they were made by someone else."

I sit down—finally, because all the stress and tension of the last hour has caught up with me. I'm exhausted, mentally and physically, and I need to get this done. "You didn't say anything about what Lindsay yelled at me when I tried to blame Drew for giving her drugs," I say. "But you heard that, right?"

"Yeah, I heard."

"Then why are we here, Noah? How can you still look at me like...like you..." I shake my head. "You should be disgusted with me."

"It was hard to hear what Lindsay said to you, but not in the way you're thinking. I felt bad for you 'cause I knew you were gonna hate yourself for being that person. But I don't feel sorry for your sister. I played that game for two years—risked pissing you off to take her side, because I knew what it was like to take crap from an older sibling. But Lindsay's not a victim. What she did to us was seriously messed up. It was deliberate. You didn't force her to smoke weed. She made that choice, same as you."

"I got her high so she wouldn't tell our parents."

"Did you hold her down and make her inhale?"

"She did it because she wanted me to like her. Because the times she and I snuck out of the house to get high together, were the closest we'd ever come to being friends."

"Look Ally, I get why you feel guilty, but you're not going to convince me that she's an innocent bystander in all this. You did what you did because you were in pain—because I wasn't there for you. And that's on Lindsay."

"Yeah, but..." I blow out a breath. Shake the tension out of my fisted hands. "I have...a different perspective. Because I've heard Lindsay's side of the story and she's been helping me figure out mine. I hate what my sister did to us—she hates it too—and neither one of us expect you to forgive her. But I already have. Lindsay and I have forgiven each other. It hasn't been easy, but we both want the same thing, Noah. We're going to be friends. From now on."

Noah's hands lift. Then he drops them back to his knees. "I think I was a bad influence on you," he says. "Or maybe we were too much alike for our own good."

"What does that mean?"

"I'm talking about the way you and I kept trying to move on like nothing happened."

"It's something we have in common," I say. "Apparently, I've been avoiding conflict my entire life. And then after my accident, I couldn't deal with being the girl who let her little sister get bullied. Or a person who was doing things that were scaring the crap out of her best friend. So instead of talking to my therapist and getting the help I needed, I conjured up this braver version of myself and moved home to rescue Lindsay."

"You didn't let me finish what I was going to say," Noah says, frowning.

"Oh. Sorry. Go ahead. "

"We were alike before your accident, but you're different now. When I visited you at Faircrest that day, you told me you were coming home and I didn't think you'd actually do it. Then you told me you didn't want to meet Samantha, but you did that too."

"Only because I thought it would help me fix Lindsay—but that was..."

Noah hold up his hands and gives me another frown that says, "You're still not letting me finish what I'm trying to say."

I sigh and swipe a hand through the air, giving him the go-ahead.

"I didn't want you to go to Drew's house," he says. "But I didn't put up much of a fight because by then, I knew. You're not the same person you were before the accident, Ally. You're still all the things I've always loved, but you're braver now. You're stronger. And you've been a good influence on me. Do you remember what I told you I was drawing that day you first talked to me in ninth grade French?"

"Um." The sudden change in subject has me confused—and a little disappointed because I was really enjoying the pep talk. But I answer the question. "It was the three-legged stool in my bedroom."

"Right. It became yours that day, but it wasn't finished until a few months later. I gave it to you, even though I knew you well enough by then to know you wouldn't like it. The fact that you do now is pretty interesting, don't you think?"

His tone says it's more than interesting. He's amazed, like he was when we figured out the dream smile.

"It makes me think we have real chance," he says. Then he huffs out an almost-laugh, and pulls his feet out of the water so he can turn to face me. "I still have a few things to sort out, but I know I'm gonna quit my job at the golf course and work with Dad. I'll be an apprentice for now, but after we graduate, I'm going to work with him full time—help him build the business or whatever. So I'll be right here..."

Noah doesn't finish the sentence. He just sits there, nodding at me like I'm supposed to know what he's talking about—but I don't. "What are you saying?"

"I don't want to put any kind of pressure on you. Take all the time you need with your parents and your sister. I understand how important all of that is for you. I'll be right here waiting—literally in five weeks. If you're still interested, then come find me and we'll talk. All right?"

Five weeks? "That's..." Way too long. "What if I don't want to wait?" I ask him. "What if I'm ready to start talking right now?"

Noah shakes his head. But he's on his feet, reaching out for me with a smile that says, "I want to kiss you."

I let him pull me to standing, let my body press against his when he kisses my forehead. "We can't start right now," he says. "I have to get up in five hours. But I can pick you up after school and we can talk over milkshakes."

"Okay. But. I need you to know that I...um. I don't like it when my Raisinets get all frozen."

Noah laughs out loud. And then he kisses me soft and sweet. And when he pulls back, his blue eyes are confident, like a promise. Like they were in the dream-memory that encouraged me to trust him.