She looked at me uncertainly, compassionately. “You want to get your picture—don’t you? I saw it next your chair. When I—when I left your birthday dinner.”
I stared at her for a moment before lowering my gaze, focusing on the sand. “To prove she existed,” I said, almost whispering. “To show that—that she was here. She deserves that.” I looked out over the ocean. “So do I.”
“Well—go get it, then, Sebastian. Go get it and get the gas can and get your ass back here. Because I can’t do this alone.”
And we went—on foot (our vehicles were still parked where we’d found the Seabreacher; on the opposite side of the island): Amanda splitting off for the General Store while I continued on to our duplex, which wasn’t far. The hardened twentysomething going one way while I went another—haunted, guil
