Chapter 1

Our house,all glass and steel, overlooks the California canyons and the bay that lies beyond. It was built to be one with nature, but appearances can be deceiving. When it comes to the natural world, my mother—the esteemed Alicia Bouchard Gatell—is not a fan. Personally, I think she bought the house because it sits at the top of the highest hill in Bayport and is easily defensible. The glass lets her see when her enemies are coming.

And when her daughter is sneaking out.

But I'm careful. And I'll be careful tonight, too.

The night air wafts in through the open kitchen window. Fragrant and cool, it diffuses the scent of Mom's perfume and sweeps away the sound of her voice. I lean toward the window, in dire need of fresh air, not the sterile variety that passes for it in our house.

I'm also in need of Tyler, my best and only friend…that is, if you don't count the climate geeks on Reddit. Tyler, who's waiting for me in the garden. Who's more than a friend, more than a co-conspirator, if I'm being honest. I've known that for a while.

Maybe tonight will be the night I tell him how I really feel about him. He's got to suspect. Yes, I live in California, but I'm studying astrophysics, not acting.

The soft tap of Mom's blood-red nails on the marble island snaps me from my daze.

"Did you hear a word I said, Rosalie? And why for heaven's sake is this window open?" Still in her work suit and heels, she clacks over to the window and slides it shut. And just like that, the queen and princess are once again sealed inside their fortress.

My father's love of all things growing still lingers in the room with the fading breeze. Maybe that's why she keeps the windows closed—to keep my mind off him and on my studies.

Good luck with that. My dad's gone, but I haven't given up on my shadow kingdom—the little garden tucked off the canyon trail where I keep my memories of him safe from Mom's periodic purges. For years after the divorce, when she wouldn't allow me to see him except for rare, supervised visits, I used to slip out and meet him there. We'd talk about his activism, his bestselling climate disaster novels that inspired millions, and how side-by-side, we were going to change the world—one plant at a time. He hinted at some secret project he was working on, and I dreamed that one day, we'd collaborate on it together.

But that dream is buried, along with his ashes. Now I meet Tyler out there instead. I stare into my lavender tea, the best I can do to bring Dad's garden inside, and lose myself in his memory.

Mom pulls up a stool and sits beside me with her own steaming mug. Our time, she calls the evening ritual we started after Dad died, to make sure we never end a day without checking in. Given the ridiculous hours she works as director of the Bouchard Institute and my constant studying, we'd probably never see each other otherwise.

It's okay. Tyler will wait for me. He's used to it by now.

"Rosalie!" my mom says. "Where has your mind wandered off to? You need to stay focused!"

"My mind is right here, at the bottom of this mug," I say, forcing a smile. "Because it's so heavy from all the astronomy knowledge I've packed into it." Hint, hint. Yes, we're both very tired. Yes, we should go to bed.

Mom smiles back and sets her mug down. She ruffles my hair, the tension easing from around her eyes—though no amount of high-priced concealer can cover up her exhaustion. "It's been a very long day."

"It has." I keep my voice casual and hope she doesn't notice my knee bobbing up and down under the counter. "I don't have much to say unless you want to talk stellar dynamics."

"I"m a bit fried for that." Mom sighs and rests a manicured hand on mine. She opens her mouth as if to say something, then presses her lips together, the words left unspoken. "I know I drive you hard, honey. But we're almost to the finish line. A few more yards and we"re there."

She's right, of course. I didn't bust my butt these past four years at Bayport Academy to fold right before claiming my prize as valedictorian. But being a prodigy is exhausting—and depressing, since my dad isn't here to see the results of my hard work. Not that he'd necessarily approve, knowing I've given up the fight and let Mom dictate my path rather than following my heart into a botany major.

"Tell you what," Mom says, brightening. My mother has a sharp eye for when the grief takes hold of me. "I'll take the afternoon off and we can go shopping for Cambridge tomorrow. You probably studied enough tonight."

I smile. Mom truly believes in the sacred healing power of shopping. "Sounds fun. And…I think that officially concludes our evening chat."

Mom scrutinizes me, and I wonder if I remind her far too much of her famous ex-husband, dark Sephardic complexion, botany obsession, and all. And if she worries that I'm more like him—brilliant, but too sensitive and fragile—than like her, the human embodiment of a Swiss watch.

"Good night, my love. Sleep well," she says finally. She hugs me, then gathers our mugs and puts them in the sink for the housekeeper to deal with in the morning.

I exhale and glance at the wall clock. I've still got plenty of time.

* * *

Our security networkis nothing more than an afterthought at this point. I've been slipping past it for half my life.

Making my way past the pool and the meticulously arranged patio furniture, through the hedge boundary and onto the trail behind our property, I hike downhill a good half-mile before veering off into the brush. Here, concealed beyond a thin ribbon of stream and a thicket of scrub oaks, is the tiny patch of ground that's my refuge.

The night air is perfumed with the scent of the poppies, asters, primrose, spearmint, and lilac that Dad helped me coax from seedlings and sample cuttings. Their delicate, sharp aromas greet me like family…or at least, the family I wish I had. Ever since I lost Dad, I've felt like a rare orchid: isolated in my personal greenhouse. My parents are both estranged from their families—I've never even met any aunts, uncles, or cousins—so it's just me and Mom now, locked away in our ivory tower.

This garden is the only place I truly feel at home. Where I have roots.

I slip off my sneakers and dip my feet into the stream, absorb its gentle murmur, then continue barefoot. The ground hums beneath my feet.

At its center grows the coral tree Dad and I planted when I was five. Our experiment, he'd called it. Now the twisted trunk branches into brilliant red blooms at the tips, visible even in the moonlight. Strung from the branches, the glass globes I've crammed with memories of him clink and sway in the soft breeze.

I've filled dozens of these kitschy orbs with hoarded scraps of candy wrappers, twigs, bottle caps—anything I could salvage from our nights together in the canyon. Nights we'd forage for herbs and pick wildflowers, or he'd teach me about native plants. When I miss him the most, I even camp out under our tree, brooding like a tragic heroine, as Tyler likes to say.

I try to remember the good stuff, not my parents' fights, not the years my dad abandoned me by taking a position on the other side of the country, at the University of Maine. How he had all the time in the world for activism, and so little for me. Or how, when a scandal wrecked his career, he holed himself up in his Maine cabin, and everything really went to hell. Tyler may come from a small island off Maine's coast, but I'm no fan of the Pine Tree State. My best friend, on the other hand, never tires of pointing out how he and my famous dad claim a shared geography.

Ugh. Tonight, I don't want to think about my dad. All I want to think about is Tyler and how the heck I'm going to drum up the nerve to finally let him know how I feel.

I spot his blue motorbike hidden in the bushes. My heart speeds up as he steps from the bushes, mops the hair from his brow, and lopes toward me. Though he's mostly in shadow, the moon illuminates his blond curls like a golden crown.

"Rosalie," he says. "You came."

I shrug and force my voice flat, terrified I'm going to blow eight years of friendship by giving away my feelings for him before I'm ready. "Why wouldn't I?"

Tyler smiles. I heat a degree warmer, sweat dampening my palms. "I got in," he says softly.

It's as if a geyser of pure joy has spouted under my feet, propelling me skyward. "You what? Where? Cambridge?"

He nods.

"Omigod. I can't believe it!"

I'm about to leap into his arms for a victory dance, but Tyler stands stiff and motionless. I step back. "What's wrong? Aren't you excited?"

The Cambridge University summer pre-college program is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Two Bayport students have never been accepted at the same time. It's got to be some kind of miracle.

Tyler's smile returns. "I guess. Sure," he says. "How about we celebrate with a cruise on my uncle's boat?"

I stiffen, my mouth gone dry. Tyler has been on a mission to break me out of Mom's gilded cage for years. He's a foster kid, a scholarship student at our pricey academy. Given that he lost an entire year of schooling and graduated high school at nineteen, it's even more impressive. I've always suspected my mom discourages our friendship out of elitism, as if his lower socioeconomic status and nonexistent pedigree were anchors that would drag me down with him. "I don't know if..."

"C'mon, Rose. It's a perfect night for a moonlit boat ride. I think that's a song, isn't it?" He grins at me. "Besides, your mother sleeps like the dead. How many nights have you slept out here under your dad's tree and never gotten caught?"

I frown. "True, but?—"

"You can't hide inside your mother's pouch for the rest of your life, Rose. In two months you'll be crossing the Atlantic to frikking England. Not that you really want to go."

The nickname, the one only he uses, makes me melt. Other than Tyler and Dad, who used to call me Rosie, I never let anyone call me anything but Rosalie. The subreddit Climate Warrior crew Tyler and I hang out with online knows me only as VerbenaX. They have no idea that I'm Rosalie Gatell, daughter of the acclaimed author, noted academic, and vocal climate justice advocate Edward Gatell. But Tyler knows. And he's been trying to get me to come clean since my first post three years ago.

No matter how delicious my nickname sounds in his mouth, that doesn't make his accusation that I'm a coward any less humiliating. I fold my arms, cheeks blazing. "You don't understand."

"You're right about that." The lopsided grin is in full force, and all I want to do is wipe it off his face. "I'll never know what it's like to be Rosalie Gatell, Princess of Bayport—secret heir to the warrior throne. Hell, maybe I should say he was my father."

"Tyler!" I lash out with a graceless roundhouse kick, courtesy of my long-abandoned martial arts lessons. Tyler and I trained together, until I turned out to be hopeless. It's actually how we met.

I may act like it's a joke, but I don't find it funny at all. Tyler's hero worship of my dad makes me squirm. He always wanted to meet the famous Edward Gatell, but by the time we became friends, my father had already made himself scarce. I sometimes wonder if Tyler's settling for me instead, hanging around as if my dad's glory will rub off on him.

He grabs my leg from under me and I fall, both of us laughing. I can never stay mad at him.

"I know in the end your dad was a fuck-up," Tyler continues, helping me to my feet, "but that doesn't mean his work was a lost cause. I don't understand why you're letting your mother decide your future."

I sigh. "You aren't ever going to give up, are you?"

"Nope," he says, eyes crinkling into the full wattage of his smile. "Not until you step into the shoes he left for you. C'mon—can you imagine the following you'd have? Greta Thunberg, beyotch, step aside."

"Please," I say, tears pricking my eyes.

"The earth needs a mind like yours, Rose." He steps closer, and his ocean-spray scent fills me with something indefinable, like a familiar song barely remembered. My heart speeds up.

I shake my head, trying to laugh it off. "It's got yours. You're going to save humanity, one broken clam shell at a time."

But when he doesn't return my smile, I'm afraid I've struck a nerve. Climate justice is more than a hobby for him. It's an obsession. He'd never let anything—not even unbearable grief or a controlling mother—drag him away from his dreams.

Then he throws back his head and breaks into a glorious belly laugh. I exhale, relief flooding me. "I'll wear you down, eventually," he says, eyes glinting, his easy humor restored. "But, tonight I have a surprise for you. And I don't want to share it under the tree of perpetual sorrow."

* * *

From the deckof Tyler's uncle's cabin cruiser, The Big Easy, shore lights ripple across the black water. Gulls swoop and soar. The night is clear, the moon a lemon slice floating above it all. My head fills with the intoxicating scent of ocean brine, but a lattice of worry for defying my mother overlays everything.

"How far out will we go?" I ask, doing my best to sound as if I'm eager for adventure. Tyler may be at home on the sea, but all that water makes me uneasy.

He busies himself checking the controls, muscles flexing visibly under his white t-shirt. I breathe in and hope my cheeks aren't flame-broiled red. "Just far enough," he says.

The boat revs and pulls away from the marina. Wind tousles my hair as we chug away from the dock, the shore shrinking into the distance. Tyler cuts the engine after about fifteen minutes.

"We need enough gas to get back," he says with a smile. "I'll drop anchor here."

"Aye, Captain," I say, but glance at my phone the moment he turns away. I've never been able to prove it, but I'm almost certain Mom's installed a GPS tracking device that beeps when I'm out of range. Maybe I'm paranoid. With a mother as dogged as mine, it's no wonder.

The hell with her. What's the worst thing she can do—send the Coast Guard after me?

I stash my phone in my pocket, determined not to think about her any more tonight. Tyler returns, eyes bright, moonlight singling out gold strands in his windblown hair. The scent of his salt-kissed skin overrides everything. Suddenly I don't care what my chosen life path is or whether my mother knows I'm on a boat with my best friend…who I've fallen in love with. And now, we're going to Cambridge together. The idea is too trippy to process.

"What's the surprise?" I say, grinning. "You'd better get to it quick before she figures out I'm gone."

Tyler brushes one of my unruly auburn curls from my face and lifts my chin with a finger. To my shock, I see my own desire reflected in the way his lips part, the flush on his cheeks. Staring into his eyes while he's looking at me this way is like opening a door and finding a brand-new room in my house. One I dreamed was there all along.

"About the Cambridge trip." His voice is low, so unlike his usual playfulness. "There's a glitch."

My heart sinks, both at his words and the intensity in his gaze. "A glitch?" I manage, heart accelerating.

Tyler's gaze lifts to meet mine. My breath catches. "I know how much Cambridge means to you," he says, his eyes fixed on mine. "And it's a huge honor for me. But there's something else I need to do."

Whatever's going on here feels like an ending—not a beginning. Puzzled, I search his face for clues but find none.

As he leans in close, the solidity of the boat fades away. My skin tingles, and my voice is a strangled croak. "You're ditching Cambridge?"

I expect him to answer me. Maybe, even, to kiss me. But instead, Tyler pulls the thin gold chain he always wears from under his t-shirt. I've never looked that closely at the little charm that dangles from it before—the forearm of a graceful, elongated hand ending in an interlocking three-way knot. The odd bit of jewelry looks ancient, like it washed up on shore after sitting at the bottom of the ocean for eons.

My pulse quickens as he presses it into my palm. This gift, the sadness in his eyes…everything feels weighted with meaning I don't yet understand.

"You should have this."

I turn the strange charm over, struck by the solemnity of this moment. "Why are you giving this to me?"

He leans in, his eyes soft. They're so beautiful from this close, gold flecks visible within the vivid green. "It's been passed down in my family for generations." His hand encloses mine. I'm not sure I'm still breathing.

"Your family? I don't understand?—"

"My Aunt Millie…I need to go home. To see her. She's not technically my aunt but she—she helped me out after my parents died."

As a foster kid, the only family Tyler's ever mentioned is his mysterious Uncle Randy, the guy who owns this boat but I've never met. This is the first I've heard of an Aunt Millie. Or any mention of his dead parents.

For people who claim to know each other so well, we sure have our share of secrets.

But I do know how he's always yearned to visit the tiny island off the coast of Maine where he was born, though I've never been clear on which island it is. From what I understand, there are hundreds. Because of Dad, the mention of Maine always makes my throat constrict. I'm ashamed to say that whenever Tyler brought the subject up, I dropped it just as quickly.

Now I clutch the strange charm tightly, feeling the warmth of his hand around mine. "Why give this to me now? Don't you want to keep it?" I press, but he just smiles and shrugs.

Electricity thrums in the scant space between us.

I find my voice, aiming for the same reasonable but firm tone my mother uses on me, though it's hard to focus with him this close. "You can always visit your aunt after Cambridge, can't you?"

"I'm not going to Cambridge," he says, his breath brushing my cheek. "And I'm not coming back to Bayport after we graduate."

The air rushes out of my lungs. My fist tightens around the little charm until it digs into my flesh. Hurt blossoms inside of me. "Then why did you apply in the first place? Did you know all along you wouldn't go?"

"Something came up. I have to go home. To the island."

"To stay? So after we graduate, it's goodbye California, hello Maine?" I swallow hard and grip the charm. Why can't I hold onto anyone I care about? Just like I lost Dad to Maine, I'm losing Tyler, too.

"It doesn't have to be goodbye," he says softly. His gaze is mesmerizing, and I lose myself in those warm green eyes, wishing we could sail away together forever. Leave Mother and Bayport and Cambridge behind, two pirates on the open sea.

I struggle to formulate a coherent thought. "What about your studies?"

"Maybe, Rose, if just once you listened to your heart instead of your annoyingly rational brain, you'd understand. My island has more to teach me than any university. But it's just for a gap year. After that, I'm going to study marine ecology at UMaine Orono. I've been offered a full ride."

I turn the words over in my head, shocked. "My dad's old school?"

Tyler looks guilty. "They offered me a scholarship in his name. How could I turn that down?"

My head pounds over the strangeness of it. But it all makes sense. He's been obsessed with my father for years. My voice rises. "You applied behind my back, didn't you, making me think you were going to Cambridge if you got in, then UCLA?"

"C'mon, Rose. I applied to a lot of places. I don't have your, uh, options. I had no idea if I'd get in anywhere. UCLA was my fallback."

He looks sheepish and I gape at him, my cheeks hot. The implication is clear: I'm rich and don't have to chase down opportunities like a starved animal hunting for scraps. "But…"

"Besides," Tyler adds, softening his tone, "I didn't mention knowing you in my essay or anything. I got in on my own merits. I got accepted to a lot of places. But they have the best marine ecology program in the country. And it's so close to home. I'm just following where my heart leads me, Rose." He gazes out at the dark waves, wind ruffling his hair. "My life has always been full of coincidences I've learned not to question."

My fingers itch to touch the golden strands caught by the breeze. But I'm not backing down so easily. How can his heart lead him away from me?

"Do you know how crazy this all sounds?" I say, breaking the spell. "Do you even have family there? Aside from Aunt Millie, who isn't really your aunt, I mean? Can't you just go for the summer?"

"Uncle Randy lives there most of the time, too," Tyler says, dreamy and distant, still watching the water. "Now that I'm almost nineteen and done with high school, my foster parents want me out. Besides, I owe Millie a visit. And I miss the island. If you'd been there, you'd understand." He snaps out of his reverie and straightens. "Come with me and you'll see."

"What do you—" I frown, processing what he's said. "Wait. The Martins are kicking you out?"

Tyler shrugs, pulls a folded paper from his jeans pocket, and presents it to me. I open it and stare in horror at the printout for two plane tickets to Bangor, Maine, panic beating at me with its black wings.

"I don't want to go by myself," he says, turning to me, his gaze sharp and direct. "There are things I need to figure out there and I want you and your quizzical brain with me to help. Think of it as field study. Please say you'll come? You can go on to Cambridge after."

"What things?"

Tyler flashes his trademark impish grin. "Ohh…you know, the usual environmental threats to a maritime biosphere. The island needs an advocate, and who better than me?"

The boat tilts. I can't ditch Cambridge to go to Maine, of all places. Mom would go ballistic. But if I let him go without me, what if Maine steals him away forever like it took my dad?

I try to tuck the same stubborn curl behind my ear but it won't stay put. "I don't know, Tyler. This is a lot. I worked hard to get into the Cambridge program. My mother would disown me, even for missing a few weeks. Or lock me in a tower."

I tremble as Tyler brushes the wayward curl out of my eyes. He's never touched me like this before. "You don't have to decide now," he says, sounding as breathless as I feel. "We have two months."

Is he still talking about the trip? Or about the fact that, if he doesn't go to Cambridge—and if I choose not to go with him to Maine—we only have two months left together? I'm headed for Lausanne University in Switzerland after Cambridge. It's a legacy admission, paid for by the trust of my long-dead grandfather, Henri Bouchard. But Tyler was supposed to go to UCLA, so I figured he wouldn't be far when I came home on break. And that he'd visit me. That somehow our orbits would always cross paths, and maybe converge.

The thought of being apart from him shatters me. He's the only person who really knows me. Who seespast Rosalie, the good little student, daughter of a brilliant but self-destructive genius.

"Tyler," I say, struggling to focus on what he's saying instead of on his lips, which are inches from mine. "It's a lot to consider."

He snorts, tugging me toward him, the ocean scent of him as sweet and intoxicating as my night garden. In the dim light, his green eyes look black—a bottomless abyss I could fall into and never find my way out of. But the thought doesn't scare me. I want to fall.

"Screw what your mother says. You've gone along with her demands like an obedient pet long enough. Do you even like astrophysics? How will that save the planet? It's like she doesn't want you to continue your father's unfinished work. But what do you want for you, Rose?"

My ribs constrict. I do care about the climate, about the earth, but my mother has me sufficiently intimidated that if I follow my father's path, it'll destroy me, too. "What if we request a late arrival to Cambridge for you? I've got enough tutoring money squirreled away to buy your ticket…you can come after and…"

"No," he whispers. "I told you I'm not going."

"But…"

"Please," he says, voice cracking, "say you'll come with me, Rose. I-I need you there."

I draw back, alarmed by his tone. "Hey, I know that ocean acidification is a big trigger for you, but aren't you getting a bit…"

He cuts me off. "This is not a joke. I've done some things I—things I regret. This is my chance to make it up to you. To explain myself."

"What are you talking about?" I wrack my brain. Has he been with other girls? Why apologize for that when we're not even a thing? "You're not making sense, Ty. Are you sure you're feeling okay?"

Cutting me off, he pries the chain from my hand and fastens it around my neck.

"Keep this with you always," he says. "Just in case."

"In case what? What's gotten into you? I can't keep this. You've worn it as long as I've known you. Is it from your parents?"

He grins and the light returns to his eyes. "I told you—it's an old family good-luck charm. After two months, if you still don't want to come with me, give it back. Simple."

The chain burns against my collarbone. I don't want to think about when I'll have to disappoint him. Lose him. I push my worries over my life choices, my mother, and her GPS phone tracker out of my mind, until there's only Tyler and me and the boat rocking beneath us. And then he's looking at me with that same longing he gets when he talks about reef death and melting ice sheets in the Arctic. Only it's directed at me. I'm the melting ice sheet.

We sway closer, and my eyes drop to his parted lips. His breath catches. I don't know who moves first, but we fall into a kiss, collapsing onto the padded bench that lines the perimeter of the deck. I savor the scent and feel of him, the moment I've been imagining for the past eight years, pretending to only be his best friend. It's Tyler's soft hands on my bare back, his mouth brushing my jaw. Just him and me, safe inside the bubble of our own little world.

Then there's a muffled boom, like distant thunder. An image flashes into my mind: Alicia Bouchard Gatell riding shotgun on the prow of a Coast Guard boat, like a ship's figurehead.

I force myself not to think about her, to focus on Tyler's lips pressed against mine. To stay present as he peels off his t-shirt and presses the warm smooth skin of his chest against me. But I can't shake the feeling that something's not right. Subtly at first, my fingers begin to prickle, then sting. My breath grows short and shallow.

His hair mussed, Tyler pulls away and peers out to the horizon. "Strange," he says, sounding breathless.

"What is it?"

"I don't know," he says as we're met with a blast of heavy fog that swirls thickly around us, nearly obliterating him from my sight. A cold, metallic scent rides on the salt air, carrying wrongness with it. My eyes ache. My scalp tightens.

I grope my way to him. "Did you check the forecast?"

Tyler doesn't answer my question. Instead, he mutters, "Never expected this kind of thing here."

I peer into the haze. The distant lights of the shore have vanished into black nothingness. Above us, the stars are obscured, the wedge of moon barely visible. The warm air has turned chilly. I'm freezing in my tank top and shorts, shaking from the cold.

"We'll head back to the marina once the fog clears," Tyler says, squeezing my fingers. "Sorry about the buzzkill." He gives me a sideways smile.

"Don't be sorry," I say, squeezing back. "I?—"

But Tyler lurches away from me before I can finish telling him what I've wanted to say for years. He leans out over the deck rail and points at the horizon.

"What the hell is that?"

I track his line of sight. The mist has parted like a veil. Where silver ocean meets black sky, a massive cloud glows with sporadic bursts of light. Like a needle on an old-fashioned record player, a thin spindle drops to the water's surface. The cloud expands and the vortex of a gyrating funnel thickens.

"That's a waterspout! We have to get out of here!" Tyler hauls up the anchor, hurtles into the captain's seat, and tosses me a life jacket. The churning needle has thickened to a broad cable. It's on the move, growing closer by the second.

"Mayday! Mayday!" Tyler shouts into the radio. "This is The Big Easy. Waterspout at approximately one knot." He repeats our location over and over as the boat's engine coughs to life, bobbing and dipping on the turbulent waves as we try to outrun the black spindle carving its way toward us. The ocean swells into high peaks, waves lashing the deck as Tyler fights to maneuver us to safety. There's no answer on the radio.

"Where's your life jacket?" I call out above the din.

"Get down below!" Tyler yells. "I'll worry about me."

The taper cuts a swath through the water on a collision course with the boat. Water smacks the hull, whipping moisture into my hair, lashing my face with cold, wet strands. A huge wave slaps the deck.

"Shit! Down below, I said!" Tyler grabs another life jacket as we scramble to the cabin to take cover.

Braced under the starboard bow, we cling to the steel handles as the boat pitches violently. "Hang on," Tyler says. "We can ride this out if…"

A cracking boom steals the last of his words. The world turns topsy-turvy as the boat flips over. I fumble to fasten my life jacket as the ocean rushes into the cabin, swallowing us in a torrent of water.

We're torn apart and sucked through the broken hull, my half-fastened life jacket ripping away. The dark water tugs at me, pulling me downward. In the dim murk of the water, I spot a form paddling toward me. Tyler grabs hold and, kicking together, we break the water's surface. Heaving in gasps, we strain against the current. But there's no sign of the shore.

The spout drills across the water, big as an office building. There's no escape. No breath to scream. We're severed from each other's grip as the massive cone roars around us.

When I finally wash up on the shore, gagging on seawater, my tank top and shorts clinging to my scraped skin, stars dot the now-clear sky. The moon mocks me with its yellow smile.

I roll onto my stomach, lift my head, and scan the dark beach. "Tyler?"

Staggering to my feet, I wade into the water. Foamy waves lap at my calves, then recede. I wade in further. The ocean is serene, as if in denial of what it's done. There's no sign of him—but in the distance, an orange light bobs on the ocean's surface, flares up, then disappears into darkness. I stare as what's left of The Big Easy sinks beneath the waves.

No. No.

I bound further into the surf, shouting his name, but get shoved back to shore again and again. Nobody hears. Nobody comes.

I peer across the dark water for a sign of someone out there, trying to swim to shore. Then, the waves deposit a motionless form further down the beach. No, no, no! I stumble toward the still figure and freeze, the scream trapped in my throat.

Tyler's waxen lips are partly open, eyes staring as if in disbelief. Clumps of hair cling to a deep gash washed clean by the saltwater.

I pound on his chest and breathe into his mouth, trying to force life back into him. Above me, helicopter searchlights scan the water, flashing across his motionless face. I pump harder. One more push and he'll cough, gouts of sea water gushing from his starved lungs.

But it never happens. His chest is still, his green eyes unblinking. I can breathe for him all night, and it won't make a bit of difference.

I've lost him.

Not to Maine. But to the sea.

I collapse on the sand as a helicopter lands on the beach, covering my mouth to muffle my sobs. My fingers catch on something: cold metal, pressing against my even-colder skin.

Tyler is gone. But somehow, despite everything that's happened, his little pendant still dangles from the unbroken chain around my neck.

Some good-luck charm.