“I learned a while back not to let other people define me,” I said. Except Pearl.

“Easier said than done when your permanent record includes a set of convictions and prison time.”

I took another bite, considering. It was true that he’d dug a big hole for himself and then nearly buried himself alive, metaphorically speaking. Digging back out would be a bitch, and there were some options—some possible futures—he’d thrown away forever in the process. That sucked. “What’s that saying? Nothing worth having is easy?”

Like Pearl. Had there ever been a possible future with her—one I’d never believed in?

Thompson sighed. “Sometimes, though, I just want it to be easy.” His prison release came with mandatory AA meetings twice a week, monthly appointments with his parole officer in Corpus, and a year’s worth of random drug testing. If he failed at even one of those things, he’d go back in and nobody would give a goddamn except his mom. And me.

“You can do it, man. You are doing it.”

“Thanks, Wynn.” He glanced at me and back at his plate. “For what it’s worth, that girl should wake up and see what she’s missing before it’s too late.”

I didn’t reply. If I’d had a lick of sense four years ago, I wouldn’t have wrecked even the snowball’s chance in hell I might’ve had with her. I’d never been able to forget the look on her face the first time I saw her—after. It was officially summer, and it felt like half the state was partying on the beach. I’d been a bit wasted that night, so my reaction had lagged. The sight of her on the other side of the fire was a violent jolt—every fantasy I’d ever ached for personified. It had only been ten hours or so since I’d left her bed, but I wanted her more than I ever had.

Her eyes went wide and her mouth formed an O made silent by the distance between us, and I had the fucking idiocy to be confused when she stepped back and out of the campfire’s light. By the time I figured out why, she was gone.

I’d pushed the girl off my lap, staggered to my feet and walked straight—or straight as I could manage—to where she’d been, but she had dissolved into the dark and the summer swarm of people as if I’d imagined her there. I tried to convince myself that she’d been a hallucination, that her crushed expression was a nightmare I could still prevent, but I knew better.

She didn’t answer my dumbass texts the next two days (What’s up?), and when we finally ran into each other at the gas pump, her eyes slid away from mine as we small-talked. I hadn’t gone to my knees and apologized. I hadn’t told her she was all I wanted and always had been. I convinced myself that I could weasel out of it without that sort of humiliation.

A week later, I heard she’d gone off to some university in Georgia for a premed program for high school graduates instead of working at the marine-science center all summer like she’d planned. She was gone for six weeks, and when she came back, we’d backed up to the day before I spent three hours in her bed, foolishly thinking I was making her mine.

Pearl

Dinner conversation focused on research projects, the cheapest bars, the awful reality that the nearest Starbucks was almost an hour away, and affordable student housing that would have cost thousands per month on the open market for the beachfront view alone, even with ancient appliances and doors warped by decades of humidity.

As usual for me, I’d been quiet during class so far, only contributing when I was one hundred percent certain of what I was stating. My colleagues could tell I wasn’t going to be a burden, but they had no idea of my passion. I knew most of them assumed I’d scrambled for a biology-related graduate studies field when med school shut its door in my face. Maybe they even thought what Mitchell had—that I’d only chosen what was close and safe.

But I didn’t want to be safe. I wanted to do research that would make a difference, targeting oil corporations and lobbies and politicians and any other entity that threatened the fragile balance of the estuaries connected to the gulf and the life teeming beneath the surface. At times I felt every bit as miniscule and marginalized as those individual organisms. But I had to try, whether I was ultimately listened to or ignored.

Over blackberry cobbler and caramel-drenched flan, the conversation turned to land-derived nitrogen pollution and my mind wandered. Odd, because I was interested in the topic. More odd, considering what pushed that subject matter to the side and hijacked my thoughts—Boyce Wynn’s hard, freckle-dotted forearm and the electric current that shot through my fingertips when I’d touched it.

I had an obsession with male forearms that could be traced back to the middle school lunchroom where I shared a table with Boyce every day. I was far too timid to ogle flirtatiously, but furtive staring from behind my goggle-sized glasses and unruly preteen hair was simple, especially when I brought a novel from the library. I was mesmerized by the visible copper hair and the sharp line of muscle linking elbow to wrist—the breadth of which called for big-faced watches and leather bands and led to strong hands.

Hands. Those hands assumed a different meaning after—ugh. I was an adult woman, and it had been one time. I hid my face with my coffee cup, making a drawn-out pretense of careful sipping while trying to breathe, trying to forget Boyce’s big hands on my hips, stroking, kneading, lifting…

“Pearl?” Shanice’s voice broke through my reverie.

“What? Sorry?”

Chase restated something about mollusks and the effects of large-scale sea grass destruction. Suitable adult, doctoral-student conversation. Right.

• • • • • • • • • •

I got all the way to Sunday before Mama brought up Michigan again. Thomas was on the patio grilling while she assembled a salad and I sat at the kitchen table outlining notes from journal articles about chemical dispersants used to clean up oil spills and the effects they had on fragile ecosystems.

“When are you going to respond to Michigan? What is the deadline?” she said, chopping the heads off radishes that were the color of Mel’s favorite lip gloss. “You don’t want to miss it.” She kept her eyes on the knife slicing through the knobby veggies one after the other, her tone merely inquisitive, as though we weren’t having a struggle of epic proportions beneath the surface.

“Mama… I’m not going to Michigan. I’m sitting here studying for a marine biology course I’m enrolled in right now. I know you’re disappointed, but I’ve made my decision. Please let it go.”