He’d sounded weird and tense on the phone, and I’d had a moment’s doubt about dragging him away from whatever he was doing, but his answer had seemed sincere enough. “Give me ten minutes,” he’d said. He made it to the house in five, and I practically ran over the lawn to climb into the truck after he pushed the door open for me. “You okay?” he asked. When I didn’t answer right away, he asked, “You have somewhere you want to go?” “Anywhere. I want…anywhere.” He didn’t ask any more questions, just pulled away from the curb and drove. The night air was still warm, and we drove with the windows down, out of town and into the darkness of a summer night in the country. I wasn’t surprised when we pulled off the highway onto the increasingly familiar dirt road leading to our beach. It felt different at night, though. The headlights cut through the darkness, but when we pulled into the grassy parking area and Tyler turned the engine off, everything was dark.
