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Hattie waits until I look at her. “You said I’m the kind of person who tells it like it is, right?”

I nod.

“You believe that I’ll always call you out?”

I frown and nod again.

“Then listen to me when I tell you this.” She grabs onto my face. “Noble. It wasn’t your fault.”

I start to protest but she moves closer, forcing me to hold her gaze. “The only person responsible for Hunter’s death is the woman who drove the car. Period. She drove drunk. She was arrested and convicted. Saying it’s your fault is like saying it’s my parents’ fault because they had Hunter in the first place.”

“It’s not the same.”

“Isn’t it?” I say. “If they’d never had him, he wouldn’t have been on that road, and we wouldn’t have had to go through all that tragedy.”

She reaches up and touches my face. “This is not your burden to carry. It never was, and it’s heavy. Put it down.”

I press the heels of my hands into my eyes, thinking that will push the tears and the emotions back in. “I screwed up. You guys took me in, treated me like family, and I—” My voice breaks.

It’s hard to let her see me like this.

“I know you didn’t have a lot of people in your corner growing up,” she says. “But the love of this family was always unconditional. And I’m sorry my actions said otherwise—I was wrong.”

I look at her, still crumbling under the weight of what I’ve been carrying for years.

She takes my face in her hands. “The love I have for you . . . is unconditional.”

The words crack something loose inside me, and I pull her to my chest, holding onto her like she’s the oxygen mask that will keep me from drowning. We stand like that, on our dock, for what feels like days but is probably only minutes, and I let her strength fill me up.

I let my regret and guilt and shame cloud my judgment for so long, it’s like I’m finally seeing my life through a clear lens for the first time.

I see Hattie and this town and new dreams. I see a family and a community and all the things I never thought I deserved. Can I become someone who deserves them?

Man, I want to.

She pulls back and looks at me. I try to gather myself, but it’s been a long time since I’ve cried like that, and I feel weird and embarrassed.

She smiles. “You know I’ve loved you since I was thirteen, right?”

I take her face in my hands. “I had no clue.”

“I guess you were blind,” she says. “Or dumb.”

I laugh, and it feels good. Cleansing. “Never claimed to be the smart one.”

She studies my face.

“I’m going to do a much better job of paying attention now though,” I say. “If you’ll let me.”

She grabs onto my wrists as I lean in and kiss her, feeling lighter and freer and happier than I’ve felt in years.

I tried to patch the broken things inside me with everything I could think of, but it turned out what I really needed was here all along. I was just too scared to take it, convinced it wasn’t for me. Certain I was just in the way.

“You know, there’s a saying I saw on a postcard in one of the shops downtown,” I say as she leans into me, and we both stare out over the still water. “‘Not every lake dreams of being an ocean. Blessed are the ones who are happy with who they are.’”

She hums a little. “I like that.”

“I do too.” I pull back so I can search her eyes. She goes up on her tiptoes and kisses me again. I let it fill me up, certain that I really don’t deserve her, but also certain that I’m going to spend the rest of my life trying to.