The morning that Katie left me was bittersweet. I knew she had to leave, to go back to school. I’d known it all summer. We’d both known it was coming. We’d spent every minute together in the weeks before she left. I knew her better than I’d ever known anyone. In fact, we’d spent the night together the night before. Her parents didn’t know it, and my dad would kill me if he found out, but Katie snuck out her window around midnight, and met me down at the dock.

We shoved the canoe off and paddled silently away from the campground, trying to find some privacy. That night, we did nothing and everything. We loved one another completely, and not at all.

I didn’t need to be inside Katie to be one with her. But I did need to hold her. I needed to say a proper goodbye.

We pulled up at a nearby shore and Katie and I got out. I yanked the canoe onto the sand, and I spread a blanket on a soft spot of grass a few yards back from the shore. Then I got the cooler I’d packed earlier out of the canoe. “Are you cold?” I asked as I joined her on the blanket.

She shook her head. “No.”

“I could start a fire.”

She shook her head again. “You could just hold me.”

She didn’t have to ask me twice. I lay back on the blanket and pulled her to lie in the crook of my arm.

“Do you think we’ll ever see one another again after this?” she asked.

“I’ll be there when you leave tomorrow. I’m going to kiss you right in front of everyone.”

She giggled against my chest, the sound of it sinking inside me. “That’s not what I meant.”

“Are you coming back next year?” I asked. A lot of our lodgers came back year after year. They were regulars, and we got to know them, their children, and their grandchildren.

She shook her head. “I don’t know.” She pressed her lips to the tender skin above the collar of my shirt. “I hope so,” she whispered.

“Will you write to me?”

She nodded against my chest. “Of course.”

That night, we talked about everything and nothing. We kissed until my lips were sore, until Katie put a stop to my wandering hands, until the sun peeked over the horizon and I knew our time together was almost over.

I paddled the canoe back to the dock and hooked it up to the mooring cleat. Then I helped Katie step onto the dock. She turned to face me.

“No matter what, Jake,” she said, “I’ll always love you.” Then she buried her face in my chest.

I held her tightly against my chest, not even close to being ready to let her go. But the sun was coming up, and I could already smell brewing coffee. It was time to take her back.

I slid her bedroom window open and she kissed me one last time. Then I boosted her up and through the window. “I’ll see you later,” she whispered. Then she closed the window, and I imagined her sliding between cold sheets, scissoring her legs together to warm them up.

I went home and tiptoed up the steps. Pop looked up when I came in the door. I choked. “Why are you up?” I asked.

He looked toward the dock through the kitchen window. “Have fun last night?” he asked quietly. His voice was soft, and not at all like Pop.

“It wasn’t about fun,” I protest.

He heaved out a breath. “I know.”

“I just wanted to say a proper goodbye,” I rushed to explain. But he held up a hand.

“I understand, Jake. Go to bed.”

“You don’t want to give me some stupid chore?” I huffed.

He shook his head. “No.”

I crossed my arms. “Are you sure?”

“Go to bed, Jake,” he said a little more strongly.

“You can tell me my punishment later,” I bit out. Then I stormed to my room and slammed the door.

Pop never did punish me. I kissed Katie goodbye in front of everyone that day, and she drove away with her hand pressed against the back glass of her parents’ car. I blinked back the pain, and then I started writing that first letter to her. I wrote her every day for the next month. Then it turned into one letter every few days, and hers to me began to slow down too.

Life went back to normal, and the letters started to come about once a month. Then they stopped completely.