I look over at Tate. He’s sitting up with his bare back to me, bent over his cell phone, so I toss my magazine at him.

He looks around. “What? Oh, sorry.” He passes a soda can from the cooler, glancing again at his phone.

“Are they having fun?” I ask.

“Oh, yeah. They’re out on the boat,” he adds. “AK’s taking tons of photos—you know he won’t shut up about that new camera of his.”

I laugh. “Let me guess, we’re going to get fifty-seven million shots of some fish underwater?”

“Pretty much.” Tate grins.

I lie back, letting the sun melt through my bones, taking with it all my tension and stress. Right now, Boston feels like a thousand miles away; college application drama and all my dad’s business worries like something from another life. I let my mind go blank, soothed by the sounds of the waves, and the occasional burst of chatting and laughter from the other beachgoers set up around us on the sand.

Time slips past. Tate’s phone sounds with another text, and then a moment later, I hear his voice. “Shit, I left my sunglasses back at the house.”

“Here, take mine.” I hold them out to him, resting my other elbow over my face to block the sun.

“No, it’s cool. I need to go charge my phone anyway.” Tate gets to his feet and grabs his wallet from the blanket. “I won’t be long.”

“You remember the security code?”

“Yeah, but Elise is still back there, right?”

“She could still be sleeping.” I check my phone, but there are no new messages. “Check on her for me, okay?” I tell him. “She’s still not replying to my texts.”

“Sure. She’s probably just hungover, though.”

I make a face. “She’s not the only one.”

Tate slips his feet into his flip-flops and makes to leave, but I reach up toward him. He pauses, leaning down to quickly kiss my lips. “Tell her to get her ass down here.” I yawn, “She can lie around in bed any day back home. This is vacation she’s missing here!”

Tate smiles, then sets off back across the sand.

I find the bottle of lotion, and start to reapply. My skin is pale and always burns easily, but the only alternative is this thick, white goop, sticky and smelling like coconut. I cover myself as best I can, but there’s a wide swathe across my back I can’t reach, so I set the bottle aside and turn back to my magazine, waiting for Tate to return.

The minutes pass. I finish the magazine and dig in the beach tote for my lip balm, bored. I’m getting hungry now, so I grab my beach bag and quickly slip into my shorts and sandals, then head up the beach.

The backdoors of the beach house are open when I reach it: the glass slid aside. I climb up the stairs from the beach, and step inside. “Hello?”

The house is quiet, nobody in sight. Then I hear laughter coming from deeper inside. Elise’s voice. And Tate. I can’t hear what they’re saying, only the tone of their voices.

Teasing. Affectionate.

I freeze.

And suddenly, I remember the necklace: the one Tate had in his pocket, the one Elise claimed as her own.

I had put all of that aside. After all, there were a dozen ways for us to have mixed them up: I probably took it by mistake, long before the trip. We sat here on the beach together, just the night before. Elise said it was the two of us. Always.

Their laughter comes again, echoing in the expanse of white and tile and bright sunshine. My heartbeat quickens. I feel a faint wave of nausea spread through me. I think of the way she was teasing him the first day, when we arrived. There was something pointed about it, taunting. And Tate, being so protective about Niklas . . .

I take a long, shaky breath. Part of me wants to turn back around—go lie out in the sun until Tate gets back, and spend the rest of the afternoon playing in the water—but now that the idea is in my head, I know I can’t stop, not until I can prove to myself I’m wrong. I take a slow step, deeper into the house, toward their voices.

“Hey, hands!” Elise’s voice exclaims. She giggles flirtatiously. “I’m trying to give you a show here.”

“Aww, come on . . .” Tate groans.

“What do you think? I got it right before we left.”

“I think you look f**king sexy.”

“And . . . ?”

“And what?”

Elise’s voice drops, seductive. “What are you going to do about it?”

There’s no more talking.

I’m at the end of the hallway now, beside Elise’s empty room. They’re in our room, I realize. Our bed.

Bile rises in my throat, but I force myself to keep walking. It could be a game, I tell myself. Just, messing around. Something, some other explanation. It has to be.

I see them a split-second before I hear Elise moan, like lightning, flashing sharp ahead of the slow rumble of thunder. They’re framed through the open door of the bedroom, tangled up in each other on the bed. Naked. Tate rolls her underneath him, groaning as he thrusts; Elise’s legs are wrapped around him, pale against the golden tan of his back as she whimpers and arches up against him.

I can’t look away.

They tumble over again, and this time, Elise is on top. She sinks deeply against him, her eyes closed, her arms drifting above her head. She looks the way she always does when she’s dancing, lost in something bigger than herself. Swept up. Blissful.

Then her eyes open, and she looks directly at me.

I don’t move. Our gaze is caught across Tate’s oblivious body, and for a moment, it’s like I’m there beneath her; her skin against mine. Then her face begins to change—she’s caught up, too far gone to stop. I watch the orgasm rush through her; I feel it in my bones. Like an awakening. Like a death. And all the while, our eyes stay locked on each other’s.

How much do you love me?