Chapter 2Moonrise Over the Tide

I met George when I was eighteen.

After graduating high school, I felt like I’d finally won a victory for my mother. I had outshone the child from her failed first marriage—my half-sister, the ghost who had haunted my entire childhood. It seemed the only way to earn a sliver of my mother’s attention was to be better, smarter, more successful than the daughter of the man who had hurt her.

But I always seemed to disappoint her.

In my junior year, a short story I wrote was adapted for the school play. Watching my classmates bring my words to life on stage planted a seed in my heart. As I went through the motions—practicing the violin I didn't love, learning skills I didn't care for—an idea began to sprout.

I wanted to choose something for myself. Just once.

I didn't apply to the respectable, stable career paths my mother had laid out for me. For the first time in my life, I defied her. The price was being thrown out of the house.

I had less than a hundred dollars to my name. She was sure this would break me, that I would come crawling back, ready to follow her script for my life. If it wasn't for my best friend, I probably would have ended up on the streets, just as she’d predicted.

To pay for tuition and rent, I slept four hours a night and worked every other waking moment. Early mornings at a breakfast diner, afternoons at a boba tea shop, late nights at an internet café. It was exhausting, but I’d never felt so free.

Then, on an ordinary afternoon, he appeared.

The summer air was thick with the drone of cicadas, shadows danced under the trees, and a wind chime tinkled softly. A boy, bright and intense as the summer heat, burst into my life.