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the conversation. “I don’t know. Maybe,” I said. “Or maybe he would have still deployed and that sniper would have still been on that rooftop.”
    “If you could turn back time, would you change it? Would you ask your dad to move somewhere else?”
    I focused on the cyan sky, wondering its Pantone color number, ignoring the pressure behind my eyes. “To save Jason? Yes.”
    “Even if it means never having met me?”
    A lump formed in my throat. I couldn’t even begin to answer his question, so I just asked, “Where is all of this coming from?”
    He took a deep breath. “Just something Nina mentioned last night—”
    “Nina,” I said under my breath. But of course.
    He turned his head and gave me a look. “Not like that. We were just talking and she just said something that struck a chord with me.”
    “Let me guess, she asked if you would still be with her if I had never moved to California.”
    “No,” he said. “She just asked, in general, how we would have all turned out if things were different, if some people never entered our lives.”
    I flipped over onto my stomach and laid on the wide expanse of his chest. I rested my chin on my folded arms. “We’d all be unrecognizable.”
    He unfolded one arm and began to play with my hair, winding a lock around his finger. “I think I’d be in jail right now instead of a captain in the Air Force. I don’t think even Doc Gal could have saved me from that future. If it weren’t for your dad and your brother, I’d probably have dropped out of school, maybe become a drug dealer.”
    Try as I might, I couldn’t imagine Henry in that scenario. I shook my head. “No. You’re too honorable. I don’t think you’re giving yourself enough credit.”
    “What about you? What do you think you’d be like?”
    I chewed on my lips. “Hmm. That’s a hard one because we could have ended up anywhere. I could have been a cheerleader, or a goth , or maybe a basketball player.”
    “You think living somewhere else would have made you taller?” he teased.
    “Maybe. Growth hormones in the water. Stranger things have happened.” I smiled at him, feeling incredibly fortunate that my parents decided to live in Monterey just two houses down from the Logans . Henry, for better or worse, was integral to shaping the person I had become and I was sure he felt the same way about me. Our pasts were tightly entwined and so too, I was sure, was our future. “Regardless, I couldn’t imagine being anyone else.”
    He lifted his head and touched his lips to mine but said nothing. There was so much he wasn’t saying.
    “What’s really bothering you, Henry?”
    His eyes bore into mine; I almost flinched from its intensity. “I guess what I really want to find out is if you love me because of who I am or because you’ve had a crush on me forever.”
    “Both,” I said. “I don’t understand what you’re asking.”
    “If we just met each other right now—me being an ex-con with honor and you being a really tall goth cheerleader—would you still be attracted to me? Would you still fall in love with meth-addict Henry?”
    “Now you’re a meth-addict?” I asked. “Hmm, maybe not if you have busted teeth.”
    “Answer the question.”
    “Maybe. I don’t know,” I said. I pushed up off him and got to my feet. I looked up at the dark clouds that had crept in on the beautiful day. “What does it matter? We are who we are and we’re together. End of story.”
    If only that were truly the case.

     
    The rain started to fall on our drive home. It started out as tiny drops but by the time we entered our neighborhood, it became an all-out downpour. Henry parked the car in front of my parents’ driveway, neither one of us eager to get out and get drenched.
    “Typical Monterey,” I said, watching the rain pelt the windshield.
    “Elsie,” Henry began and I knew that he was finally going to tell me what had been bothering him. “I think we need to break up.”
    His