Mom nodded and blew her nose in a tissue. “Dad heard him wheezing in the middle of the night, you know, how he started doing lately. Last night, the wheezing didn’t stop, so we just held him close until he was gone.”

“Why didn’t you wake me?” Caroline said, pushing the words out past the tears. “I never got to say goodbye.”

“Dad and I were too sad to do anything but hold him,” Mom said. “We wanted to let him go in peace. I’m so, so sorry, my girls.”

“Where is he?” Caroline demanded.

“He’s on his bed in the laundry room, wrapped in his plaid blanket.”

Caroline finally knew what a breaking heart felt like. It was the worst thing ever. The walls of the room felt heavy and close. She jumped out of bed and yanked on a pair of shorts and a T-shirt. “I’m going for a bike ride,” she said.

“Be careful, sweetie,” said Mom. “Wear your helmet.”

On her way out the door, Caroline stopped at Wendell’s bed. The unmoving pile of blankets with a swatch of fur peeking out shattered her into a million pieces. She knelt down and put out her hand. The absence of warmth or response of any sort made the emptiness yawn wider. “Oh, Wendell,” she said. “You’ll always be my first best friend. Bye, my good, good boy.”

She ran outside and jumped on her bike, riding as fast and hard as she could—so fast her breath came in great gasping sobs. She took the winding trail up to North Head lighthouse, pushing herself to the top in record time. This early in the morning, there were only a few hikers milling around.

She ditched her bike by the safety fence and slipped through to the other side, passing the coast guard warning sign. Skirting the eroding rocky slope, she made her way to an outcropping that reached toward the exploding shoreline. The surf was big today, the white waves throwing spray high into the air, and it suited her mood to just sit there and cry and think of all the ways she would miss Wendell. He was silly and full of mischief and completely useless for anything other than cuddling and entertainment. He had yucky breath and sandy paws, and when he was wet, he shook all over everything.

And he was the best dog in the world, the best dog that had ever lived, and she didn’t know how she would go on without him.

She sat on the rock ledge for a long time, damp and shivering from the spray, folding all the memories she could into her heart. At some point, she heard the crunch of footsteps on the path.

Will sat down beside her and said, “I figured I’d find you here.”

She couldn’t even look at him. She could only stare out at the horizon, hazy with the morning fog and blurred by her tears.

“Your mom told me about Wendell,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

His very soft and very kind I’m sorry released another flood of tears, and she didn’t even bother wiping them away. He put his hand on her shoulder. Then he scooted closer and slid his arm around her, and something burst inside her, causing her to melt into her grief. It all came out in a final rush of pain, lasting only seconds and then clearing like the marine layer before her.

She fell completely still for about three beats of her heart as her rational mind stepped in. Will Jensen had his arm around her, and it gave her the most amazing feeling, so amazing that she felt disloyal to Wendell, because the feeling was even stronger than her sadness.

She shifted a little and looped her hands around her drawn-up knees. “I never felt so sad about something in my life.”

His arm slipped away, but he stayed close, his shoulder almost touching hers. He stared out at the horizon. The rearing waves boomed and shattered against the rocks. “Yeah,” he said. “It sucks.”

She dried her face on her sleeve. She’d done what her sisters called the “ugly cry”—the one that contorted her face and made it all red and blotchy. But Will didn’t seem to notice, and she didn’t care.

“When your mom died, it must have felt ten times worse,” she said.

He didn’t say anything for several moments. “Sad is sad.”

She nodded, resting her chin on her knees. “I wish we could have them both back. I wish we could have them forever.”

Something happened the day Wendell died. Something between Caroline and Will. They were the same together, running around, riding their bikes, spending long, lazy days at the beach, listening to music, and laughing at nothing. But that morning, when he found her alone and so sad, a seismic shift occurred. It felt as if she and Will knew each other in a different way.

They never discussed that moment together, but she thought about it constantly.

She went to bed each night thinking of him, and he was her first thought on waking in the morning. Every vision she had of her life included him. He talked about living at Water’s Edge when he grew up, and she considered what that might be like, instead of Milan or Hong Kong.

She constantly pictured what he was doing at any given moment. She noticed things like the way he rolled his sleeves back when he wore his work uniform at the ice cream parlor. Or how he whistled tunelessly between his teeth when he was doing something like waxing his surfboard. Each time she saw him, she got butterflies in her stomach.

She didn’t understand the feelings inside her. It was an entirely unfamiliar set of emotions, ones she didn’t even have a name for. Not happiness or sadness, but a wild combination of everything and more. He seemed like somebody she had known all her life, and at the same time, he seemed like someone completely new to her.

It was all so confusing that she kept her thoughts entirely to herself. If she said something, he’d probably look at her with a quirked brow and tell her she was nuts.

On the last night of summer, after the Rotary picnic, she found him helping with the cleanup detail. Sunset had deepened into twilight, and the almost-full moon was on the rise. Will was hauling one of the recycling bins on a hand truck toward the beach parking lot.

“Hey,” she said, falling in step with him. A flock of butterflies stirred in her stomach.

“Hey.”

“So you’re flying home tomorrow,” she said unnecessarily.

“I am.” He slid the bin off the hand truck and lined it up with the other ones. “Leaving first thing in the morning for the airport.”

“Okay, then.” She glanced around the parking lot. People were heading to their cars, parents carrying sleepy toddlers, kids dragging their beach toys and towels. “Is your dad giving you a ride home tonight?”

Will shook his head quickly. “I have my bike.”

“Me too,” she said. “Hey, we could ride as far as my house together. I mean, if that’s—”

“Sure,” he said. “Good idea. Let’s go.”

The moon, fully risen now, illuminated the deserted road, augmenting the light from their bike headlamps. Invisible frogs sang and fell silent in a constant chorus from the marshes. The ride to her house seemed way too fast, and even though she talked the whole time, she felt as if there was so much more to say. They stopped at the end of her driveway, marked by the homemade mailbox embedded with shells and sea glass.

She stopped there and got off her bike, and he did the same. Normally, Wendell would notice and come running down the drive, barking his fool head off. The silence now was a painful reminder of just how gone he was.