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lawn's every dip and rise, and the best trees to duck behind when you didn't want to be seen. In fact, when I was growing up, hide-and-seek was the only game at which I was ever better than Justine. Mostly because I preferred not to be found, while Justine lived to be seen.
    I wandered to the water's edge and onto the dock. When I reached the end, I looked across the lake, then toward our
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    dock a few yards away. My chest ached at the absence of water bottles, sunscreen, and open books, all requirements of a lazy summer afternoon. The thick ropes that usually held our red rowboat in place were still wound around their posts.
    Turning away, I slid off my sneakers and socks, rolled up my jeans, and sat down. It was warm in the sun; I was tempted to dangle my legs into the cool water but kept them pulled to my chest. For two years, whenever Justine promised that the small fish in Lake Kantaka were more scared of me than I should be of them, I told her the fish didn't bother me. And what did bother me I kept to myself.
    "Vanessa?"
    He looks different this year, doesn't he?
    I looked up. Simon sat in his rowboat a few feet away, holding the oars still as he drifted toward me. I smiled, simultaneously surprised and relieved to see him. He looked surprised, too, but didn't return my smile. After a few seconds, he lifted the oars and started rowing again.
    I wanted to say hello, to ask how he was. And if I couldn't manage that, I wanted to say something that would break the ice, maybe ask about the notebooks, petri dishes, and plastic vials scattered across the bottom of the boat. Justine's and my rowboat was usually cluttered with Tupperware containers of watermelon and Us Weekly and People magazines; Simon's looked like a floating lab.
    When the rowboat knocked against the dock, he took a rope and wrapped it around one of the boat's metal holds. He gathered
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    the notebooks, dishes, and vials and put them in a backpack. He seemed to be stalling, as if a few extra seconds would be enough time to figure out the right thing to say.
    My pulse quickened as he stepped out of the boat. He didn't look at me as he wiped his hands on the front of his shorts, then lowered himself to the dock next to me.
    "Please don't hate me," he said after a minute.
    "Hate you?"
    "I wanted to come," he said, keeping his eyes on the water below us. "I can't tell you how much I wanted to be there for ... your family. I just didn't know if I should. I didn't know if it was appropriate."
    The funeral. I'd been surprised when the Carmichaels didn't show. Our parents often went out to dinner during the summer, and since the Carmichaels were year-round Winter Harbor residents, they kept an eye on our lake house and checked in with my parents periodically throughout the winter. I hadn't asked Mom or Dad about their absence, figuring it was a sensitive topic due to Caleb's involvement that night.
    "It's okay," I said, touched by his concern. "But thank you."
    His eyes narrowed and his lips turned in, like there was more he wanted to say.
    "I thought you were done with school."
    He looked at me, and then at his overstuffed backpack when I gestured toward it.
    "Summer science project for extra credit?" I tried to keep my voice light.
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    "Sort of." He attempted a smile. "I'm helping one of my professors at school with his climate-change research. The weather's been kind of weird lately, so I've been keeping track."
    I nodded and waited for more. Simon could talk about cloud formations and tidal pools and native plant species for hours--and usually did, unprompted. But when he didn't offer anything else, I hugged my knees tighter to my chest and looked out at the lake. Down the shore, happy vacationers swam, rowed, and floated on inner tubes. My body yearned to join them while my brain scrambled for distractions. Two years ago, I would've given in to the physical urge to leap from the dock and dive underwater. Now, I could only hope it didn't last long.
    "I'm