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her head against the cold and focused on the sand beneath her feet. She wasn’t sure she believed in anything but her own solitude, a belief she’d come to terms with before her fourteenth birthday. Two suicide attempts and a mother’s lack of sympathy had been enough to convince her that, one day, she’d die and would be alone when it happened. No purpose. No lasting impact. She’d be the girl nobody had heard from. It would be weeks before someone found her decomposing corpse.Sometimes she wondered who her discoverer would be, hoping it wouldn’t be Maggie with Eloise poised on her hip. Maybe it would be the mailman, fed up with her overstuffed mailbox. Or someone come from the electric company looking to collect. Maybe it would be her father, finally forced back to Pier Pointe after not hearing from her for half a year. Or maybe it would be a pair of Girl Scouts hoping to sell a few boxes of Thin Mints or Do-si-dos.
    But deep down, she hoped it would be her mother.
    Her mother had found Audra when she had slit her wrists at twelve years old. Susana Clairmont Snow stepped into the bathroom and saw her only child bleeding onto the freshly scrubbed white tile floor. Thick crimson rivulets filled the gutters between each gleaming ceramic square. What have you done?! she screamed, then grabbed up the bath mat and threw it into the tub to save it from ruin rather than calling for help. It had happened ten years ago, but it was one of those moments left hanging in suspended animation, always looming at the back of her mind.
    Audra hoped this time around that her mother would bang on the front door to no avail before pulling out the spare key. She hoped Susana would storm in, pissed off, only to find her daughter blue and bloated, gently swinging from one of the living room rafters by a length of clothesline. Audra had already tested the line’s tensile strength a handful of times. She was certain it would hold.
    “What are you thinking about?” Deacon asked.
    “My mother.”
    “Are you two close?”
    She wanted to laugh at that, but all she managed was a scowl.
    “Maggie said that you’re shy . . .” he said. “But I have to say that you strike me more as lonely.”
    Her scowl turned into a glare. She peered at her feet, Deacon’s statement igniting a pang of resentment deep in her gut. She appreciated the company, but he had some goddamned nerve making assumptions, no matter how spot-on they were.
    “I’m sorry,” he said, noticing her annoyance. He looped his arm through hers for the second time that afternoon, as if expecting his simple gesture to win her forgiveness.
    She nearly pulled away. Lonely , she thought. What the hell do you know about lonely? At least I don’t need to surround myself with people who I call “family” to feel complete.
    “I guess it makes me uncomfortable,” he confessed, derailing her inner tirade. “Because I remember living on my own, being lonely myself.”
    The way he said it downshifted her irritation into a lower gear. His arm tightened around hers, and the way he looked at her convinced Audra that, despite their not knowing each other well, he was letting her in on a real secret. He wanted her to know him. And if that were true, it meant that this charismatic man wanted to know her, too. But, in exchange, Audra had to make an effort, had to reciprocate, open up.
    “When you were talking about California,” she said, “you seemed saddened by the memory, like you missed it.”
    His face brightened a little, as though charmed by the fact that she had empathized with him on their very first meeting. His expression fell a moment later though, and he nodded to say she was right. But he contradicted his nod with a denial. “Nah, I don’t miss it. I didn’t have anyone back there, at least no one that really understood who I am. I’ve left that life behind. Now, I don’t have a physical home, which can be pretty rough. But you don’t need a physical home when