You can’t force a person to show up, but you can learn a lesson when they don’t.

Trust people’s actions, not their words.

Don’t love anyone who isn’t ready to love you back.

Let go of the people who don’t hold on to you.

Don’t wait on anyone who’s in no rush to get to you.

I consider crawling back into bed and finishing a polish on the upcoming Read-a-thon publicity blast. Then the front door clanks open, a slice of light pouring from the hall.

“Hey,” Miles whispers, lifting the thermoses in his hands. “You ready?”

“Been ready since five,” I tell him.

He leans forward and peers around the cupboard to see the oven clock. “Shit.” He passes me one of the thermoses. “I gave myself an extra fifteen minutes, and there was no line, but then I got caught up talking to the barista and . . . anyway, I’m sorry, Daphne.”

I shake my head, the grumpiness clearing. Miles is doing me the favor here. “It’s fine.” I slip my feet into my sandals. “Let’s go.”

It’s cooler outside than in our apartment, the nip in the air making my arms and legs tingle. I can feel my leg hair growing and wonder why I bothered shaving last night.

Because you have a crush on your roommate, my inner dialogue provides helpfully, and you want him to look at and touch and probably even lick your legs.

No, I argue with myself. It’s because I want to wear a skirt to work tomorrow.

I’m not buying it, though: the last time I wore a skirt at work, Handsy Stanley told me I was going to give him a heart attack.

The hem reached midcalf.

Luckily, Ashleigh walked past the desk at that exact moment, and a three-month ban was issued.

I’m so tired I’d be willing to drink jet fuel mixed with espresso, but to my surprise, when I sip from the thermos Miles gave me, it’s spicy, sweet, creamy perfection. “This is chai,” I say.

He unlocks the door and climbs in. “I thought that’s what you wanted.”

I get in too. “No, it is, I just—thank you.”

“No problem.” He jams the key in the ignition, and the engine grumbles, but the car doesn’t start. He tries twice more before it catches, and then we’re cruising away from our silent street, the sleeping city black and blue as a bruise.

At the kayak rental place, there’s one other couple there already—both blond but comically disproportionate in height—and judging by the bright, chipper, full-volume conversation she’s maintaining with the sleepy-eyed man, they’re on a first date. Which also might somehow be an actual vacation?

She keeps up a steady line of questions that he parries swiftly about each other’s jobs (finance and theme park management, respectively) and each other’s pets (three cats, two German shepherds) from the register to the transport van to the boat launch.

Without discussing it, Miles and I both hang back and let them launch their kayaks, pretending to busy ourselves with packing the provided dry bags and getting our life vests on until they’re a ways out.

“Remember when you said that I like everyone?” he asks me as we drag the first of our kayaks into the water.

“Yes,” I say.

“I don’t like them.” He tips his chin toward our vanmates’ backs, shrinking as they rapidly pump their paddles back and forth.

I suppress a smile. “Do you know them?”

“After that seven-hour van ride, I know enough,” he says.

I chortle. “It took us six minutes to get here.”

“They’re my enemies.” He steadies the kayak and gestures for me to get in.

“So all I need to do to stay in your good graces is not snort twenty-five Adderall before six a.m. Good to know.”

“Or get three cats and name all of them The Goddess,” he adds.

“Really? That was actually my favorite thing about Keith.”

“My favorite thing was when Gladys had that coughing fit and couldn’t talk for like eleven seconds.”

“It’s fun when you’re sassy,” I tell him, climbing into the kayak and dropping into the wet, slippery seat.

“Enjoy it,” he says. “I don’t plan on getting up this early ever again. I hate to admit it, but Petra was right.”

I lean over the side of the kayak and splash him, his eyes snapping wide.

“What the fuck!”

“That’s your Petra tax,” I say. “Talk about her again, and I’ll call Gladys and Keith back here and make this a kayak caravan situation.”

“Fine, fine,” he agrees, walking back up the shore to pull his own kayak into the water. “But if you mention Peter, I’m tipping you over.”

“Who?” I say innocently.

The truth is, within five minutes of pushing away from the shore, Peter has made his way to the forefront of my mind, because my arms and shoulders are already burning from exertion, and Miles can only paddle about twice before he has to pause and wait for me to catch up.

The dark horizon has only just started to soften as light bleeds along the top of the water, and I already know this was a huge mistake.

We’d been planning to do a six-mile loop around a small island in the bay, where the more adventurous locals—people like Miles and Petra probably—like to camp.

Tucked back in the bay like this, there’s no real current or waves to contend with, not like there would be in the lake proper, but I’m still woefully underprepared.

“You can go ahead,” I call across the water.

Miles laughs. “Why would I do that?”

“Because I’m pretty sure I’m actually moving backwards,” I say.

“It’s water,” he points out. “In every direction. There’s nowhere to be. Unless you’re serious about catching up with Keith and Gladys.”

“I have neither the intention, nor the emotional capacity, to do that,” I say.

“Then let’s chill,” he says. “There’s no rush.”

“Well, if that changes, feel free to ditch me.”

“Yes, Daphne, if something changes, and I need to escape a freshwater shark, I’ll paddle my little heart out and leave you for dead.”

“Are there really sharks in the lake?” I ask.

“I’m offended you’d even ask that,” he says.

“Someone’s got to defend Lake Michigan’s honor, I guess,” I say.

“Why not me?” he agrees.

We paddle slowly, parallel to one another, the gradually lifting sun painting everything in pinks and golds.

“I know it’s a cliché,” he says after a minute, “but being on the water always does feel like what I imagine church is for some people.”

“I get that,” I say. “Out here, you’re small and there’s no one else around, but you’re not lonely. It’s like you’re connected to everyone and everything.”

“Exactly,” he says. “And you remember to marvel. It’s so easy to forget how incredible this planet is.”

I throw a glance his way. “I think you’re pretty good at the daily marvel.”

“Sometimes,” he says, then, “You are too.”

I snort. “I’m more of a cranky pessimist and we both know it.”

“You moan every time you eat,” he says. “I don’t think you’re as pessimistic as you think.”

I flush, reroute the conversation neatly: “I think as a kid, the library was the thing that made me marvel. I never felt lonely there. I felt so connected to everyone. Honestly, I think it also made me feel connected to my dad.”

There it is, a hideously embarrassing truth dropped right into the middle of a conversation. A fact I’ve never admitted aloud.

It might be an oversimplification, but it’s the truth: “He’s why I love libraries.”

“Big reader?” Miles guesses.

I laugh. “No. He just never planned his visits ahead or had any money, so he’d blow into town and take me there to check out some books, or do an activity or whatever. So when I was little, I really associated them with him. It felt like ‘our thing.’ ”

“Are you close?” he asks.

“Not at all,” I tell him. “He’s lived in California for a long time now, and his visits are unpredictable. Doesn’t come when he says he will, shows up when you’re not expecting him. But he was a really fun dad when I was a kid. And the library trips felt like this amazing gift, specifically from him to me, you know?”