I finally look up at him, and I can’t hold back what I’m feeling any longer. “Do you have any idea how much I love you?”

His broad chest rises and falls slowly, and I now recognize this as him trying to gain control of himself. Trying to prevent another collision. As he absently touches the plush toy lying between us, he answers in a soft, somewhat melancholy tone.

“I hope as much as I love you.”

Yes, I do.

He slowly stands, and I feel like he’s taking pieces of my heart with him. Pieces I need to be whole. I have no doubt we’ve always loved each other, but now I’m not sure what kind of love this is. I used to think love was love and there was no gray area, but I’m learning it’s just not that simple after all. Love is like an onion, with a lot of layers and a lot of tears before you get to the good part.

“I want you to go in the other room while I take care of her. Then I have to head out so I can get home before dark. Your dad’s waiting for me. Apparently he wants to supervise and say some words.”

I can’t help but smile through sadness, because that is so much like my father to want to do a eulogy for a bunny.

“Okay…can you wait out in the hallway for a few minutes while I get dressed?” All I have on is the thin t-shirt and boy shorts I slept in last night and even though he’s seen me barely dressed a hundred times, it suddenly feels too intimate.

I catch him glance down my body hidden beneath the blanket before he looks away, pulling my beanie hat down a little lower over his forehead. “Yeah…I’ll come back in a few minutes.”

Just as he reaches my door, I call out to him. “Hey, Tor?”

He stops and turns around with a questioning look on his face.

“When I get home, I’m giving this back to you. I want you to have it.” I hold up Mopsy, and he grins and nods before he closes my bedroom door behind him.

I wait on the back porch as Tor prepares my bunny and puts her and her cage in his truck, and when he comes back to the house to say goodbye to Katherine and me, I walk back outside with him so we can be alone before he makes the drive back home.

“I can’t even tell you how much this means to me, Tor.”

“I already know. Just remember what I said, enjoy your summer.”

“I will.” The breeze carries his cologne, and I inhale it deep into me, aching to have any part of him be mine to keep. I don’t want him to leave. I want to grab his hand and walk along the water with him and make wishes. I want to watch the sunset with him and cuddle up with him against the cool breeze and talk the night away. “I’ve missed you since I left, Tor. I don’t like not talking to you.”

He looks at his feet and then slowly back up at me. “I miss you too. But this doesn’t change anything. There can’t be anything between us.”

I tilt my head and stare up at him, feeling shorter as I stand barefoot next to him on the quiet street. “There already is something between us.”

“Kenzi…”

“We can try to ignore it all we want, but it’s still there. I don’t think you can just make it go away. Right?”

He stares off behind me now, through the trees and towards the very place on the beach I wish we were cuddled up together right now, instead of standing here in denial.

“I know I’m young, but I’m not stupid. I know what real feelings are. Can you really stand here and say that what we’re feeling isn’t happening?”

“No.”

“Why are you so against it? Maybe we could be happy…”

His head snaps to face me. “We can’t, Kenzi. You’re seventeen. I’m fucking thirty-two. You’re my best friend’s kid. Trust me, it would never, ever work. Not one person in our lives would accept us. Think about that. Think about how close you are to your family. Think about how close I am to your family. And now think about how disgusted they would be. How much they would hate me. Could you be happy with that?”

I shake my head as the truth of his words sink into my soul like a boulder. “No. That would be awful.”

My God, he’s right. I can’t think of one person that would be happy for us. Maybe Chloe, but she would mainly be interested in me having sex with someone older and hot and probably wouldn’t be concerned with much else. Everyone else would go completely ballistic. My father and my uncles would want to kill Tor and most likely send me off to live with nuns.