Just so you guys know, part 1: welcome is very important. Its the intro to the whole story. So be patient with all the unnecessary infos you guys think are in it.

THAT NIGHT I had trouble sleeping.

          After midnight, she called my name.

          I looked out the window. Taeyeon was lying on her back on the wooden walkway that leads to Mummy's house, Windemere. The golden retrievers were lying near her, all five: Bosh, Grendel, Poppy, Prince, and Fatima. Their tails thumped gently.

          The moonlight made them look blue.

          "Come down," she called.

          I did.

          Mummy's light was out. The rest of the island was dark. We were alone, except for all the dogs.

          "Scoot," I told her. The walkway wasn't wide. When I lay down next to her, our arms touched, mine bare and hers in a black hunting jacket.

          We looked at the sky. So many stars, it seemed like a celebration, a grand, an illicit party the galaxy was holding after the humans had been put to bed.

          I was glad Taeyeon didn't try to sound knowledgeable about constellations or say stupid stuff about wishing on stars. But I didn't know what to make of her silence, either.

          "Can I hold your hand?" she asked.

          I put mine in hers.

         "The universe is seeming really huge right now," she told me. "I need something to hold on to."

          "I'm here."

          Her thumb rubbed the center of my palm. All my nerves concentrated there, alive to every movement of her skin on mine. "I'm not sure I'm a good person," she said after a while.

          "I'm not sure I am, either," I said. "I'm winging it."

          "Yeah." She was silent for a moment. "Do you believe in God?"

          "Halfway." I tried to think about it seriously. I knew Taeyeon wouldn't settle for a flippant answer. "When things are bad, I'll pray or imagine someone watching over me, listening. Like the first few days after my dad left, I thought about God. For protection. But the rest of the time, I'm trudging along in my everyday life. It's not even slightly spiritual."

          "I don't believe anymore," Taeyeon said. "That trip to India, the poverty. No God I can imagine would let that happen. Then I came home and started noticing it in the streets of New York. People sick and starving in one of the richest nations in the world. I just---I can't think that anyone's watching over those poeple. Which means, no one is watching over me either."

          "That doesn't make you a bad person."

          "My mother believes. She was raised Buddhist but goes to Methodist church now. She's not very happy with me." Taeyeon hardly ever talked about her mother.

          "You can't believe just because she tells you to," I said.

          "No. The question is: how to be a good person if I don't believe anymore."

          We stared at the sky. The dogs went into Windemere via the dog flap.

          "You're cold," Taeyeon said. "Let me give you my jacket."

          I wasn't cold but I sat up. She sat up, too. ed her favorite black jacket and shrugged it off. Handed it to me.

          It was warm from her body. Much too wide across her shoulders. Her arms were bare now.

          I wanted to kiss her there while I was wearing her jacket. But I didn't.

          Maybe she loved Jace. Those photos on her phone. That dried beach rose in an envelope.

          Maybe...