"Sometimes," Effy replies, glancing over to him with all of the certainties in her eyes, bright blue and sure, so sure in that moment, even if a small voice in the back of her mind sounds and says that it'll only ever last so long, this confidence. Effy comes and goes with more frequency than the tides, and sometimes she thinks that it's because she doesn't fight against the world and all its torrents in the way that the rest of her friends do. But for this moment, she can, sinking her foot far enough into the sand to fight the cresting foam.

"We're not meant to stay here. I know that. Ten years from now... none of us will be here," she murmurs, eyes skirting over the horizon. "But you'd wait longer than that for her."