THE BEACH WAS already packed. Sun umbrellas, games of paddleball, people swimming… it was a hive of continual activity, a factory running at full power. The bodies piled up on the strip of sand and overflowed into the sea, swarmed, advanced, and gradually scattered into distant swimmers, surfers, floating heads, and stray yellow buoys. Sitting on the sand, I listened to the waves. I was beginning to understand what I had done. Nobody suspected me. Nobody even looked at me. I just seemed ill at ease. I’d always been a nervous boy, and now I was even more on edge; on the surface, that was the only change caused by Oscar’s death.

“What’s up with you? Are you sulking?”

“No.”

“What happened to you last night? I didn’t see you leave.”

“I was tired. I went back to my tent.”

The sentences came out on their own, cold and terse. Louis didn’t seem to mind. He didn’t have any other friends, so he put up with me. He’d wrapped his T-shirt around his head like a turban, slathered his stocky body with sunscreen, pulled the legs of his shorts higher up his thighs. He was smiling the way he always did when he wanted to talk about girls. And I was annoyed with him—I was annoyed with everyone on the beach—for failing to hear my silent screams, for failing to guess.

“This fucking sun… You should cover your head.”

“I’m okay.”

“Well, she should be here soon. She’s called Zoe. She looks nice in her photos, but who knows? She might be a real dog.”

He showed me the photographs of Zoe from her Tinder profile. He had laughed at me on the first day because I’d never heard of it. He’d explained how the app worked: you chose a few photographs of yourself and wrote a paragraph about your likes and dislikes; the profiles of girls and boys in the area appeared on your phone; if you liked someone, you sent a message; if they liked you, too, you could have a conversation and get to know each other, even meet up in real life. “It’s mostly for fucking, obviously, although there are always a few annoying girls who just want to chat, and some Korean girls on Erasmus or whatever who want you to take them to see the Eiffel Tower.” The app’s logo had a curious shape, halfway between an egg and a flame, and every time I’d wondered why, a small sharp panic had pinched my heart, so I preferred to keep my distance from it, just like I kept my distance from girls and dancing and all the other things that we were here for.

“Leo, listen. If I don’t get laid today, I’m giving up on the beach. I’ve had enough of this bullshit. HEY, GIRLS!”

I jumped. Zoe was arriving, with a friend.

“See, she hasn’t come on her own… Hang on, who’s that she’s with? Luce? Do they know each other? That’s funny.”

They were laughing as they came toward us, because Luce had recognized us. I’d recognized her, too; the night before, Luce had been dancing with Oscar, and I’d watched her kiss him on the dune. She was wearing a red sarong. She stood out starkly against the sun.

“All right, back me up here,” Louis said in my ear. “She likes you, too, you know.”

They stood in front of us. “Hi.” Zoe was smoking a cigarette, taking little puffs as if she were nauseated but trying not to show it.

Louis stood up to kiss them on the cheeks and make the introductions. “I’m Louis. And this is Leonard. So you know each other, Zoe and Luce? That’s funny. Small world.”

Zoe frowned. “This campsite is hardly the world.”

“Figure of speech.”

“Hungover, Leonard?” Luce asked.

I shook my head, smiling weakly. Louis clapped his hands. “I’m going to swim. You coming, Zoe?”

“Why not?”

He winked at me and they set off together.

Luce sat down next to me. “Were you on the beach, too, last night?”

“Yeah, but I went back early.”

“How come? You didn’t like the party?”

“Not that much.”

I didn’t dare turn to face her. I kept staring at the sea. I watched sailboats, a liner in the distance. Beyond that, the waves were wilder, higher. People were maybe drowning. Luce’s hand brushed some sand off my knee. I thought I was going to faint. She couldn’t see how pale I was because the sunlight made everything pale. Sometimes it revealed imperfections in the skin, sometimes it erased them, making the ugliest people more beautiful. I knew how to position myself to look my best. I still had that much pride. I’d had time to look carefully at the sky while the others were moving around below. Louis didn’t do that. He let the sun expose his zits and the blond fluff on his upper lip. He never paid attention to the little things: after lunch, he didn’t brush his teeth, and he smelled of fries; he didn’t take a shower after swimming in the sea, either, so his skin stayed salty. He took none of the precautions that punctuated my days, and yet he was at ease in the water with a girl, and I watched him splashing in his joy as I lay there, motionless on the beach, with a vast emptiness inside my chest.

“What are you thinking about?” Luce asked.

“Nothing.”

“I never see you around. Where’s your tent?”

“Number three-thirty.”

“Are you camping with Louis?”

“No.”

“Who are you with, then?”

“My parents.”

“You sound like you’re ashamed of it.”

“A bit.”

“You shouldn’t be. You’re lucky. Where are you from?”

“Lorient.”

“Don’t know it. Are you a senior, too? What do you want to do after high school?”

“Musicology.”

“Oh, you’re a musician?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s cool. And you really love to chat, right?”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re funny. Why don’t you take off your T-shirt? You must be hot.”

“I’m fine… thanks.”

“Come on, let’s go swimming.”

She stood up. I refused politely. She didn’t insist, just took off her sarong and ran to join the others, her feet seeming to bounce lightly on the sand. Her skin was pale; she didn’t tan. She disappeared into the sea and I found myself alone in the crowd. The naked torsos of volleyball players sprang into the air. Swimmers threw themselves into the waves. Parents took their children away from the sea so they wouldn’t die in the riptides. Louis and Zoe were already laughing. Luce dived into the crashing waves and reappeared each time somewhere else. Parts of her body glistened as the water moved over her. Suddenly I wanted to go with her. I stood up, but everything around me rose more slowly, as if I’d been drinking. A man walked past with a metal detector. A child screamed in a wave. I twisted my neck and saw the flag, the hole, Oscar’s body. What the hell am I doing here, I thought, and the feeling was stronger than it had been on the other days. I left the beach and walked over the dune. I didn’t say goodbye. They didn’t see me leave anyway.