Every Summer in Between

Ruth Elodie Greer is six the first time she visits Boothbay Harbor, the only place that has ever felt like home to her. In a town full of piers, ocean views, and brightly painted houses, she hardly expects that the first thing to catch her eye will be a boy.
Kitt Lane Hodges is used to tourists in the summer, used to hiding behind the bubbly personality of his younger sister when kids ask to play with them on the beach. But he isn't used to girls who make him want to play, too.
Every summer, Kitt waits for Ruth to arrive, and they spend the next ninety days as an inseparable pair and an occasional trio. The summer of her sixteenth year, everything changes between them,
The year after, Kitt Hodges is gone. It's as if he was never in Boothbay at all. And yet Ruth is there, year after year, always searching for him even as she pretends she's not.
Four years later, he returns. In his eyes, Ruth sees the boy he used to be. In his words, she hears someone else entirely. She believes that if she holds onto Kitt hard enough, she'll be able to bring him back.
But what if holding on too tight is what causes him to slip away entirely?