19-year-old Kya is a beautiful woman who catches the eye of Chase Andrews when he is at the beach with his friends. Kya feels physically attracted to Chase but feels no emotional connection to him. She has an orgasm while sitting in the waves and thinking about him. When she bumps into Chase one afternoon, as a way of getting over Tate dumping her, a flattered Kya agrees to meet him at the beach that Sunday for a picnic.

The reader learns that Tate did come back to see Kya two weeks after the Fourth of July when he was instead on trip with some famous birders and biologists. When he did eventually show up, he spied on her and noticed that she was every inch the “young biologist” (155) but also someone “tormented, isolated, and strange” (156). She would never fit into either his world in the town or his laboratory, no matter how brilliant she was. He left without saying goodbye even though he knew this was cowardly.

Kya knows that Chase may only be interested in her as a sexual conquest, but her own desire for connection and physical contact overwhelms these reservations. When they meet for the picnic, Chase is a little thrown off that Kya, whom he thinks of as the illiterate Marsh Girl, knows the Latin names of wildlife they encounter.