But it doesn’t exactly feel like that. It feels like I’m supposed to know who I am right this moment.

“Clem’s leaving me,” I tell her. “She’s going to Georgia.”

She nods, eyeing me from over the rim of her coffee cup. “It won’t be easy to see you two apart.”

“So I guess I’m the only one who didn’t know.” I want to be angry at Grammy, but every effort to muster my disappointment fails.

“She didn’t know how to break the news. I swear, the girl was losing sleep over it.”

“We tell each other everything,” I say, my voice catching on that last syllable.

Grammy is silent for a moment. “Maybe you don’t. And maybe you shouldn’t.”

My mouth snaps open. She’s wrong. We do tell each other every—well, maybe not everything. And, in reality, I don’t want her to know everything. I think about her and Hannah and her closed bedroom door. Nope. I definitely don’t want to know everything.

“Fine,” I say, even though it is very much not fine. Nothing about this is fine! “But this is an awfully big thing to leave out. I just . . . I thought we’d live together until we got married and then we’d be next-door neighbors and then our spouses would die before us and then we’d both die watching our favorite TV shows and then we’d all be buried in the Brewer family plot until we became one giant clump of dirt.”

Grammy laughs. “Well, as lovely as that sounds . . . I don’t think you’re really taking into account what’s best for Clem. Or for you!”

“Can we please talk about literally anything else?” I ask.

Cleo pops up from between the flower beds. “Oh my goodness, I watched the first few episodes of that television show you and Clem are always talking about? The one where winter is coming or what have you?”

“Game of Thrones!” I say. I’m on my third rewatch and am still reeling from the last season. “Well, you’re, like, way late to the party, but welcome to the game of thrones! When you play the game of thrones, you win or you die,” I quote back to her.

But her only response is her forehead wrinkling in confusion.

Bernadette steps out onto the porch, still in her lavender housecoat with a fresh cup of coffee in hand. “Are y’all talking about that throne game show?” She sits in the rocker next to Grammy. “You know, Peter tried getting me into that show when we were seeing each other and I couldn’t get past the incest.”

Grammy huffs. “There she goes again. You dated a thirty-eight-year-old man once. Once! And now you’ll never stop talking about it! Peter this. Peter that. Someone mentions any little thing and somehow it’s related to Peter.”