“Nothing.” I change the subject. “So, how are you?”

“Don’t do that. Don’t act like we’re strangers.”

I tuck my lips together and look away before I reply. “Aren’t we, though?”

He sighs and his eyes roam around the room before they land back on me. “Should I go?” he asks directly.

“I don’t know, should you?”

He moves his chair out slightly and I reconsider. I don’t really want him to go, but there are so many reasons to be mad at him and I’m afraid that being around him will soften me. I can’t have that happen.

“Okay. Okay. Just sit. I’ll be nice,” I promise him, with a small smile that’s about as convincing as my attitude.

I don’t know what bullshit we’re going to fill this coffee date with, but since we’re going to see each other tomorrow, it seemed like a good idea to get the first awkward encounter out of the way without an audience. A funeral is no place for that. And I had to be in the city today anyway.

“So, Kael, how are you?” I retry this whole being-nice thing.

“Good. Given the circumstances.” He clears his throat.

“Yeah.” I sigh, trying not to think too much about tomorrow. I’ve always been good at pretending the world isn’t burning around me. Okay, I’ve been slipping these past few months, but for years denial was second nature, a permanent habit I mastered between my parents’ divorce and my high school graduation. Sometimes it feels like my family is disappearing. We keep getting smaller and smaller. Sometimes I feel like I’m disappearing, too.

“Are you all right?” he asks, his voice even lower than it was before.

It sounded the same as it did those damp nights when we fell asleep with the windows open—the whole room would be dewy the next morning, our bodies wet and sticky. I used to love the way his hot skin felt when my fingertips danced across the smooth contours of his jaw. Even his lips were warm, feverish at times. The southern Georgia air was so thick you could taste it, and Kael’s temperature always ran so hot. Another thing I pretended to forget.

He clears his throat and asks again if I’m okay. I snap out of it.

I know what he’s thinking. He can tell that I’ve left earth with my thoughts and he’s trying to bring me back. I can read his face as clearly as the neon But First, Coffee sign hanging on the wall behind him. I hate that those memories are the ones my brain associates with him. It doesn’t make this any easier.