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“It’s good.”

“You like cranberries,” he said.

“You remembered.”

“I remember everything.”

I studied his face. “I remember everything too.”

The bad and the good.

Sneaking away at every family get-together. Sharing a hammock in my yard on the Fourth of July while my dad grilled. Him walking me to class, notes in my locker. The promposal he did with rose petals asking me to be his date, spelled out on the lawn so I could see it from my room. Sneaking out my bedroom window to sit on swings at the park at midnight.

Our last kiss.

Only, at the time I didn’t know it would be our last.

Matty popped his head in. “Hey, Grandma just did a speech about the male loneliness epidemic.”

I twisted in my seat to look at him. “What was her position?”

“That we’re lonely because we’re idiots and we deserve it?”

Jeremy laughed.

“We should probably go in there. Sounds like we’re missing the good stuff,” I said.

“Sure. To Grandma,” Jeremy said, raising his glass.

“To Grandma.”

We both took a sip.

6

JEREMY

“WE SAID ONLY ONE,” I said, holding my third drink on my thigh.

Anna lolled her head to look at me. “I know, but Grandma…” she whispered. “The game’s too fun. We ran out of sips.”

I chuckled.

We were in the living room with the whole family. Grandma just finished a long rant about misogyny, and everyone was drunk, including her.

Anna and I were sitting on the couch with cranberry mojitos, talking. Not about anything important, just talking like we used to—laughing like we used to.

Being with her was so easy. Loving Anna was like breathing. It always had been. Just something I did without even needing to think about it, part of my involuntary nervous system, a function that exists to keep me alive.

Maybe that’s why I thought that her forgiving me would be easy. That our past would protect our future, no matter what choices I made.

It hadn’t.

I should have done more. I should have chased her until the end of time. I just got tired. I couldn’t give her what she wanted, I couldn’t drop out and come home. And she wouldn’t budge either, wouldn’t take me back. We were at an impasse, and then she blocked me and I just… gave up.

That seemed like such a ridiculous mistake now. Now that years had gone by and I knew the truth—that there was no next time. No one better. No second love of my life. No happily ever after.

At least not for me.