“I’m starting MTSU in the fall.”

“Do you know what you’re studying?”

“I’m not sure yet actually…Are you in college?” She doesn’t look that much older than me.

“I graduated from Belmont last year. Now I’m working as a graphics designer at a consulting firm, like, designing logos and presentation materials.”

I tell her about how I met Matt and that he’s training me to run a marathon. She’s really easy to talk to and asks lots of nonintrusive questions. She reminds me of her fiancé.

Jennifer clomps back down the steps and sits to my right, drops assorted wedding magazines in my lap, and starts pointing out what she likes.

I tap my fingernail on a cute halter dress. “I think you’d look good in this one, Jenn.”

“I like that one too! By the way, did you know I’m an aunt now? I’m the first person in my class at school to be an aunt.”

“I heard,” I say, smiling. “That’s really cool.”

“Kate, Kate.” Jennifer flips frantically through a magazine. “Show Annie your dress.”

Then a girl a couple years younger than me appears in the basement: another sister, Lacey. After introductions, she squeezes onto the couch with us to look at pictures.

Kate finds her dress in the magazine, and we all oooh and ahhh over it. Jeremiah crutches back down the stairs and discovers us laughing together.

“Jere, is Annie your girlfriend? I sure hope so ’cause if she’s not, Mama’s not gonna feed you anymore,” Jennifer blurts, making Kate and Lacey snigger.

“Munchkin, you’re in big trouble now.” Jeremiah chases her on his crutches, and when he corners her, he lifts her and holds her upside down. She squeals.

And all the girls in the room, including me, blurt at the same time, “Get off that ankle right now, Jeremiah!”

•••

After all the church ladies have cleared out to go—yep, you guessed it—back to church, Jeremiah and I sit together at the picnic table in his backyard, playing checkers at twilight. It turns out his mother is a youth pastor and does Sunday night services, but she only makes him attend on Sunday mornings.

“It doesn’t matter how many times a week I go,” he joked, “I could bathe in an ocean of holy water, and I still couldn’t get the sin off me.”

Hearing that made me feel more comfortable around him; church has never been my thing—I don’t believe in heaven or hell or reincarnation. When this life ends, that’s it. Poof. When I was little, dying and being buried underground scared the crap out of me. Riding in the car late at night especially terrified me because the darkness made me think of death. It got to the point where I didn’t want to sleep with the light out and Mom finally made me admit what I was scared of. Then she said, “You can’t remember the world before you were born, right?”

“Right,” I agreed.

“When you’re gone, it’ll be like before you were born. Everything’ll be okay, sweetie.”

That made me feel better—at least to the point I could deal with it without shaking, but whenever I think about how I’ll never see Kyle again, this sick feeling rushes under my skin and I wish I could believe in something bigger, but I’m too much of a realist.

I really should have gone home already, but Jeremiah said, “Stay and play checkers with me. I’ll give you some cherry cobbler.”

I like bribes that involve dessert. I scoop a bite into my mouth and push a checker forward.

“Sorry about all the drama today,” he says, jumping one of my white pieces. “It’s pretty standard in the Brown household.”

“I can’t believe I lost at Ping-Pong to a guy on one foot. I better not lose to you at checkers.”

“I reckon we’ll find out.”

“I hope you’re not one of those guys who lets a girl win to make her feel good.”

A smile flashes on his face as he spoons cobbler in his mouth. “Never.”

I jump over his black checker and he retaliates by jumping three of mine in one turn. I lay my head down on the picnic table. “Damn.”

He laughs. “I wish we’d bet on our game now. I could make bank playing you.”

“If we were bowling, I’d totally be beating your ass.”

He smirks. “Oh yeah?”

“Yeah.”

We play the game in a nice silence. Crickets chirp. Warm wind rustles the green trees. It baffles me that we’re doing this all backwards: we nearly had sex last month and I’ve already met his family—his dad grinned at me and firmly shook my hand—but I still know next to nothing about him except that he’s addicted to extreme sports. Where does he go to school? What’s his favorite book? Favorite movie? And most importantly, do I even want to know these things? I’m not sure. Things must’ve been pretty bad for his mother to kick him out of the house and his little sister not to see him for an entire year, and like I said, I need white bread, not hot sauce.