“I know.”

I don’t know if I’m relieved that she hasn’t caught my scent yet or disappointed. She thinks I’m sleeping with Callum. I wish I could tell her the truth. I want to tell someone about this excitement I feel every time I look at Liv. I want to share it with someone.

“Do you want to talk about it?” she broaches all of a sudden.

I squeeze my eyes shut behind my glasses, almost breaking into a laugh because the words are on the tip of my tongue.

When I don’t respond, she slows the car, and I turn, watching her pull over to the curb on quiet Levinson Lane, under the canopy of some Spanish moss.

God, just go. Please.

She puts the car in Park, and I feel her twist her body toward me to speak. “Sex is a big deal,” she says, “no matter all the images you see on TV and in movies that try to prove otherwise.”

Yes, yes. We’ve had this talk. Years ago. Just go.

“Sex isn’t just two people being physical, Clay. Young women, especially, can get attached and emotionally invested very quickly. It’s important we feel connected to the people we’re physical with.”

Mm-hmm. I nod.

“And it’s very easy to be hurt when we believe they feel the same and we find out they don’t,” she continues.

“You don’t need to worry,” I tell her, gesturing to the road ahead. “Can we go now?”

I don’t look at her, but I can tell she’s studying me. “I want to know things, okay? If you’re excited and falling in love, I want you to know you can talk to me and share it with me.”

My jaw flexes, my throat swelling.

“Is he making you happy?” she asks.

I draw in a breath. Jesus.

“Is he gentle? Does he make it special?”

I bite the corner of my mouth. I want to tell her how good Olivia Jaeger feels. Yes, Mom. She’s gentle. And I love it when she’s not gentle, too. She makes it special. I don’t want to be anywhere else when I’m with her.

She threads a lock of my hair through her fingers. “You’re stunning, you know? Anyone would be lucky to have you.”

As long as it’s a young man, right?

I open my mouth to say it. To tell her it’s a girl and not a boy, and maybe I’ll lie and tell her I’m just experimenting. I mean, maybe I am.

I could tell her Liv means nothing and we don’t date, but I like what she does to my body and it’s nothing to worry about. But I catch sight of my brother’s picture hanging on the rearview mirror, and I close my mouth again.

One kid dead. Another who’s… Not normal.

Yeah, her whole world will fall apart. She’s hanging on by a thread as it is. My family is hanging on by a thread. I don’t want to put something out there that I can’t take back.

“It’s okay, Mom,” I whisper. “Just go.”

She stares at me.

“I’m not going to get pregnant,” I blurt out. “I promise.”

I know she’s hurt I won’t talk to her, but if she knew, she’d wish she didn’t.

After a moment, she sits back in her seat and pulls away from the curb, driving us to my grandmother’s.

My mother won’t eat after five o’clock, so these dinners with my grandmother happen early in the afternoon and every week now, given that I’m so close to the ball and getting my ducks in a row for college. Mimi likes to be kept abreast of everything.

Tucker opens the front door before my mother has a chance to and steps aside for us to enter. I swipe my phone from my school bag before he has a chance to take it for me, and then I follow my mom into the foyer.

“Good afternoon,” I hear Mimi say.

My mom embraces her, their lips not quite touching each other’s skin as I shiver in the cold marble room. I look around, inhaling the scent of talcum powder and lavender that always pervaded this house, like my grandmother was ninety when she’s only sixty-five.

The white walls are only discernible from the white floors by the streaks of gray in the stone under my feet. I like white, but this house is like 1980s white—white wood with gold fixtures, splashes of yellow, and beveled mirrors where the frames are also mirrors. I’m pretty sure it’s supposed to look art deco, but it just looks stupid.

“Hi, Mimi.” I smile, mimicking my mother and embracing her with a kissing sound.

“Oh, you’re getting so pretty,” she coos.

She says that every time. Getting pretty. Not quite there, but getting there.

We walk toward the dining room, down a long hallway, interrupted sporadically with doors on one side and a wall of photos on the other. Black and white portraits from years ago, childhood photos, some of my brother and me, my cousins, Easter Sundays, family picnics on the lawn, and my mother—at sixteen at her ball, on the arm of my father as he stands next to her in a tux, his chin high and a loaded smile on his lips. I pause as my mom and grandmother head into supper.

My parents looked so young.

They were young, I guess. I can’t help but wonder what was going through their heads back then. How ready they were to live. How excited they were to dream about the future—vacations, their home, laughing, family, holding each other… The years spread out before them, and it was only going to be gold, right?

Did they know they were going to do bad things to each other?

Would they go back and do it again?

I walk into the dining room, Tucker holding my chair out for me.

“Thank you.” I sit down.

Taking my napkin, I pull it off the ring, but my mother stops me. “Clay.”

I stop, realizing myself. I set my napkin down and look to my grandmother. She gives me a look, but it has a hint of a smile. Rookie mistake, Clay. When a guest at dinner, take your cues from your host. I wasn’t supposed to lay my napkin in my lap until she’d done it.

She holds out her hand, and I know what she wants. I set my phone in her palm, and she places it on the small tray Tucker holds out next to her.

We start with salad, a citrusy vinaigrette dressing gleaming over the arugula.

“The Senior sleepover is happening soon, right?” Mimi asks. “Have you RSVP’d with Omega Chi at Wake Forest?”

I sip my water, setting it back down. “Mm, yes.”

I feel my mom’s eyes, and I look at her, getting the signal. I straighten and smile, giving Mimi my full attention.

“Yes, Mimi,” I say more clearly. “Dues are paid, and I’ve already reached out to some of the other attendees via social media to get a rapport going.”

“Social media…”

“It’s the standard of the times,” I tease, finishing up the small serving of greens.

But she waves me off, picking up her glass. “Oh, I know. I just lament the days of privacy and being able to make mistakes without an audience.”

I hold back my eye roll and smile wider. Old people say things like that a lot, as if the downfall of society started with Facebook.

“That reminds me,” Mimi pipes up again, eyeing my mother, “she needs to delete her Twitter history, and I want access to any other secret accounts, Clay.” She pins me with a look. “Don’t think we’re not aware they exist.”

My shoulders slump, but I put them back again, recovering. I’m not giving her my hidden profiles. She’s the one who told me I could have secrets.