I blinked.

The words did not make sense, arranged in that order, coming out of his mouth in that moment.

“Gemma?” I said, and I heard my own voice come out barely above a whisper, all the giddy height draining out of me at once.

“Yeah,” he said.

“Is she out in the garden?” I stepped aside.

I could not have formed a sentence if my life had depended on it.

And I stood at the kitchen window, hidden, and I watched my best friend walk out into our backyard and kneel down in front of my sister among the tall tomato vines, and I watched Gemma’s hands fly up to cover her mouth, and I watched her nod, and nod, and nod, so hard that her dark curls bounced in the afternoon sun, and I understood, standing there with my hand pressed flat against the cool glass, that the future I had built in my head for five years had just, quietly, in a vegetable garden, ended.