She called me at eleven-seventeen at night.
Not a text. A call. Voice only, which was Sera's language for things that mattered.
I picked up on the second ring.
"He told me," she said.
"I know," I said.
"You knew he was going to."
"He called me first," I said. "To check."
A pause.
"He called you first," she said.
"He wanted a second opinion on the timing."
"And you said?"
"I said tell her," I said. "She already knows. Say it out loud."
Another pause.
"I didn't already know," she said. "Not exactly."
"You suspected," I said.
"I suspected something," she said. "But suspecting and knowing are different things, Nara. You of all people should understand that." A pause. "When he said it — when he actually said it — it was different from suspecting."
I sat on my kitchen floor with
