“If you have any questions, find someone else. I take my summer break seriously. I’m just here to welcome you back.”
I chuckle. “Thank you.”
She leaves me in the hallway, and I begin the familiar trek to where Coach Ryland used to lecture us on things that once happened. I didn’t really care back then, but now I understand how much your past shapes your future—or reveals just how naïve you once were.
I trace my fingers over the cream cinder block walls, the texture rough beneath my touch.
When I reach the classroom which is strangely now mine, I can practically see Sadie smiling at me from the desk right up front across from the teacher’s. I heard the grumbles and jokes kids made when Sadie always turned her paper in first or raised her hand to answer every question, but her certainty always made me smile to myself. I was never annoyed by her. I was in awe.
I slide my backpack off and drop it on the floor next to the desk chair, slipping into where Sadie used to be. Then I grab my Bible from my bag, the history book that I’ve learned the most from—one that lives in the past, present, and future.
Sadie gave me this Bible when we were ten.
I open it in an attempt to ground my wandering thoughts. Thoughts about last night. How the girl I once loved—still love—looked at me with so much grief in her gaze that I thought I might disintegrate right there on her doorstep.
When I left Dusty Hollow, I broke her heart.
I broke mine, too.
I can still feel the way her tears felt against my cheek as I held her on the day I left . . .
“Your grandpa is so proud, you know,” she said with a soft smile. “A college boy.”
I grinned because I knew he was proud of me. My grandpa doesn’t smile much, but when scouts began sniffing around the stadium my junior year, he always made sure to accommodate them—to give me my best chance.
“I know,” I said. “It’s my chance to be somebody.”
“You are somebody, Milo,” she said, her big brown eyes wide and honest.
But I wanted greatness. I had this belief that if I could become great, it would somehow redeem my past, even though it wasn’t mine to make up for. I know that now, but when I was eighteen, I still allowed my parents to define me in some ways.
My mom left when I was three. I was too young to understand. One day she was there, and the next day, she wasn’t. I was eight when I moved in with my grandpa after my dad was taken to prison.
I was a kid who learned to keep to myself—until the day I met Sadie Summers.
Her smile wasn’t just a smile. It made me feel like she saw me when no one else did.
“You’re going to do amazing things, Sadie Summers. You’re so smart and you’re beautiful. The world is going to be amazed by you,” I told her, putting her soft face in my hands.
Tears streamed down her cheeks, and she laughed lightly.
“Promise me something?” she asked.
“Anything,” I replied.
“Give your all, Milo. You have what it takes. I expect to see your face on television, making a stupid amount of money.”
“I promise,” I said.
She nodded, but her smile wobbled, just barely. She glanced past me toward the driveway where my truck waited, the engine already humming. Everything was already moving. Leaving was already happening.
“Thank you for not letting me be the girl you feel guilty about,” she said. “The one you’re thinking about when you should be focused. I don’t want to be the reason you give up your dreams, Milo Carter.”
My chest tightened. “Sadie?—”
“I’m so proud of you,” she said.
And those words were an ache because she was the first person who meant anything to me who ever said them out loud.
