“Sadie.” His tone is gentle and low. “I?—”
“Milo Carter!” A large hand attached to the one and only Coach Ryland slaps him hard on the back. “I couldn’t believe it when I heard you were coming back to town, and to take my job!”
Milo’s lips spread in a grin as he looks with admiration at his high school coach. “Now, that’s not what I heard. Heard you were retiring.”
Coach Ryland laughs. “That’d be the more accurate version of the story, but it depends on who you ask around here. Let me buy you a coffee. Maybe give you a few tips. High school football is a little different than the pros.”
Milo’s eyes dart between me and Coach Ryland.
“Sadie, you don’t mind if I steal your boy from you, right?” Coach Ryland asks.
I want to say that he’s not mine. Hasn’t been for a very long time.
But instead, I fix a smile on my face and say, “Of course not. Take him for as long as you need.”
I set my books carefully on top of the expired produce before I grab the handles of the plastic bin, my fingers brushing up against Milo’s, making my breath hitch slightly. He doesn’t let go.
“You go catch up,” I practically whisper. “I’ve got things to do.”
“Coffee tomorrow? Iced vanilla latte with a pump of caramel?” Milo asks.
It’s been my coffee order for the last fifteen years. The one Milo would bring me every Monday morning when he picked me up for school when we were dating.
Another piece of evidence to add to the accusation that I haven’t changed . . .
“I have to go,” I repeat, pulling at the bin until he surrenders.
“Sadie, I just?—”
“It was good seeing you.” I cut him off, making sure I keep my smile firm and my politeness intact.
I turn, leaving Milo behind as I walk to my light blue Volkswagen Beetle, already replaying every single word that was said between us. Our conversation is a constant loop as I check for what I could have said wrong, or differently, or truer.
But the words that feel the loudest, that settle like iron through my body, aresame books, same cookies, same Sadie.
Ten years ago, I told Milo to chase his dreams because I had dreams, too.
Somewhere along the way, mine stopped asking to be chased.
Or maybe I just stopped chasing them, and they grew tired waiting on me.
2
MILO
That wasn’t exactlyhow I hoped seeing Sadie again would go.
I’d convinced myself she might see it the same way I did—that we were kids, ill-equipped for the permanency of difficult decisions.
But there was an edge to her politeness that didn’t belong to the Sadie I remembered.
The one who stood in English class, her cheeks flushed and her brown eyes bright, and said,“I want a life that feels like motion. Not rushing, not running away—just moving toward something that matters.”
Back then, I thought I was doing exactly that.
Football mattered. Success mattered.
So I left everything else behind.
