Tiff and Jamie are both looking at me encouragingly.
“T-the stands?” I say as they all wait for me to take the lanyard.
I could handle getting into the box. Nobody noticed me here, but the stands? That’s where people booed me, and laughed every time I dared to show up at one of Zach’s games.
For a second, I swear I can still hear it. The shouting. The mockery. The feeling of shrinking smaller and smaller with every step I took.
Old instincts claw their way up immediately.
Run. Hide. Avoid it.
Then I think about Zach standing down on that field playing through pain with seventy thousand people screaming around him.
And suddenly walking through a crowd doesn’t seem quite so impossible.
This isn’t St. Michael’s, Honey.
“Yes. Go to the stairs at the end of the box and head down to the ground level. Security at the base will get you through,” Tiff says as if I’m going to remember that.
Adrenaline starts to course through my veins as Zach’s mom places the pass in my hand.
I curl my fingers around it.
“Thank you,” I say.
She glances down at my hand wrapped in hers and smiles softly. When she looks back up, her eyes are glassy with emotion. “Good luck, Honey. You both deserve this.”
A shaky breath leaves me, and all I can manage is a small nod.
Beneath the words, I feel like she’s quietly placing her son’s heart back into my hands and believing that I won’t run this time.
As soon as I turn toward the door, a chorus of good luck follows behind me. Not just from Zach’s family, but from half the luxury box at this point.
None of them know exactly what I’m about to do, but somehow they’re rooting for me anyway.
I weave through the crowd toward the stairwell, the roar of the stadium growing louder with every step downward. Fifty thousand people still riding the high of the win.
Four years.
We’ve been building toward this moment since we were eighteen years old.
And now that it’s finally here, all I know is that I don’t want to waste another second being afraid of it.
I’m ready to choose Zach the same way he’s always chosen me.
By the time I finally reach the security gates, fans are already crowding the barricades, shouting players’ names and holding things out to be signed.
I squeeze my way toward the front, apologizing under my breath as I try to catch the attention of one of the guards, but it’s useless.
The crowd is too loud. They can’t hear me, and my frantic attempts at waving probably just make me look like every other overly excited fan pressed against the barricade.
A sudden wave of cheering erupts nearby as a few players start making their way over after the win.
I don’t recognize any of them.
“Honey?”
I turn when I hear my name, smiling widely when I see him.
