I like this lightness. It’s been absent between Hadley and me for too long.
We get to the bottom of the stairs and I grab my shoes, shoving my feet inside. “Let’s run to the grocery store and see what we can throw together. You know the only thing I can make is mashed potatoes.”
“Is that what those lumpy things at Thanksgiving were?”
I scowl, but she just winks at me.
“Better than the runny deviled eggs you made,” I grumble, grabbing my keys from the bowl in the foyer.
She laughs again, taking my jab in stride.
Hads pulls open the front door and steps out, me right on her heels.
“Well, no one ate either, so I guess we both lost.”
“You’re probably right. Maybe we should just order dinner and transfer it all into Mom’s nice dishes,” I suggest.
Hadley pauses while she considers. “So we are gonna pull a Mrs. Doubtfire?”
My booming laugh echoes in the yard, recalling our favorite movie when we were kids. “That’s exactly what we will do, except I’m not dressing up as an old Scottish lady.”
Her face softens as she reaches for my hand. “And all of humanity breathes a sigh of relief.”
There is a beat of stunned silence before Hadley’s smile cracks wide, running away from me.
“You’re such a little shit!”
I chase her in a circle in our front yard, our laughs tangling with our playful banter. When I finally snag her around thewaist, she squeals, going limp in my arms, her dead weight too much for me to hold up.
I let her drop to the ground like a sack of potatoes.
She lands with a harsh “oomph,” giggling harder than I’ve seen in a long time. She lies back in the grass, arms and legs splayed, her smile all teeth.
I fall onto the grass beside her, mimicking her position.
We lay there without talking, cicadas buzzing high in the trees while the late afternoon sun soaks through my T-shirt into my skin. Hadley’s shoulder presses against mine, warm and solid.
For a few seconds, everything inside me quiets.
Then my chest tightens.
The silence suddenly feels too big, too fragile, like one wrong thought could shatter the moment.
My pulse stutters unevenly in my ears. My fingers tingle.
I drag in a breath and hold it.
One, two, three, four.
When I let it out, Hadley’s fingers slide through mine. She inhales with me this time, her thumb pressing gently against my knuckles four slow beats at a time until my heartbeat stops trying to outrun itself.
“I’m sorry, Huddy,” she whispers.
“What for?” I turn my head just as a tear slips into her hairline.
“For not noticing.” Her voice wobbles. “You were ‘sick’ all the time, and I just…” She shakes her head. “I was too wrapped up in myself to look closer.”
I brush the tear away with my thumb before another can follow it. “I didn’t want another person worrying about me, Hads.”
