Page 76 of Main Event

“You make steady feel real,” she says. “Not like a promise someone makes when the room is warm, and the stakes are low. Real steady. The kind that shows up at hospitals, sits on floors, and parks two blocks away because I asked you not to stand where someone could see you. The kind that tells me the truth even when it would be easier to let me sleep. The kind that doesn’t need me to feel smaller to feel strong.”

My jaw tightens. Not from anger. From trying to hold onto what she’s giving me without breaking the moment by reaching for too much at once.

“You changed my life too,” she says. “Not because you saved me. I know you hate it when I say this, but I need you to hear it the way I mean it. You gave me room to stop surviving every second of every day. You made it safe to want things again. Small things. Dinner. Sleep. A stupidly good peach. A house near water someday.” Her smile flickers. “You made the future feel like something other than a threat.”

I bring her hand to my mouth and press my lips to her knuckles. She lets out a shaky breath.

“I don’t know how to leave you anymore,” I say.

Her eyes close. “I don’t want you to know how.”

“I don’t.”

She leans into me then, and I wrap both arms around her. Not to protect her from anything. Not because anything is coming. Just because she’s there. Because I can. Because for one afternoon beneath an old oak tree by the clearest water I know, nobody is asking us to bleed for the right to keep loving each other.

We sit like that for a long time. The sun shifts. The shade moves. The peaches get warm and bruised in the bag. Somewhere across the lake, a boat engine rises and fades again.

Eventually, Andi says against my chest, “We have to go back.”

“I know.”

“I don’t want to.”

“I know that too.”

She pulls back enough to look at me. “Thank you for bringing me here.”

I brush damp hair from her cheek. “Thank you for coming with me today.”

“It’s called being kidnapped.”

“Surprise transported.”

“Lake assaulted.”

“Refreshed.”

“Fruit compromised.”

“That one was your fault.”

She smiles, and the whole day folds itself carefully into the space behind my ribs, where I already know I’ll keep it.

We leave as the sun starts to lower.

Andi changes into one of my old hoodies from the truck because her shirt is still damp, and the sleeves swallow her hands. She climbs into the passenger seat with lake-wet hair, bare feet, and a paper bag of peaches tucked safely between her knees like treasure.

I look at her for one second too long.

“What?” she asks.

“Nothing.”

“That is never true.”

I start the truck. “I was trying to picture you as sixteen.”

Her eyebrows rise. “And?”