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“We didn’t,” I say.

“See.” He snaps a finger. “I can’t tell if I should feel embarrassed you forgot, concerned at your bad memory, or scared that I made the moment up.”

Confused now, I angle my head. “What are you talking about?”

“Don’t you remember talking with me, freshman year, the day before the basketball championship?”

My chest gets a pinch of pain at its center, an automatic reflex when I’m brought back to that specific timeline. I press my palm to my chest and try to rub out the knot of pressure building there.

“To be honest,” I say, feeling the knot unwind, “freshman year is a blur of grief for me. I think I spent so much time trying to ignore that year that I successfully erased anything that happened during it.” I can’t even remember milestone moments, holidays, birthdays. All I can look back on is the heaviness of sadness, this block of fog I purposely created to blur out the misery that was trying to move on from loss.

Of course I miss my mom. My dad and I talk about her sometimes, and her pictures still hang around the house and in a small locket on my desk. Every so often my dreams let me see her again as she was, as she’ll always remain.

But the year we lost her was not something worthy of remembering, nothing beautiful to hold on to. Just a period of time to claw our way forward until we could spend a day without the feeling of something sharp being trapped between our ribs.

“Your mom,” Theo says quietly. There’s a beat of silence as he looks at me with kind eyes. “I’m sorry if it’s too hard to talk about. We don’t have to.”

I shake my head. “It would be nice to know there was a memory formed then that wasn’t centered on sadness. Please, tell me.”

He watches me for a moment like he’s confirming I mean it and am not just saying it for his sake. Then he rubs his bottom lip with his thumb. “Back then, even though I was a freshman, I was on the varsity squad, and the week of the championship, our captain and co-captain got into a fender bender. They were fine, but with sprained arms and legs they couldn’t play, so everyone was riding me to step up, to be captain, to get us a win.”

While he talks, I try to pick up any fragment of a memory, and really, there is nothing tangible to grab. Just sadness.

“The day of the championship, my Lab, Riku, died—we had him since I was four. I was devastated,” he says. “Riku was a part of my entire routine. We’d wake up, go on a run, eat breakfast together, watch TV together, same thing for dinner when I came back from school—sometimes I would sneak off during lunch to check on him.”

He smiles at that, and I wonder if I could smile easily at a memory of my mom one day too, that it wouldn’t feel too painful.

“I didn’t want to play,” he goes on. “Man, I didn’t want to do anything. But nobody cared. The team, the captains, the coach, my friends; they all didn’t get it. They thought I was being dramatic. ‘It’s just a dog, Theo, get over it. You’re really going to let the team down over one dog that wasn’t going to live long anyway?’ ”

“That’s horrible,” I say.

It makes him smile wider when he locks gazes with me. We’ve reached the top of the wheel, and the ride stills completely, leaving the moon to pour a bucket of pale light over Theo’s head.

“I had a bad fight with the captain at the time about it, just hours before the game, and stormed off. I didn’t even notice where I was going, I just needed to move. I ended up at the greenhouse, and I saw you there.”

I perk up and it makes him chuckle as he goes on. “You were sitting on the ground, cross-legged, crying over some withering daisies.”

“Those were my mom’s favorite flowers,” I say, automatically.

He nods. “You told me so back then too. You seemed so sad I forgot that I was too. I sat with you and asked you what was wrong, and you said, ‘What isn’t?’ ”

I see the sincerity in Theo’s gaze, I know he’s telling it exactly how it happened.

“Then you asked,” Theo goes on, “ ‘Can you tell me why you’re sad? So I can think about something else?’ So I told you, and you reached a hand over and told me, ‘Screw them. You’re sad. Go home and cry. Look at pictures of your dog. Take the week off, the month, however long it takes.’ You were the only person who cared about how I felt.”

I bite the inside of my mouth. “Sounds like I was being a know-it-all.”

He shakes his head. “No, you were… good. And then I asked you what was wrong, and you told me your mom passed, and I felt horrible. I loved Riku so much, but when I thought about losing my mom, I couldn’t imagine what you were going through. You had every right to shut me up and send me away. But you didn’t. You squeezed my hand and said—”

“ ‘Grief is grief no matter who is wearing it and who you’re wearing it for.’ ”

His eyes widen. “You remember.”

“Kind of.” I rub my eyes like that’ll clear the blur of a memory appearing in my head. “I remember that day. My teachers had given me a warning that if I didn’t get my act together they’d start to mark my missing homework against me.” I squint. “That’s why I was extra miserable outside. I thought my mom would be disappointed I was letting my grades slip. You were wearing a cap covering most of your face, a hood on top. I don’t think I recognized you.”

He nods. “I didn’t want anyone to see me crying.” Theo lets out a breath. “I remember I couldn’t believe someone my age was so smart and mature and kind. You felt so far out of my league.”

My body feels heightened and buzzing with awareness, like my blood is carbonated soda and I’ve been shaken up and all of the energy and fizz is bubbling to the top, ready to burst.