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I'm not sure why exactly. To prove myself? To show off? Because her supporting me after everything—after all this time and distance—still means something deep down?

I can't tell.

What I do know is that when my teammates swarm around us, Lenny's face fades.

But it doesn't disappear.

I still picture her—watching. Leaning toward the screen. Smiling back as I look into the camera.

And as much as I try to shake it completely, she stays. Hidden partially by the cheers and excitement, but still woven into the energy.

I bounce around the boys, a nudge here, a fist bump there, an occasional smack to the helmet. But she doesn't jostle loose. She sticks—deep in the back of my mind, somewhere that makes her hard to erase.

I laugh as I hear a whistle from the dugout and look up to see Liam standing there. He tips his chin up, and I nod back. But the second I look away, she's there again.

Enough to ignore, I guess. But there all the same.

And who knows? Maybe that's how it'll be now that I know she's here.

Hell… maybe that's how it's always been if I'm honest.

I nod toward Arthur, the doorman, hiking my backpack straps higher on my shoulders.

"Mr. Holloway," he says as he holds the door open.

I huff out a laugh, rolling my eyes jokingly—I've told that guy a million times already to drop the formality.

"Thanks, man," I say, passing through the door.

I look back down at my phone, scrolling my feed as I walk toward the elevators. A few strides later, I look up just as I reach the metal double doors.

I press the button to take me up to my floor, then tuck my phone into my back pocket. Inhaling a deep breath, I scan the lobby to pass the time, and something moving outside the exit by the park catches my eye.

Something—or someone.

I don't lean in. I don't squint—I don't need to in order to know.

It's her.

Her face is contorted by the thick glass, and her hair doesn't look as black against the dark night sky, but it's her. I know it is.

My body knows it is.

The way my adrenaline kicks up again like it did as the ball sank into the stands. How my shoulders twist toward the back exit, like they already know that's where I'm going. I'm like a dog who feels the thunder before the humans hear it—her presence is a dull rumble only I recognize.

Always there.

I don't move. Not yet. But I watch as she does on the other side of the wall. Pacing back and forth in teal green scrubs with a grocery bag in her hand, stopping each time she gets close enough to the doors where she's forced to decide to open them or pass by again.

I take a few steps closer to the glass, as she does it again over and over—reaches the entrance, hesitates with her eyes glued to the ground, then twists back in the direction she came from.

She does it twice more, and each time she does, I move closer. Intrigued. Confused as hell. But still… captivated.

The next time she walks away, she stops completely with her back to my building—almost as if she's gearing up to make her final decision. Does she turn back around or keep walking forward, leaving me behind?

Funny how history repeats itself.

She stands there longer than she has before this time, and the next thing I know, I'm reaching for the door.