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“Come on. I’ll introduce you to the kids,” I say as I grab her hand and head back to our seats.
“Hey, kiddos. This is Heather, who you hear me talking to on the phone every once in a while,” I announce as I motion toward her. “This is Aubree, Tommy, and the older one on her phone is Mollie, who was just a baby last time I saw you.”
They all say hello, and I glance back at Heather. “Where’re your kids?”
“I left them at home. I wanted to be able to visit with you and not have to chase them around.”
Heather married a guy she met in college. They moved back to her hometown and started a family. It’s been fun, watching her kids go through all the same things I remember about our childhood. Things I never thought I’d miss, but if I’m being honest, there’s a little part of me that wishes my kids could get their faces painted at the annual pumpkin patch or walk down the street in our Fourth of July parade.
When she posted the picture of her daughter on the horse, wearing the same vest and cowboy hat that we had for our preschool pictures, I about died. I wanted my kids to have that same picture I had and to be able to post them side by side. But that wasn’t in the cards for us.
Yes, where we live now has similar things, but there’s nothing like having your kids do the exact same things you did as a child at the same place.
“I hear that. It’s nice to get a night off sometimes,” I say with a laugh.
We all take our seats with the kids on my right and Heather on my left.
The JV game just ended, and the players are getting ready to sing the fight song in front of us—a tradition they do at the break between the JV and varsity games.
As they do, I glance at my husband, who stands with a grin of pure joy as he sings the fight song right along with them.
I laugh as Mollie stares at her dad in absolute horror that he’s bringing so much attention to himself.
Heather grabs my arm. “Does he really remember all the words?”
“And you think he wouldn’t?” I taunt. “Don’t you remember that song being a rite of passage for the boys to sing?”
She stares out on the field. “I remember other things being a rite of passage on that field that had nothing to do with a song.”
I hit her arm playfully, but damn if what she said doesn’t bring back way too many memories, both good and bad, that have everything to do with that damn field.
CHAPTEREIGHT
Summer Before Sophomore Year
It’s been two weeks since Aaron kissed me, and I have yet to see him. His mom had already planned a trip for them to visit family the week after school got out, so besides a few waves from our driveways, he left before we could really talk about things.
I’ve spent every night wide awake, trying to figure out what it meant too.
The house party was broken up when the cops got called after the fight started. Once we heard them pull up, we both took off. When I ran into Heather, she grabbed me, and we ended up walking back to her house just a few blocks away.
The entire way home, I was in a daze, but I didn’t tell Heather why. Heather figured it was because I was scared of getting in trouble, and at the moment, I was totally okay with them believing that was the case.
I needed to figure out what that kiss was before I got their two cents.
I wish I had just spilled the beans because then I could have talked it over with someone. I feel like it’s so after the fact now, yet I have even less of a clue what it meant. Instead, I’ve just let it eat me from the inside out as I sit here and wait for him to get back.
A group of us are going out tonight, and I am ready to get this nervous energy off of me until he gets back. I glance at the clock and see it’s almost eight. Heather’s new guy, Justin, is picking me up since he is already sixteen and has his license.
Convincing my dad to let us go out was interesting, to say the least, but he knows most of these kids anyway, so if anything were to happen, there’s a lot more that he can do rather than just be a pissed off father. Him putting the fear of them having extra practices over the summer, I think, scares them all enough.
After putting the finishing touches on my makeup, I hear a knock at my window.
Instantly, my heart pounds as my head turns toward it so fast that I feel like I almost get whiplash. Pulling the hair strands out of my newly applied lip gloss, I take a deep breath, knowing it could only be Aaron.
Once I compose myself, I pull back the curtain and see him standing there with an unsure expression written all over his face, which doesn’t put me at ease one bit.
I open the window and sit down at the chair next to it as I say, “Hey, when’d you get back?” hoping it breaks this weirdness that is so thick that I feel like a brick wall has been put up between us.
