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Heather must have told him.
“I’m fine.” I sigh, not sure how I feel about him coming over just because of what happened. I guess I should be happy he cares enough to do so, but I’d rather us talk again because he actually wants to, not just because he feels like he has to.
He places his hand over mine on the windowsill. “Sadie, I’m serious. You can talk to me. Did he hurt you?”
I look at his hand, realizing that him touching me this way doesn’t hurt as much as I thought it would.
I’m not sure how to feel about this revelation, so I stick to the topic at hand.
“Everything is okay, I swear. A guy was there to help me, so I promise nothing really happened.”
“No guy should ever treat you that way.” He gets stern with his tone, and I have to bite back a laugh.
Yes, he plays football, but he’s the quarterback. He throws the ball. He doesn’t attack the other players. Seeing him act like he wants to attack someone is kind of comical to me. It’s just not his personality.
Except when he was mad at me …
I push the idea to the very back of my mind and look him in the eye.
“I appreciate you coming over to check on me, but I’m okay.” I mean the words even more now than I did a week ago.
He rubs his lips together and nods. “Okay. I guess I just had to check on you. You know you can come to me if you ever need anything.”
Now, it’s my turn to cover his hand with my other hand. “That really means a lot to me. Thank you.”
He nods, and I lift both of my hands, his moving back as well.
He turns to head back, but I stop him. “Hey.”
He turns around.
“What have you been up to? Seen any good fireflies around?”
He sighs, and I can see the grin he’s trying to hide on his face.
“Nope. No fireflies yet. Summer’s not too far away though. I’m sure we’ll have plenty of time to try to catch some.”
Hearing him saywegives me so much hope that maybe, someday, we’ll have our friendship back. Having him come over like this proves he still cares about me.
He lifts his hand to wave. “See you around, Sadie.”
“Bye, Aaron.”
After I shut the window, I sit down on my bed as I let out a breath. Maybe I’m truly—finally—all right after all.
* * *
Heather’s on her way over to just hang and watch movies, so when I hear a knock on the door, I don’t think twice about opening it up. When I see Beau standing there, I’m stopped in my tracks, like Wile E. Coyote from the Looney Tunes cartoons, who constantly runs into things that the Road Runner put there, and I feel like my body is springing back and forth from the shock of it all.
“Oh. Hi. Um, I thought you would be Heather,” I ramble on, then stop, feeling like I’m sounding like an idiot. He stares at me for a brief second, so I ask, “What are you doing here?”
He holds up my purse that I didn’t even realize he had.
My mind goes to a million different things as I try to figure out how he got it. I reach for it, in shock, so I just whisper more to myself than him, “How did you …”
My dad walks around the corner just then to see who I’m talking to. When Beau’s eyes meet with his, he stands a little taller. “Hey, Coach.”
“Hello, Beau. What you got there?” Dad asks.
