I’d heard the rumors about the crash, but I didn’t know it wasreal…
She looks up, wide-eyed, as if she didn’t mean to touch me, didn’t mean to see me, and I forget how to breathe.
God, her eyes.
Same as they were when we were kids: stormy, sharp, full of thoughts she never quite said aloud. Her hair’s longer, messy like she’s been through a wind tunnel, and she smells of road dust and citrus shampoo and something sad she’s trying to hide.
Holy shit. Even as a Beta, being this close to this Omega iswaytoo much.
Especially when I haven’t seen her in about seven years—but thought about her every damn day.
“…Lo?” I ask, barely above a whisper.
She blinks. Starts to pull back. “Crap, sorry. I didn’t see where I was… uh, going…”
She’s disoriented. Embarrassed, clearly. Her cheeks flush, and she tucks her chin, trying to disappear into her hoodie. But her eyes, thoseeyes, they meet mine for a half-second too long.
Suddenly, I’m twelve again, standing on the edge of the baseball diamond with dirt in my socks and the sun blisteringthe back of my neck. I watch Lo sprint for third like her life depends on it.
She always looked good baking in the sun. Sweating beneath her ball cap. Clapping her hands and cheering her team on as if it were her life’s purpose.
I remember those years in a flash. How she never hesitated. Never flinched. How she launched herself into a slide for home, legs flying, arms wide, yelling about being invincible. Gravel tore open both of her knees that day, blood blooming against her jeans.
Then she popped up, grinning, dirt smeared across her cheek, and shouted, “Safe, suckers!” as if she didn’t just leave half her skin on the field. My heart stuttered for her, even then.
Only sixteen years old, crammed into the front seat of my dad’s truck outside the Dollar General, windows fogged from the rain, listening to her go off about Sylvia Hammond’s “fascist reign of terror” over the Honor Society.
In my memory, she’s pacing in front of the headlights, a girl on a mission, hoodie soaked through, hands flailing as she builds her case similar to a war general rallying troops.
I pretend to scroll on my phone, but I’m not hearing a word, only her voice. Sharp. Fierce. Alive. She could rewrite the whole damn town with enough righteous fury and a ballpoint pen.
I remember the smell of peppermint sticks melting in my pocket. I remember thinking:God, I love her.And then doing absolutely nothing about it.
Another memory with her scent in my nose. She’s twenty now, the night it all exploded. Lights on in every window, voices raised behind the walls, the town turning its back on her faster than the wind shift that signals the first winter snow.
I knocked until my knuckles went numb. Waited with a bag of her favorite gummy bears in one hand and a stupid, terrifiedapology on behalf of a town that didn’t believe her hanging on my lips.
Not that I got to say it.
And now…
Now, here she is.
Back in my arms.
Standing in front of me as if no time has passed at all, and like it’s been a thousand years.
“I didn’t think…” I start, but the words fumble on the way out. I clear my throat and try again. “I didn’t know you were back.”
Lo tugs at her sleeve, eyes darting anywhere but mine. “Yeah. Surprise.”
Surprise doesn’t begin to cover it.
She looks thinner. Not fragile, Lo’s never been fragile, but a little worn at the edges. Like someone’s taken sandpaper to all her sharp parts.
She’s standing funny. Maybe she’s hurt, but trying hard to pretend she’s not.
She’s wearing a ridiculous hoodie that saysI Brake for Possums, which shouldn’t make my chest ache the way it does. But it’s her. Still stubborn. Still weird. Still…
