When we’re done, she leans back on her palms, head tilted toward the sky. “You ever miss it?” she asks quietly.
“Home?” I ask at first, but she shakes her head.
“The game?”
She nods.
“Every day,” I admit. “Not the pressure, not the travel. Just… the rhythm. The way your body knows what to do before your mind catches up.”
Her eyes find mine. “That sounds like love.”
“It was,” I say. “Until it wasn’t.”
She doesn’t press. She just waits, the way she always does—patient, present.
“It’s weird,” I continue, voice low. “Everyone talks about the comeback. The recovery. But no one talks about what happens when you’re finally healed and realize you don’t know who you are without the injury.”
She studies me for a long moment. “Maybe that’s what you’re doing now. Redefining what healed means.”
“Maybe.”
Her gaze softens. “You don’t have to prove you’re whole by running again.”
The words hit so hard I forget how to breathe for a second. “You always know what to say?”
“Only when it’s the truth.”
I laugh under my breath, shaking my head. “You’re dangerous.”
“I’ve heard,” she murmurs.
We fall into silence then—the good kind, full and heavy with all the things we’re not ready to name. The new lighthouse beam down the street sweeps over us every few seconds, a slow pulse of light like a heartbeat.
When she looks at me again, her eyes catch that light, and something inside me snaps quiet. I reach out, tracing my thumb along the edge of her wrist. She doesn’t pull away. Her pulse flutters beneath my skin, steady and quick, matching mine.
“This feels right,” I say.
She tilts her head. “What does?”
“This.” I gesture back and forth between us, the air electric. “You. Me. The quiet. The mess. All of it.”
She swallows, voice barely a whisper. “You’re saying dangerous things again.”
“Then stop me.”
I lean in, slow enough to give her every chance to pull away. Her breath catches, her fingers tightening in the blanket. When my forehead meets hers, the world breathes.
Her lips part just enough for the smallest sound—a sigh, a prayer, maybe both. I kiss her softly, the way a man kisses a truth he’s waited too long to speak aloud.
The taste of her, of salt and warmth and courage, is enough to undo every wall I’ve ever built.
When we break, her eyes stay closed. “You shouldn’t do that,” she whispers.
“Do what?”
“Make it feel like this.”
“Like what?”
