He wasn’t wrong.
So we stopped looking. Weeks went by.
One lazy weekend, we drove home for dinner with our parents. On the way back, we took the long way through town.Just coasting, windows down, spring light bleeding gold over the same old roads we used to bike down before we could drive. Before we even knew what we were becoming.
That’s when we saw it. The old soccer field. It was empty now, too early for the start of the season.
“Pull over,” Dare said.
I didn’t ask why. I just turned in and parked in the same gravel lot where we used to sneak sodas and talk about everything and nothing.
“God,” I breathed. “It’s smaller than I remember.”
“Everything was bigger when we were kids,” Dare murmured. “Everything except you. You were always too tall.”
We wandered down to the sidelines, to the same battered bench that had survived every season. We sat with our knees brushing, the silence thick with memory. The past came easy here, sweat and laughter and dirt-streaked shins.
Dare stared out over the field. “We had our first real fight here,” he said. “You told me I was mean. I told you I didn’t care if you quit the team.”
I smiled. “You didn’t talk to me for three days.”
“I cried that night,” he admitted. “Dad thought I got hit with a ball.”
Snorting, I leaned my head on his shoulder. “And then you invited me over for milkshakes and helped me work on my passing. Like a real romantic.”
He turned to me, soft-eyed and sure. “This is it,” he said. “This is where we’re getting married.”
“The pitch?” I blinked.
“Yeah.”
I looked out over the barren grass, my dreams of banquet halls and shrimp cocktails dying slow, dramatic deaths. No walls. No lights. No bathrooms. “I was hoping for air conditioning and a champagne fountain,” I muttered.
“You’ll get a champagne bucket and a cooler full of ice,” he said. “You’ll survive.”
We did more than survive. We built magic out of that field.
White linens floated over long tables. Wildflowers spilled from mason jars. Gold lights draped the trees that shaded the benches. A small stage tucked beneath the oaks where a band played our song, the one Dare said the universe owed us.
Back in high school, during our love-to-hate-you phase, we’d stood on opposite sides of the gym at prom. He danced with Lauren; I danced with Amira. But whenNever Tear Us Apartcame on, we both froze. Our eyes met across the floor, and for one song, we forgot we were supposed to be pretending.
That’s the song that played when I walked toward him now.
Guests in black tie, laughing and crying, stood in the same grass we used to tear up during drills. We stood inside the field goal, now dressed in roses and greenery, vows trembling in our hands.
Dare took my hands and smiled—the rest of the world fell away, and it was just us on that field again. He leaned forward, forehead to mine for a second, before stepping back and speaking.
His voice shook before it steadied, even as his eyes filled.
“It started with a kiss I pretended to forget.
And years of pretending I didn’t want to be yours.
But I’ve never been more sure of anything than this?—
You’re the only truth I’ve ever trusted.
I vow to show up. To mess up. To stay.
