I wipe my cheeks. “You’re already crying.”
Cameron’s jaw works on a laugh. “Just the fumes of your stench getting to me.”
Logan meets my eyes over Cameron’s shoulder and lifts his brows.
I smile at him.
Then the smile cracks open into something softer.
Something that almost feels like peace.
—
The cemetery is quiet in a way that feels unfair, even the birds seeming to sense that I need a minute of peace.
Logan’s hand is in mine as we walk, fingers laced, his thumb rubbing small circles into my knuckles like he’s reminding me that my body is still here, still breathing, still held.
Cameron came with us, but he stayed by the car.
He said he wanted to give me a minute, but it’s been almost a year, and my brother still hasn’t been able to visit the gravesite. The small gravel parking lot is the closest he’s come.
I know Pops isn’t here, but I come visit him often regardless. It gives me a sense of peace, as if it’s the last thread tying yesterday to tomorrow.
We stop at the headstone.
My legs go strange and wobbly the way they always do when I come here, like my body wants to fall into the earth with him.
Logan squeezes my hand once. A quiet anchor.
I stare at the name carved in stone.
The dates. The dash between them.
A tiny line trying to hold the entire legacy of the most incredible man.
I swallow.
“Hi, Pops,” I whisper.
The words sound small against the sky.
Logan shifts beside me, close but not crowding, letting me lead.
“We won,” I tell the stone, like he doesn’t already know. Like he isn’t the reason I fought for the ball when my lungs were on fire and my hands were shaking. “We won the championship.”
My voice breaks, and I press my lips together, breathing through it.
“I hit the shot,” I add, because he’d want the details. He’d want the play. The timing. The way it felt.
Logan’s thumb stills against my hand.
“I was scared,” I admit, swallowing. “I thought…I thought I wouldn’t be able to do anything again without you.”
I laugh softly, the sound jagged. “But…you know me. I’m stubborn, just like you.”
A breeze slides through the trees.
For a second, I can almost hear him.
