"How long has it been?"
"My mom, two years. My dad, three. I just..." He trailed off, looked away. "I haven't been ready to deal with it."
I wanted to reach out, to touch his arm, to offer some comfort. But the distance between us, fifteen years of silence, felt too vast to cross so casually.
"Grief doesn't follow a schedule," I said instead. "You deal with it when you can."
He looked at me with something that might have been gratitude. "When did you get so wise?"
"I've always been wise. You just never appreciated it."
"That's entirely possible."
At some point, he went to get us water, since our fruit punch had gone from suspicious to actively concerning, and Iwatched him walk away. There was something careful about his movements, a rigidity in his shoulders that seemed at odds with the athletic ease I remembered. He moved like someone conscious of being watched, each step deliberate and controlled.
He returned with two bottles, handing one to me with a small smile.
"Thanks," I said.
He twisted off the cap, his movements precise, almost mechanical. As he lifted the bottle to his lips, his right hand, the one holding it, gave a sudden, sharp tremor. Water sloshed against the plastic sides. He jerked his hand down immediately, recapping the bottle and setting it on a nearby ledge in one quick motion. His face drained of his previous joy, and he shoved his hand into his pocket with the practiced ease of someone who'd done it a thousand times before.
I saw it. And I couldn’t stop myself from cataloguing it automatically: resting tremor, possibly intention tremor, the careful compensating movements. The signs were subtle, but they were there.
But the look on his face, that flash of raw frustration followed by a carefully constructed wall of normalcy, stopped any question before it could form. This wasn't a patient in bay four. This was Miles. And whatever was happening, he clearly wasn't ready to talk about it.
I took a sip of my own water, keeping my eyes on his face instead of his pocket. "It's so loud in here."
The tension in his shoulders eased slightly. "I was just thinking that."
"Want to get some air?"
The relief in his eyes was almost painful to witness. "Yes. Please."
We slipped out a side door into the cool October night. The sounds of the reunion faded to a muffled thump as we walkedacross the familiar asphalt toward the football field. The stadium lights were off, but the moon was bright enough to cast long shadows across the grass.
Without discussion, we climbed the bleachers to the middle section, our old spot, the place we used to sit during free periods, talking about everything and nothing.
The metal was cold through the thin fabric of my dress. We sat close enough that I could feel his warmth, but not quite touching.
"This feels..." I started.
"Strange?" he offered. "And not strange at all?"
"Exactly." I wrapped my arms around myself against the chill. "Like no time has passed and fifteen years have passed, both at once."
"Time is weird like that." He was looking out over the dark field, his profile sharp against the night sky. "I've thought about this place. More than I probably should have."
"The bleachers?"
"All of it. Riverside. High school. You." He paused. "Especially you."
My heart wanted to get up and run a marathon. "Miles..."
"I know." He turned to face me, and in the moonlight, his expression was more open than it had been all night, vulnerable in a way that made my breath catch. "I know it's been fifteen years. I know we're different people now. But being here with you tonight... It's the first time since I came back that I've felt like myself."
I didn't trust my voice, so I just nodded.
The silence between us was comfortable, full of all the things we weren't saying but somehow still communicating. The cold started to seep through my dress, and I shivered.
