They fit here, like they were made for this place.
The dad was tall, broad across the shoulders, with a scruffy beard and a smile that reached all the way to his eyes. He wasn’t cheering the loudest or standing in the front, but somehow he still drew my attention. Maybe it was the way his whole body softened when he looked up at his son, steadying him with one hand while pointing out to the track with the other.
The boy was vibrating with happiness, bouncing in time to the music, a flag clutched in one small fist. The joy coming off him was bright enough to light the whole room.
No one looked twice at them.
No one whispered.
No one made that sharp little face people make when the world doesn’t line up with their rules.
They justwere.
And that . . . that stopped me.
Because in my mother’s world, a little boy in a rainbow tutu would’ve been a scandal or a project to fix. But here? He was celebrated. Loved. Entirely himself.
And his father, whoever he was, didn’t just allow it. Hehonoredit. He looked proud.
I longed for Ava to be that free.
For me to be that unguarded.
The crowd cheered as the Reapers scored again, cowbells clanging, popcorn flying. The little boy threw his arms up in triumph, and his dad laughed, full and unrestrained, the sound carrying over the noise.
I found myself smiling, too, without meaning to.
I didn’t know them, but somehow, just watching them felt like a glimpse into the kind of world I wanted to live in. One that was loud and loving and full of color.
A world where everyone could belong, exactly as they were.
I stayed a little longer.
Long enough to watch Belle’s team win.
Long enough to see the women on the track hug and laugh and collapse into each other like family.
Long enough to feel something loosening deep inside me that I hadn’t realized was still clenched.
And then there was him, that man with the kind eyes and the rainbow boy.
I tried not to look again, but I did. I couldn’t help it.
He was laughing, giving his son a high five as the crowd cheered. The sight hit me like a spark under my skin. It was a warmth I wasn’t ready for. One I didn’t know I could still feel.
For the first time since Ethan, I wasattractedto someone.
Not because I was supposed to be. Not because I was lonely.
Because something about him, that open joy, that steady gentleness, made me want to be near it.
The realization scared me almost as much as it thrilled me.
So when the crowd roared again, when Belle’s team skated off the track to a wave of applause, I slipped out before the lights came back up.
Outside, the cool night wrapped around me, quiet after all that beautiful chaos. I pulled in a shaky breath and felt tears sting behind my eyes, not grief this time, not exactly. Just too many emotions in a body that had gone too long without feeling them.
By the time I got home, the house was dim and still. My mother sat in the living room, book in her lap, expression expectant.
