“So,” she says, resting her elbows on the table. “Favorite holiday?”
“Thanksgiving,” I answer without thinking.
Her eyebrows lift. “Immediate answer. Interesting.”
I roll the glass between my hands. “My mom loved it. Cooking all day. Music on. The house would be warm from the oven and smelling that certain way when you’re making a bunch of dishes. It was what I remember most from being a kid—her teaching me something in the kitchen.”
Her smile is gentle. “That sounds really nice.”
“It was,” I agree, then add quietly, “though it’s harder to do when I play a sport that’s in season during that time but we always found a way to make it work. Even if that meant having dinner on the Tuesday of that week, or a week early.”
She studies me for a beat. “That must’ve been hard. The first one without her.”
I nod once and look down at the almost gone lemonade in my cup. “Yeah. It was.”
The thing about Sadie is she doesn’t seem to push too hard. Or maybe talking about my mom with her is a different kind of experience.
“I’m glad you had those memories,” she says. “Hope you find a way to continue. That’s the magic in remembering.”
I offer her a little smile and nod. I don’t tell her that I spent this last one eating takeout on my living room floor and letting my days off from the team kind of run together. There was a break in our schedule that allowed us to be dismissed for a few days. Rare. A cruel fucking trickfrom the universe to take the one person I’d have wanted to spend it with right before.
Another local waves to Sadie from the door, and she lifts a hand in return.
Small town. Big heart.
Sitting here, watching the way this place wraps itself around her, I can’t help thinking how lucky she is—and even though something dark and depressing brought me to this place, I know how lucky I am to be here long enough to see it.
TimeflieswithSadie.After Cherry Pit, walking around town, even watching the apple pie eating contest, I can’t believe the sun is already going down. We leave the main stretch of the beach behind, the crowd thinning as we walk. The sounds of the crowds are still there but it starts to feel muted, like someone turned the volume down.
Sadie veers off the path right before the shoreline curves, ducking between two rocky formations I wouldn’t have thought twice about. From the outside, it looks like nothing. Just lake and stone and a sharp bend in the sand. More like the end of the line.
Then she steps past the peak, I follow, and it opens up.
A crescent of beach is tucked behind the rise, hidden enough that if you didn’t know it was here, you’d not even bother continuing. The lake stretches out in front of us, calm and darkening as the sun sinks lower, the fireworks barge barely visible in the distance.
“Wow,” I say quietly.
She glances back at me, pleased. “Told you.”
“You weren’t kidding,” I add. “This is prime real estate.”
She shrugs. “Locals only.” She puts a finger in front of her lips, emphasizing the secret.
She drops her tote and shakes out a blanket, spreading it over the sand with practiced ease. I help anchor the corners, the fabric warm from being folded up all day. When we sit, we both stretch our legs out and lean back on our arms, close enough that we seem to touch.
“This is where you always watch?” I ask.
“Most of the time,” she says. “Unless someone beats me to it. Which never happens.”
“Because no one knows,” I say.
“Exactly.”
The air’s cooler now, the lake breeze cutting through the leftover heat of the day.
Sadie tilts her head towards the sky. “Give it a few minutes. You’ll hear the first one before you see it.”
I glance at her, at the way the lake light catches her profile, how comfortable she looks here—like this place belongs to her.
