We slowly lower it to the ground and right before I’m in the clear, a bite of pain nips at my shoulder. I clench my jaw through it.
She notices. Of course she notices. “Shoulder okay?” she asks, all soft and concerned.
Part of me wants to ask her how she knows it’s my shoulder, but if she knew who I was, I’m guessing she knows about my injury. “It’s fine.”
Sadie raises a brow like she doesn’t believe me for a second. “You’re compensating.”
That makes me look at her. Really look at her. “Let me guess, when you’re not wrangling kids at the rec center, you moonlight as a doctor?” I ask.
She shifts her weight to one leg, hands on her hips, and shakes her head. “My dad was a college basketball coach. I grew up listening to him talk about player injuries and seeing them first hand.”
Okay, I didn’t expect that. Didn’t expect her to understand anything about the hell of recovery. It looks like she was going to continue but she stopped herself. Something shifts in me—something I don’t want to name.
Before I can respond, the hallway erupts with the door opening and then complete kid chaos.
“Oh my gosh, it’s him—”
“COACH SADIE—”
“He’s SO TALL—”
I freeze like someone pulled a fire alarm in my chest. Sadie leaps in front of them. “No ambushing strangers. Outside please!”
They scatter, still whispering about me at full volume. I drag a hand over my face. I don’t know what I thought would happen when I got here, if I’d be able to hide away and be a secret recluse or what. I’m not even sure what I wanted.
“Sorry,” she says, a little breathless. “They’re excited.” She shrugs her shoulders. “Older group, so there are some basketball fans, some that may recognize you, I’m guessing.” She gives me a sad thumbs up that I think is supposed to make me feel better.
“Whatever you say.”
Sadie tips her head towards the antique cabinet. “You’re surprisingly helpful for someone who scowls as a hobby,” she teases.
I should ignore that. I should walk away.
Instead I hear myself say, “It’s a talent.”
Her smile hits me like a chest blow. I recover quickly, stepping back, putting distance between us before she can make me do something else stupid—like smile back.
“Thanks,” she says quietly. “There’s a door if you want to sneak out the back.” Sadie points down a hallway.
I grunt something noncommittal and head for the door.
And the worst part? I can feel her watching me walk away. I hate—hate—how much I want to look back.
I’vebeeninGoldenHarbor a week and have only left my place once to get groceries. The only place I’ve existed is in the confines of this house. One that’s starting to haunt me. Looking for a coffee mug, I put my hand deep in the cabinet, pulling one from the back.
I expect it to be one of the matching mugs I’ve used previously—clearly a set my mom purchased. But instead, I’m looking at a picture of me and my mom. A mug I got her when I was probably twelve that features the two of us at one of my basketball league championships. I’m all awkward and too tall for my age and she beams, still wearing her shirt from waiting tables at the diner.
My mom loved coffee mugs. She always seemed to collect them but would still stick to her same three to four favorites, this being one of them. The idea of her keeping it all this time has me grasping at air, fighting for it.
Grief is a funny thing… in the sense that it’s not funny at all. It’s dodging uppercut punches and kicks to your teeth while you’re scrambling back. Grief doesn’t care how strong you are or how many minutes you played last season or how many times you pretended you were fine on national television. It just hits. Without warning, without mercy.
Taking a step back, my back hits the kitchen island and I slide to the floor, leaning against it. I pull my knees into my chest and put my head between, trying to get air. My hands tremble as the tightness digs deeper into my muscles, infiltrating the ligaments and tendons—the things that keep me physically together—and I feel the sharpness of its nails.
Rubbing my hands together, I try to steady the shaking. My chest keeps tightening, compressing, folding in on itself like a collapsing tent. I can’t get in a deep enough breath. My throat burns. My eyes sting.
I press the heels of my palms into my eye sockets, willing myself to get it together. To breathe. To not fall apart in a kitchen painted the exact shade of yellow she picked because she said it made her feel like the perfect summer day.
It’s been months and I haven’t cried since the funeral, haven’t let myself. Crying feels too final. Too much like admitting she’s really gone and that this house—this stupid, bright, too-quiet house—is all I have left of her.
