Page 140 of Love, Literature, and the Linebacker

A delivery truck rumbles past.

If I open my bedroom window, I know I’d probably catch the faint smell of fresh bread drifting through the neighborhood.

I rest my forehead against the cool glass.

When I was little, I thought the world started here. Then, I grew older and decided it ended here.

Neither was true.

Willow Creek was never my entire story. It’s simply where the first chapters were written.

A quiet knock sounds against my bedroom door.

“Come in,” I say.

Dad peeks inside. “Morning.”

“Morning.”

He studies me for a second before smiling. “You look different.”

I laugh. “I probably need to brush my hair.”

“No.” He shakes his head. “That’s not it.”

He leans against the doorframe, crossing his arms. “You look…” He searches for the word. “Lighter.”

I don’t answer right away. Because he’s right.

The knot that’s lived somewhere beneath my ribs for months is gone.

Not because every question has been answered.

Not because every fear has disappeared.

But because I’m finally done carrying the ones that were never mine to begin with.

Dad nods toward the window. “Mind if I steal you for breakfast?”

I glance back outside one more time.

The future feels bigger than everything I’ve been afraid to leave behind.

I smile.

“Yeah,” I say. “I’d like that.”

The smell of bacon fills the house before I even round the corner, followed by the familiar hiss of pancake batter meeting a hot griddle.

“How hungry are you?” Dad asks.

“Very hungry,” I say.

He slides a plate onto the table, his red hair sticking out in a million different directions.

I wrap my hands around the warm mug of coffee waiting for me, and watch him move around the kitchen with practiced ease. Wearing a faded Willow Creek baseball shirt he’s probably owned longer than I’ve been alive, he hums quietly to himself as he flips another pancake.

“You’ve smiled more in the last twenty-four hours than you have in the last five months.”