With You

10. Thanksgiving

When I woke up, the sun had already lightened the sky to a bright blue. My alarm hadn't gone off yet. I glanced at my phone. Almost 7AM. Practice would start in twenty minutes.

I had stopped training.

After our last match, after seeing Chloe there – I couldn't find the motivation to get out of bed. And so, I had stopped setting early alarms. I started sleeping in with the sun. I guess it was an excuse – a way to skip my solo practice without admitting the real reason.

At first, I said it was temporary. I would fall back into my routine. Eventually. I was catching up on sleep. I just needed a break. A week passed. And then two. And I kept sleeping in, until today.

I sighed, stretching my arms to the ceiling, feeling my muscles stiffen, listening to the quiet pop of my bones. There was no way I'd fall back asleep, so I figured that I might as well get to the field a little early and do some stretches.

Aspen's birthday had been a weeklong break from soccer. She was the same Aspen that she always was. I guess I expected it to be a little awkward. It had been weeks since I'd responded to a text, months since we'd seen each other, and all those months ago, I had liked her. Except she loved Isaac, and we both knew, there was nothing we could do about the people we loved.

But then she was there, hugging me, and Isaac was slapping me over the head, teasing me about my haircut the way he would have years ago. Everything was so normal, and yet different.

Aspen's birthday had been a welcome break. It was easy, falling back into old friendships, being teased about my shorter hair, feeling familiar arms hug me and familiar voices laugh with me.

But before long, the questions came.

How's college going? Are you enjoying classes? Have you made friends? Have you been going to any parties? How's soccer going?

And there was the paranoia. Had Chloe told them about the match? Had they figured it out? Were my answers too obvious? And despite their smiles, I felt nervous. Worried. They had to know. They knew. They knew.

And then they were talking about their college lives. Of course, Isaac was going to parties left and right. He'd done well in an assignment and had an opportunity to display his art in a gallery, depending on how his finals went. Even William, dorky, nerdy William from high school, had become popular to the point that his girlfriend was fending girls off left and right.

Then it fell it to me.

Have you made friends? How are your teammates? What are they like?

And unexpectedly, I'd started missing Flora, for her observational skills and the way she could easily catch the tension in the room and dispel it without a problem. For her light-hearted nature, the way she always saw the best in others, the way she eagerly started conversations, only to turn shy and shrink into herself.

And even more unexpectedly, I started missing Rowan. I missed his stupid glares and arrogant smirks. I missed how he teased me without a filter. I missed his fingers in my hair that night we'd gotten drunk. I missed his sleeping face, the way his hand curled under his head on the grass.

God. I took a cold shower and was on the field minutes later.

Despite being later than I usually got up, the air was still cold. I crossed my arms over my chest, holding my jumper close as I walked across the field. I was halfway across the grass before I paused.

He was there.

Of course, he was. Because, for some reason, he thought that the edge of a soccer field was the perfect place to read classic novels.