Chapter 28
JADE
Spring doesn’t arrive all at once.
It sneaks in between things—between finals and fittings for graduation gowns, between last home games and senior pranks that don’t feel mean anymore. One day the air stops biting. The next, the magnolia outside the science wing blooms like it’s been waiting its whole life for permission.
And suddenly, we’re here.
Almost done.
Leo gets valedictorian. Of course he does.
When they announce it, the auditorium erupts, and I’m clapping harder than anyone, smiling until my cheeks ache. I don’t feel overshadowed. I don’t feel robbed. I don’t feel like I need the mic anymore.
I already said what I needed to say.
I like being able to step back now. I like watching him stand there—calm, composed, brilliant—without resentment or fear or someone else’s expectations wrapped around his throat.
He earns it.
The cameras still hover sometimes, but I’ve learned how to move through them without letting them take pieces of me. They tried to film Valentine’s Day. They got as far as the lobby before I shut it down.
Some moments are sacred.
My parents fly in from Ohio a week before graduation. Mom cries the second she sees me. Dad pretends not to, then ruins it by hugging me too tight for too long.
“You did it,” he keeps saying. “You really did it.”
I think about everything it took to get here and realize—he’s right.
Summer looms like a gift and a warning.
Six, maybe seven weeks before life starts asking things from us again.
Leo will be all-basketball. I’ll be preseason in August—August tenth, circled in red on my calendar. Boston. College. Training. Responsibility.
We talk about it the way people do when they’re not afraid anymore.
“We’ll be in the same city,” he says one night, tracing circles on my wrist.
“But not the same life,” I add.
He smiles. “That’s the point.”
We’re not trying to be everything to each other.
We’re choosing to be something real.
So we travel.
Not because we’re running—but because we can.
Paris tastes like butter.
That’s the first thing I learn.
Leo wakes me up early the first morning, drags me down narrow streets while the city is still yawning, and presses a warm croissant into my hands like it’s sacred.
“You have to eat it fresh,” he insists. “It’s the law.”
Crumbs dust my fingers. The pastry flakes everywhere. I laugh with my mouth full, and he wipes my lip with his thumb like it’s the most natural thing in the world.
We sit at café tables so small our knees bump. Drink coffee that ruins American coffee forever. Walk until our feet ache.
We get lost on purpose.
At night, the Seine glows, and I lean against the railing watching the lights ripple on the water.
“This doesn’t feel real,” I whisper.
Leo kisses my temple. “It is.”
And I believe him.
Italy is warmer.
The coast feels softer somehow—sunlight pouring over cliffs, salt on the air, time stretching. We eat slowly. Drink wine we can’t pronounce. Share plates just to taste everything.
I insist on paying.
Every. Single. Time.
“I have money now,” I remind him, smug.
He rolls his eyes. “You say that like it’s a threat.”
“It is,” I grin.
We swim. We nap. We talk about nothing and everything. He tells me stories about his dad I’ve never heard. I tell him about Ohio—about the girl I used to be without flinching.
I still see Dr. Bauer once a month. For today’s session we did zoom. I tell her about Paris. About Italy. About how happiness doesn’t feel dangerous anymore.
She smiles like she knew it would come.
One afternoon, we’re barefoot on a beach, sand warm under my toes. Somewhere between Greece and Italy—history blurring into beauty. I’d read once that ancient people believed places carried memory.
I think they were right.
I watch Leo skip stones into the water, sleeves rolled up, hair a mess, laughing when one bounces just right.
And it hits me.
All of it.
The slime. The silence. The rage. The rebuilding.
I walk up behind him, slide my arms around his waist, rest my cheek between his shoulders.
“You know what?” I say.
He hums. “What?”
“The most amazing parts of my life came from the darkest places.”
He turns, cups my face gently, like he’s holding something precious.
“That’s how it always happens,” he says quietly. “You have to turn to ash before you can turn to gold.”
I smile.
Because I know now—
I didn’t survive.
I became.