Epilogue
Keely
One Year Later
A nacho, dripping with fluorescent neon cheese, bobbed in front of Keely’s eyes.
“Move, please,” she said, pushing Zoey’s hand down at the wrist, then snagging the chip before it was too far away. “They’re lining up.”
Keely wouldn’t let anything block her view. Not that there was much that could. Even as a spectator, she’d always be a front-row girl at heart.
Charleston sun broke through the clouds, dappling the stadium in warm, polka-dotted light. Her nose tickled as the trees outside rustled with the breeze, but it was nothing her weekly allergy shot wouldn’t fix.
Max’s mom leaned over Keely’s lap, grabbing a nacho for herself. “It will still be another few minutes.” Her lips pursed as she glanced at the bottom of the bleachers. “But if Jacob and Thomas don’t come back from the beer stand soon, they’re going to miss it. Max is certainly fast enough.”
Keely smiled at Virginia, bumping her shoulder. “Don’t say that too loud. It’ll go straight to his head.”
Virginia nudged her back. “Wonder where he gets that from.”
A sweet sadness passed between them, and Keely sought Max’s now-familiar form down on the track, wondering if he carried the same sense of bittersweet melancholy on his shoulders today.
Max’s dad had passed away in his sleep right before Thanksgiving last year, and it had been a long six months since then. Black clothes, sleepless nights, Max pulling Keely close in bed because he didn’t want to be alone.
After Max had found the right people, surprisingly, he preferred company.
On Zoey’s other side, Nolan echoed Virginia’s sentiment. “They’ve got another two minutes, at least.”
Nolan was another reason Max had made it here.
He’d done just as much heart work on Max as Keely had, training with him, late nights and early mornings and sprint after sprint after sprint.
She wondered if it bothered him, not being down there.
Nolan hadn’t gone pro the way Max had. Didn’t have a closet full of Team USA gear edging out Zoey’s clothes the way Max’s did to Keely’s.
Wasn’t getting his passport renewed and travel documents ready for Worlds in Beijing this fall, the way Max was.
Nolan still looked pretty content, though, snuggled up next to Keely’s best friend.
Then again, a well-functioning long-distance relationship didn’t usually leave space for anything other than contentment when they were together physically.
The California sun had done wonders for Zoey’s warm brown skin.
She was glowing. When Keely had visited her at Caltech a month ago, all she’d got was a sunburn.
The stadium quieted as the announcer called the runners to the starting blocks.
Keely’s muscles strained like she was down there with him. Her heart certainly raced like she was.
“Sorry, Mom.” Jacob slid in behind Keely, and Thomas muttered under his breath as he passed his mom a freshly poured beer, the top inch still filled with foam.
Virginia downed it in three thick swallows.
As he walked to his block, Max craned his neck. The sun illuminated every facet of him. This unitard featured stripes of navy, white, and red. The colors of the national team.
Keely stood and waved to make sure he spotted her.
He pointed back at her, then pointed at the space between his ribs. His heart.
Feel me here.
She did. Every day.
Max pointed again, at the sky this time, before he crouched into his starting position. Keely knew he was thinking about his dad, asking for any last-minute bits of wisdom. It had become a ritual of his—they still raced together, even now.
The tone sounded.
She wasn’t sure she breathed the entire time. She never did when she watched him sprint. He looked so natural, his chest proud and strong and upright, the way he’d taught her was correct. His strides ate up the asphalt, and she tried to count them but got dizzy.
Also a regular occurrence around Max.
He passed one runner, then another, pulling ahead. Farther ahead.
She shot to her feet, gripping Virginia’s hand. She heard what might have been the nachos tumbling onto the bleacher floor.
He’s going to win. Keely knew it, in a space in her brain reserved for the most essential scientific equations. Knew it in her heart, the way she knew Max would always have ended up here, scholarship or not.
She was already crying when he crossed the finish line.
Keely was enveloped in arms; she couldn’t tell who they belonged to or whose toes were under her feet.
She grabbed the bar in front of her, screaming, rattling the rail. “You did it!”
And then he was running again—this time, straight for her.
She leaned over the railing and would have jumped it herself if he wasn’t so damn fast.
Max wrapped his arms around her waist, and she clutched at his shoulders as he buried his nose in her hair. Her toes left the ground.
“Key.”
She felt her name on his body. His heart knocked against hers, begging to be let in. He was already there.
He pulled back far enough to plant a searing kiss on her open mouth, his hands cradling her head, moving her effortlessly in his arms.
She wanted this so badly, but kissing in front of Max’s mom was one thing, and Keely was pretty sure the jumbotron camera was on them right now.
She rested her forehead on his. “Fair and square,” she whispered, a promise, a reminder.
Then he was kissing her again, this time so passionate she forgot to care about his mom or the cameras altogether.
After they’d managed to break apart, Max was passed between loved ones, and Keely watched on, pride shining in her eyes. She had to be effervescent with it. It oozed from her pores.
Later, she walked hand in hand with Max out of the stadium, his gold medal hanging from her neck.
She lifted it, letting it wink at her in the sun. “We’ll have to hide this as soon as we get home.”
Biscuit hadn’t changed either in the last year. He still loved shiny things, just as much as the day Keely had met him. He was waiting for her at home, a little two-bedroom apartment right outside their hometown.
For both of them. Turns out, when they tried to pick favorites, the stubborn dog absolutely refused. So they both adopted him. Tricia cried that day.
Max kissed the side of her head. “Add it to the list.”
She mimed pulling her phone from her back pocket, the one Max’s hand wasn’t occupying. Truth was, she hadn’t looked at her planner in weeks.
Well, days. She hadn’t changed completely.
She still loved Max. Loved how he challenged her.
The pranks they played on each other, with much lower stakes.
Like when she picked out her outfit for her first day of education classes, set to start in a few weeks with an accelerated summer program.
He somehow found a child-size version of the same outfit and swapped it from her dresser, a direct reminder of the time she shrank his uniform.
Or this winter, when he’d lost his gloves and she’d replaced them with a Smurfs-branded pair.
Beyond that, beyond Max, she didn’t know.
Her future was completely uncertain.
She couldn’t wait.