Chapter 17
MILO
“Is your tea too sweet?” Nadine asks, her voice playful.
Matt Waters invited me for Sunday lunch with his family—which is big, loud, and everything I didn’t have growing up. Nadine made fried chicken, potatoes, grits, and a green Jell-O dessert with whipped topping and pretzels, which was devoured in seconds by both kids and adults.
We’re now in their backyard—kids running around and yelling wildly while Matt and I sit in two white rockers on their deck.
“It’s perfect,” I answer.
“Well, I wasn’t too sure if you could tolerate the sugar in your tea anymore,” she teases. “Don’t they like it bitter up north?”
I smile. “It’s just called tea.”
She laughs like I’ve said something funny, kisses Matt on the cheek, and heads off toward the swing set.
A few quiet minutes pass as we watch his family move around the yard. They’re all barefoot in the grass. Two girls are attempting to hula hoop until one boy steals a hoop and starts acting like a lion tamer while another young boy growls and jumps through it.
“Your family is beautiful, Matt,” I say.
He hums in agreement. “They are. But I didn’t invite you over just to show off.”
I glance at him. “There’s a reason besides small-town hospitality?”
“There’s always a reason,” he says gently. Then, after he takes a sip of his tea, “What do you know about Sadie’s dad’s accident?”
The word accident lands heavy.
I take a breath. “Just that Sadie came home after. To help.”
Matt nods. “That’s what most people say.”
He doesn’t rush the rest. I watch as Nadine sits on a swing, a small child on her lap with fuzzy orange hair clutching her dress as she pumps her legs to take them higher and faster, both grinning.
“She was away at college when her car broke down,” he continues. “Called her dad—and what do us dads do? We fix things for our kids. He left right away to drive to her. The wreck happened on the highway.”
I already know the ending, but hearing it laid out makes something in my chest tighten.
“Paralyzed. Wheelchair. Long recovery. His business was already struggling—you know how small towns are,” Matt says.
The air in my lungs is heavy.
“So she stayed,” I say.
“Yes,” Matt agrees.
“Out of guilt?” I ask.
Matt shrugs. “That’s what people assume, but no one’s asked her.”
I stare out at the yard, at the way one of Matt’s boys climbs up the slide instead of going down it.
Sadie.
I didn’t come home that Christmas.
Not because I didn’t care—but because I cared too much.
I’d heard she was back. Heard she’d left school. But people said it like a footnote, like it was temporary. Like Sadie Summers could simply pause her life and pick it back up later without consequence.
I knew better.
If I’d come home, I would’ve seen it on her face—I could read it better than anyone—and I would have seen the quiet way she takes responsibility for things that were never hers to carry.
I would’ve offered help I didn’t know how to give.
I would’ve stayed longer than planned. And worse—I would’ve started to wonder if football was worth the cost of leaving her behind.
Coach had just pulled me aside before break and told me my name was being whispered by scouts. “Not shouted yet,” he’d said. “But close.”
Close felt fragile. Close felt like something I could mess up.
So I stayed away.
The next two years blurred together in discipline and denial. Two-a-day workouts. Film study until my eyes burned. Keeping my grades clean so no one could question my focus. I treated my body like a machine and my heart like a liability.
I was drafted right out of college.
New York felt unreal—bright lights, fast mornings, and a version of myself I barely recognized. I played two seasons as a Giant, and from the outside, it looked like everything I’d chased had finally caught me.
Then came year three.
One hit. One wrong angle. One sound I still hear sometimes when I close my eyes.
The doctors talked about recovery timelines and probabilities, but what they didn’t tell me was how quiet life gets when the thing you built your identity around disappears overnight.
I wasn’t just injured. I was unmoored. Angry.
Ashamed. Terrified that without football, there was nothing exceptional left about me.
Things were dark for a while.
I can still close my eyes and picture the ceiling fan above my bed, whirling as I felt strength leaving my muscles—lying there day after day. There’s a gap of time in my memory where I don’t remember much at all.
Nadine laughs at something one of the kids says, bringing me back to the right now, and then suddenly there’s a football in my lap. I look over at a boy who’s maybe nine, with Matt’s nose and Nadine’s black hair.
“My dad says you know how to play,” the boy says. “I’m Henry.”
I put my hand out. “Hi, Henry. I’m Milo.”
“Dad said you played for the New York Giants,” he adds as he puts his small hand in mine and shakes.
“I did, but I’m afraid my knee didn’t want to keep playing.” I stretch out my left leg slightly.
Henry looks down at my left knee. “Is it okay now?”
“It does all right.”
“Wanna play?” he asks, a hopeful gleam glittering in his green eyes.
I stand up with the football in my hands. “I’d love to.”
I still love the game. I just don’t love it the most.
Realizing that is all the difference.