Chapter 4
The next morning, Saturday morning, Danny goes on a run.
It is, meteorologically speaking, fucking freezing.
He wends his way down the sidewalk, where pine needles are packed into the ice, and past his elementary school playground and high school track.
He stops his watch at the coffee shop where he worked and orders an oat latte.
While he’s waiting, he leans against the counter and rubs the cold sweat from his forehead.
Eve has texted him back: some hearts; a picture of Shannon at the Christmas market.
“Oh my god,” a woman says. “Danny Aagaard?”
Danny looks up. Blinks. A pretty, dark-haired woman in a huge puffer coat waves him over to her table. She says, to the man next to her, “That’s Danny Aagaard, Alex, that’s Danny!”
When Danny reaches the table, it takes him a moment to recognize Alex and Mich, who were in his high (and middle and elementary) school class, but they greet him like no time at all has passed.
They explain that they reunited at their five-year reunion (“We missed you at that!”), did long distance for a year, moved to Denver, got married, and moved back home over the summer.
“We’re literally so happy,” Mich says. “It’s so good to be back. And oh my god. You would not believe how excited our parents were.”
“Come get drinks with us tonight,” Alex says. “Gonna be a whole crew.”
Danny finds himself agreeing. The rest of the day, he is perplexed as he rolls the incident over in his head.
Danny was, you see, not a cool high schooler.
He was nervous and nerdy and convinced everyone else was aware how nervous and nerdy he was.
Mich was on the women’s soccer team, which was what all the popular girls did.
Alex was forever hosting parties in his family’s house because they had a pool and a cabin.
While Danny and Cal are making lunch—Fancy Grilled Cheese, which is grilled cheese with Brie and Mrs. Weber’s huckleberry jam—Danny asks if his dad remembers Mich and Alex.
“I’m not sure,” Cal says. “But you had so many friends.”
“I did not have so many friends. I wore concert tees and solved mysteries.”
“A treasured member of the community!”
“That’s so—” Danny pauses. “Cheesy.”
“Ah! Got ’em. Nice.”
Danny presses the bread into the pan with the back of his spatula.
“What’s on your mind, kid?”
“It just feels so different to be back.”
“Not all bad, I hope!”
“Not bad at all,” Danny says, and he is surprised to realize it’s true.