Chapter One
Harrison
Start of Eighth Grade
I was so nervous walking into school on the first day.
My last school had been in Halliwell, which was one town over.
My dad worked there, and I didn’t understand why we’d had to move to Indigo Falls in the first place.
Dad had said some crap about needing to separate work from his home life, and that he was too likely to go back to the car dealership and do more work if he drove past it all the time.
Living in Indigo Falls would give me and Mom more time with him.
Or so he said. I guess I’d have to see about that.
Mom also kept telling me the schools were better here, and that I’d have more opportunities on the football field.
The high school was smaller here, so she and Dad thought I might get a lot more playing time.
They might be right about that part. I’d impressed the middle school coach so much in summer practices that he’d had the high school coach come watch me.
I found out a couple of weeks ago that I’d be playing for the high school team this year, not the middle school.
They’d already named me backup quarterback for the upcoming season, too.
As an eighth grader! I wasn’t upset about that part of moving at all, but I wished I had some friends.
I’d only worked out with the middle school football team for a week before they’d bumped me up to high school.
The only friends I’d made were older than me.
I wouldn’t be going to school with them.
I walked up the stone steps of the beautiful old brick building of Indigo Falls Middle School.
This sure didn’t look like a school. It looked like a mansion or a museum or something.
I had been instructed to report straight to the counselor’s office to get my schedule.
It hadn’t been available online yet, and I wondered just how old school Indigo Falls was. They knew about the internet, right?
“Ah, Harrison,” a nice, middle-aged lady said as I walked into her office.
There were two chairs in front of her desk, and a girl with long, thick blonde hair sat in one.
I stood behind her, and I found myself staring at the back of her head and not listening at all to the counselor’s introduction.
I’d never seen hair like that in person before.
It was silky and shiny. It looked like the kind of hair you’d see on a shampoo commercial.
“Oh, let me get your schedule printed out.” She turned and pulled a sheet of paper off the printer.
“Here, Sadie, why don’t you take this and go show Harrison around today. ”
The girl turned around with the schedule in her hand. “Hi,” she said. “I’m Sadie Summers. I’ll be walking around with you today.”
My mouth had gone completely dry, and I felt like my vocal cords wouldn’t work.
I’d never seen a girl this pretty before.
I didn’t know they existed outside of movies.
She was short and slender with long, tanned legs, and the kind of body you usually didn’t see on a girl my age.
Things just got better as my eyes traveled upwards and landed on her face.
I actually sucked in a breath as I took in her big, blue eyes, perfect skin, plump pink lips, and her smile. Oh my God, her smile. I don’t know where my ability to talk to girls had gone, but it was not coming back.
I’d always done quite well with the ladies. I’d been the most popular guy at my school back in Halliwell and had been linked to several of the pretty girls in our grade. But right now? I could barely breathe, much less speak.
Even worse? I knew she could tell how I was reacting to her. Her eyebrows shot up a bit, and she turned to look at the counselor, who seemed to be trying not to laugh.
“Yes, our Sadie is quite the beauty, isn’t she?”
My face turned beet red, and I couldn’t look either of them in the eye. “Um… yeah.” Wow, Harrison. What a stellar first impression I was making. I was disgusted with myself. I took a deep breath and looked up. I was ready to try again.
“The best thing about Sadie, though,” the counselor said quietly as if she was sharing a secret, “is that she’s the nicest, friendliest girl you’ll ever meet.”
That couldn’t possibly be true. The prettiest girls at my old school were not very nice. And the nice girls weren’t all that pretty. It was hard to believe there were any that came in the same package—nice and pretty.
“Thanks, Mrs. Jameson,” Sadie said with a grin. “Okay, Harrison, we’d better get you to your homeroom. We’re in the same one. It’s by alphabet. So, Summers and Turner.” She shrugged, smiled and walked out of the office.
I looked blankly at the counselor.
She smiled. “A lot of people have that reaction when they first meet Sadie, dear. She’s very nice. She’ll take good care of you. She’s assigned as your guide buddy for the first week of school.”
“Okay. Thanks,” I gave her a little wave and then followed Sadie out of the office.
Everyone we passed in the hallway waved or said hello to her.
Janitors, teachers, students—it didn’t matter who it was.
They all spoke to her or waved. And she took the time to say hello to everyone, even stopping to talk to lots of people.
“Oops!” She smiled back at me. “I’ve almost made us late. We’re going to have to hurry.” With that, she grabbed my hand and we ran down the hall, took a turn, and ran down another hall before we arrived at our door. We stood outside a second to catch our breath, both of us laughing.
It was then that I noticed she had a T-shirt on with a huge sun on it. It said, “Summer is a State of Mind,” and I thought it fit her perfectly. Sunshine. That’s what she was, with her light blonde hair, tanned skin, happy smile, and contagious laughter.
“Sunshine,” I said.
She looked at me. “What?”
“You’re pure sunshine.” My sunshine is what I thought but didn’t say.
“Thanks.” She put her hand in mine, and we walked into the classroom together. “I’ll introduce you to everyone, don’t worry.”
I thought as long as I had her hand in mine and she kept smiling at me like that, I’d never worry again.
And after that?
We were inseparable.
***
Sadie
Summer after Senior Year
Harrison and I ran through the field heading to lookout point.
We were holding hands. A bunch of our other friends were with us, and we were laughing and calling out to each other.
It was a couple of weeks before we were all leaving for college, and there was a strange feeling in the air.
It was heavy, as if everyone had something they wanted to say, but didn’t have the words to express their exact feelings.
We all knew things were about to change.
That they would never be the same. I looked around at our friends, most of whom had been together since kindergarten, and knew there were some people I would likely fall out of touch with.
I scanned their familiar faces as we reached our destination and began to plop down in the soft grass above the drop off that provided a great view of the entire town.
I knew them all so well. That was something that was part of living in a small town.
I not only knew my classmates; I also knew their parents, their siblings, their cousins, and so on.
It was just the way it was. But as I observed everyone, I went through their plans in my head.
Some were going to community college close to home.
Some were going far away to school. Some were going right into the workforce.
Some were going to technical or trade school.
Some were going into the military. We’d all been together for so long, it felt strange to think that our lives were about to take very different paths.
I knew I was one of the lucky ones. I grasped Harrison’s hand tighter, safe in the knowledge that I wasn’t having to say goodbye to him or my four closest friends, Melinda, Carrie, Blair, and Drake.
We were all going to Carruthers University down close to Savannah.
It was a long way from home, but it was a powerhouse sports school.
Harrison, who’d been our quarterback all through high school, had been awarded a full scholarship to play football there.
Carrie and I had gotten partial scholarships to cheer.
Drake had gotten an academic scholarship.
I would be sad to say goodbye to some of my other friends. I was just so relieved that I wasn’t having to say goodbye to any of my closest friends in the coming weeks.
The late summer air was warm, fireflies lit up the night, and the tree frogs were croaking out their soothing songs.
Harrison and I pulled a blanket out and spread it underneath our favorite tree.
He held me in his arms as we laid on our backs and looked up at the starry sky.
It seemed like nothing could go wrong on a night like tonight.
Parker Bridges, one of Harrison’s buddies on the football team who I’d never felt close to, suddenly plopped down on our blanket.
“Man,” he said shaking his head at Harrison, “I still can’t believe you passed up scholarships at Alabama and Tennessee to play for Carruthers.”
I frowned, as Harrison looked at me quickly. “I thought you didn’t get offers from them,” I said, a pit beginning to form in my stomach. I sat up and stared at him.
He sighed and gave Parker the stink eye. “I… I wasn’t going to tell you, Sunshine,” he whispered. “I wanted to be with you at Carruthers.”
“I get it, I get it,” Parker held up his hands. “Sadie’s by far the prettiest girl in our class. But do you realize how much pussy you could pull if you were the starting quarterback at Alabama? No offense, but the girls there are next level. Even Sadie can’t compete.”
“Fuck off, Parker,” Harrison said.
“But…”
“Now!”
Parker sighed and got up. “I was just trying to have a conversation.”
“Bullshit. Everyone knows you’ve wanted Sadie since freshman year. You were just trying to stir shit up.”
It had worked.
“Besides, I’m not even the starting quarterback at Carruthers. How would I possibly start at Alabama or Tennessee?”
But Parker had already walked off to go bother someone else.
“You could’ve played at Alabama or Tennessee?” I was horrified. Carruthers was great, but if you wanted to play in the NFL like Harrison did, those other programs were better.
“Yeah.” Harrison looked out at the lights of the town below us. He turned to look at me. “But I wanted to be with you.”
“I would’ve tried out to cheer at Alabama or Tennessee,” I protested.
“I know. But I also know that cheer scholarships aren’t full ride. The out of state tuition is expensive, babe.”
My face burned. My family wasn’t poor, but we weren’t rolling in money, either.
Out of my closest friends, we definitely had the least amount of money.
My mom was the bookkeeper at the high school, and my dad was a fireman.
Plus, I had three siblings. The cheer scholarship I’d gotten covered almost everything since it was at an in-state school.
I’d gotten a small academic scholarship to make up the difference.
My parents weren’t having to come out of pocket for anything for me, and I hadn’t had to take on any student loans, thank goodness.
“We could’ve made it work. I know long-distance doesn’t usually work out well, but we have something really special.”
“I know we do.” He rubbed my hand and smiled. “But I didn’t want to risk it. How could I send my girl off to college without me? You’d come home engaged to some rich frat guy by Christmas.”
I laid back down on the blanket, studying the sky through the branches of the tree we were under. The tree I thought of as our tree. “Do you really think we have what it takes to make it?”
“Absolutely.” He said it with complete confidence. “You’re the only girl I’ve ever loved, and I know you’re the only one I will ever love. We’re going to be together forever.”
I smiled and cuddled into his side. We’d already talked a lot about the future. He would play in the NFL. I would be a teacher and cheer coach until we were ready for a family. Then I’d stay home with the kids. We’d had endless discussions about it.
Harrison was my first everything. First kiss, first boy I’d loved, first sexual partner—everything. And I was his. I wanted it to stay that way. How amazing would it be if we were able to tell people in the nursing home one day when we were old and gray that we’d only ever loved each other?
I got a smile on my face thinking about it. The small crisis was over. Yes, he’d passed up major scholarships for me without letting me have a say in that decision, but the most important thing was that we loved each other.
And we did.
Nothing could rip us apart.