Page 78 of The Fall Classic

Shut it down. You’re not here for trauma work right now.

I climb in the truck on my side and see Georgie, still rosy-cheeked and smiling.

I’m here for her.

***

Ten minutes later, we’re pulling into the parking lot, where string lights are strung between live oaks above a deck that overlooks the water. Mason jar candles rest in the middle of each table, and the server hands us paper menus as soon as we’re seated on the patio, where the sounds of the river below add an ambiance no music can compete with.

The server brings us our drinks, and I order immediately.

“I’ll have the same,” Georgie says, though I’m not sure she heard my order at all. Something tells me she wasn’t kidding about not eating today. She’s paler than she was last week, and her slow blinks make it look like her eyelashes must weigh a pound each.

We both give the server our menus, and then I reach a hand six inches across the table to grab Georgie’s.

“Sorry, is that okay?” I ask, my thumb pressing softly into her palm, my hand wrapped around her thinner one.

She adjusts her hand so she can get a better hold on mine, making my chest grow warm. “Yeah, it is.”

“How are you holding up with all these back-to-back ten hour days? And school at night?”

“You know what they say: I’ll sleep when I’m dead.”

“Don’t even joke about that,” I say, holding her hand tighter. “Georgie, you need to take care of yourself.”

“Things are going to get better,” she says like she’s trying to convince herself. “Olivia is going to help on the truck.”

“Good. I don’t like the idea of you wearing yourself out like this.”

Her smile is tired, her dimples almost nonexistent. “I know. But you’re one to talk. I know for a fact you were texting past curfew all week.”

I smile and take a drink. “That’s different.”

“It really isn’t,” she chastises, giving me another sleepy blink. “How does it feel to be home? Or back, at least?”

“Really good,” I say. The candle between us throws warm, unsteady light across her face, catching the shadows under her eyes that her makeup didn’t quite cover and a bump on her forehead I didn’t notice before. I almost ask about the bump, but I decide to let it go. She’ll only tell me she’s fine.

“I watched the highlights. You played so well, Logan.”

“Thanks. It felt good. Different.”

“What was different?”

“I stopped trying to control everything, I think. I have a tendency to hold too tightly, too long, and I just … didn’t.”

She draws a pattern on the condensation on her glass. “I’m glad it went so well.”

Someone laughs loudly at a table near us, and the river runs in a steady, unrelenting stream below us. I have to tell her. I’ve been holding the knowledge of my call-up since last night, telling myself I needed to tell her in person, and now we’re in person, and I can’t keep avoiding telling her.

“I got the call-up,” I say, not quite smiling, not quite frowning. “I have to be in Chicago Thursday night.”

Her smile looks like it’s splitting her face in two—it’s so big, so raw and beautiful. And the fact that her eyes are watering makes it hurt all the worse. “I knew you would,” she says with so much faith in me, I can’t understand how I ever doubted myself at all. “They are so lucky to get you.”

She sniffs and blinks, like she’s tucking her emotions away, and I want to tell her not to do that with me. To put those feelings somewhere I can see them. I open my mouth to say exactly that. And that’s when her hand in mine goes cold again. Then it goes limp. My eyes fly down and back up to her face.

Just in time to see her eyes flutter and her head tip forward.

I jump out of my chair and dart around the table, catching her with one arm while I flag down a server. “I need something with sugar!” I call, panic almost strangling me. I carefully set her down on the ground so the blood can rush back into her head. “Juice, soda, whatever’s fastest!”