Page 101 of A Thousand Broken Pieces

“Meet me outside the lockers?” he asked, and I nodded. As much as Ihad enjoyed seeing him scrimmage, I wanted to talk to him and spend hours back by his side.

“I’ll head back to the dorms,” Cara said. I nodded at her and followed the signs to the locker rooms. I stood outside in the hallway and waited for Cael to come out. Some other people were waiting, greeting different players as they left the locker room.

Cael walked out with the boy I now knew was Stephan. Cael’s searching eyes found me immediately. He rushed to where I stood and wrapped his arms around me. He crushed me to his chest, his damp hair from his shower sticking to my cheek. I laughed, and at the sound, Cael squeezed me just a bit tighter.

A throat cleared behind us. Cael released me, and Stephan stood there. With his blond hair and blue eyes, he reminded me of Rune. “This is the famous Savannah?” he asked, and I felt my cheeks blaze at his words. Stephan hit Cael’s chest. “I love the guy, but if I have to hear about you one more time, my head might just explode.”

“Dick,” Cael said but laughed at his friend.

Stephan winked at me. “Anyway, it was nice to meet you, Savannah.” Stephan hugged Cael. “I’ll see you back at the dorm.”

Cael threw his arm around my shoulders and kissed my temple. “Come with me, Peaches. We have some catching up to do.”

Cael

I led Savannah out toward my car in the parking lot. I threw my bag in the Jeep, then held out my hand. Savannah took it without hesitation. “Walk with me?” I asked.

“Anywhere,” she said, smiling. Fuck. I couldn’t believe she was here with me. It felt like a dream. I’d focused on her for so long, all those long hard days at the retreat. Especially on the hardest days, when I didn’t think I could do it anymore, it was Savannah’s face and her phone calls that kept me strong.

When she shivered against the first chills of fall, I ran back and took ajacket out of the trunk of my car. It reminded me how she had struggled in the Lake District and Norway, my Georgia Peach needing her sun. I held it out, and Savannah laughed when she put it on and it drowned her petite frame.

I couldn’t imagine her looking more perfect than she did with my name on her back. We cut through campus in comfortable silence and made our way to a brightly lit park. We sat on a secluded bench, only a few dog walkers milling about the pathways nearby. I squeezed her hand, bringing her fingers to my mouth. I kissed her. I couldn’t stop.

She was here.

She wasactuallyhere.

“Cael—” She went to say something, but I spoke before she could.

“It was so hard, Sav.” The adrenaline from tonight was waning, and fatigue was settling in.

Savannah inched closer, and I turned to her. She was already watching me. I couldn’t take my eyes off her, like she was some mirage I had conjured up in therapy and if I looked away, she’d disappear.

“I’m here,” she said. But it was like my heart needed to understand she wasn’t some fever dream. My girl was in Boston; we were here together. Ready to start our lives together.

I inhaled deeply and said, “It was so hard. But I had to get better. For you, for us, I had to—”

“No,” Savannah said, shaking her head. “Not better, Cael. You werehealing. You were grieving. There is no better or worse to that. It just is. Your heart was broken, and you were mending it, day by day. And you have succeeded.” She put her hand on my cheek and made me meet her tenacious blue stare. “You never needed to get better for me. You were always enough. Even when you were deep in the trenches. You werealwaysenough.”

Hell, had there ever been anyone who had fought for someone more than this girl had fought for me?

“I’m the luckiest guy on the planet. Do you know that?” I said and kissed Savannah’s cold cheek. I closed my eyes, just feeling her against me. “I get to live my life with you, Peaches. I get to give you my heart—as patched up and as scarred as it is.” Her lip wobbled, and I ran my thumb over it, blueeyes shining. “You have it, and I get to have your beautiful heart and soul in return.” I pointed at myself. “Luckiest guy.”

“We both are,” she said and smoothed my hair back from my face. It was still damp from my post-game shower. Savannah smiled, and I knew I’d give her the entire world to make her stay that way. “We are alive, we are stronger, and we are together. That’s what makes us lucky. That …” She trailed off and looked up at the stars beginning to shine.

I followed her line of sight, then asked, “That what?”

Savannah turned back to me. Her dimples popped as she smiled, and I wanted to commit how she looked right now to memory. “That we have walked a rough path to get to this happiness. And because of that, we will never take our life together for granted.” My heart pounded. Because everything she said was true. Savannah kissed the back of my hand. Over my tattooed heart. She ran her hand over the black ink, then looked back at me and said, “We have lost. We know what it is to grieve and miss someone so badly we can’t breathe. But because of that loss, we will love deeper, support each other further, and show up for one another harder. Loss teaches us how to cherish love. That is our future, Cael. Loving one another in the best way we know how—completely.”

“I love you, Savannah. I’ll never stop telling you that.”

She smiled. “And I’ll never stop accepting it.” I laughed, and Savannah followed, the heaviness breaking apart into light pieces around us.

When our laughter fell away, she said, “I have something for you. But I don’t know if it’s a good or bad thing. I don’t know if I’ve done the right thing.”

The trepidation in her voice was evident. “Nothing you could do would be bad, baby,” I said. Yet the worried expression on Savannah’s face remained. She searched my eyes, then put her hand into her pocket. When she raised her hand, in the center of her palm, was Cillian’s goodbye to me, his apology scribbled down on my treasured old Bruins ticket. The one that I had destroyed in Japan.

Only this ticket had been carefully reconstructed with golden lacquer. My breathing came heavy as I stared at this beautifully patched-up ticket lying in Savannah’s gentle hand.

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