‘It’s true! In what universe is moving to the East Coast rational?’ My sister rolls her eyes so hard I can see the whites. ‘Lots of people here don’t have options. May definitely didn’t. Hell, your own friends on the lax team, you know they didn’t, either. But you did, and you took the option we were kind of afraid you’d take. Staying there. It’s just …’ She almost grumbles out her next words. ‘I missed having you around.’

‘What? What? I didn’t hear that the first time,’ I tease her, and she just sighs dramatically in that younger-sister way.

‘You get it once,’ she says with the air of someone’s grown mother.

‘Alright. Come here.’

For the first time in what’s probably years, Savannah lets me give her a hug, and for the first time in what’s probably years, she hugs me back.

There are still pencil marks in the wall downstairs at the entrance to the kitchen where Ma and Pop would put a dash for each of our heights every month. Old magnets stuck to the fridge have pictures from when Sav played lacrosse for a year, too, the both of us in uniform, taking a knee side by side. They’ve hung tons of photos of us all over the house – in the fire truck that came around during block parties, in matching Riders cowboy hats and bib overalls, at OKC games on our parents’ shoulders. But all of that is from when we were little enough that the rift between us hadn’t formed yet. When that rift shot up, it separated my dreams of getting out of here, and hers of staying and cultivating everything our parents built. We just couldn’t find a way around it. Until now.

It’s been a while since I felt like we were kids again, and I feel it right now. I’m kind of glad Sav can’t see my face, because I wouldn’t hear the end of it if she knew I was getting teary-eyed.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Roper Rivalry

May

The stomping of feet in the stands, and the first few chords of ‘Riders in the Sky’ by Johnny Cash, the two sounds that any Oklahoma City Riders fan knows like the back of their hand, fill the stadium, audible from half a mile out as we make our way through the gates in full formal. Dressing up on game day is one of those time-worn professional sports traditions, and out here, the rivalry absolutely demands it. Every single one of us has shown up in two-piece pantsuits, detailed in subtle ways that speak to our journeys to collegiate sport.