I probably have the blankest look on my face as I regard May, and things begin to come together. Starting with that sting of envy in her voice when we’d sat and talked out on the porch after the tornado. ‘You were jealous?’

She nods. ‘You moved so easily. Went pro so easily. Left it all behind so easily. So yeah. I guess you could say I was jealous. You still move so easily, you know. I’m still jealous.’

‘You’re …’ I trail off as the pieces start to float together. I’m positive May can probably see a lightbulb going off over my head. ‘So you do have lacrosse dreams.’

‘I guess. You remember all the stuff we used to shoot shit and talk about. I guess at some point I really wanted to play box, you know, for Team USA or in the Olympics or something. But that was before the weather. And before the ranch. That,’ she says, the word a punctuation mark that abruptly ends a moment of hope, ‘is for the ones like you. The ones who have the courage to do whatever it takes to chase their dreams.’ She shrugs, and that little shrug, the gesture of giving in, breaks my heart. ‘I appreciate everything you did, you know, Colt. To keep this narrative up all season. But I suppose, at the end of the day, declaring won’t be on the cards for me.’

May Velasco is supposed to be nothing short of a quickly burning fuse. Always running hot. Refusing to back down from a fight. That’s May.

‘Don’t get me wrong,’ she puts in with a raised finger, scattering my thoughts. ‘I’m never not going to be upset about it all. At least to an extent. But … I recently had someone tell me that as much as I need to give myself space to hate you, I need to give you space to make amends.’ May props her chin up on her hands, and she gives me this smile that’s distilled with regret. ‘All those years, I was so caught up in resenting you that I forgot to stop and look at you. Really look at you. At how well you’ve done for yourself, Colt.’ When she leans back, the smile on her face this time is no longer just sad. It’s still melancholy, but it’s layered with something new – pride. She’s proud of me. ‘I used to play in makeshift fields behind farms with you, CJ Bradley, and you’re a Major League Lacrosse captain now.’

My heart swells with the look in her eyes, that of admiration, but it falls when I grasp the implication of her words. That she’ll live out her days watching. That she’ll never become a Major League Lacrosse captain.

‘I’ll make sure you enter that draft,’ I try, my voice weak. ‘Know that I’ll do that shit for you.’