I don’t understand why someone wouldn’t want to get away from here, even just for a few years, to see something else. I know my dad was happy here, and so many other people are, too. But I want to see all the oceans, not just the Gulf of Mexico. I want to taste food from all over the world. I want to see snow thick enough to ski in and ice strong enough to skate on. I want to know how small I look next to a giant sequoia tree. I want to know what the leaves look like in New England in October. I don’t know what “purple mountain majesty” even means.

I’ve seen pictures of all that stuff, but I want to know what it feels like. I want a reason to wear a scarf and winter boots. To put on mittens and roll myself a snowman taller than me. I’ve soaked up enough Texas to last me a lifetime. Show me something else, world.

Sometimes I feel that so deeply I want to scream it as loud as I can.

“Don’t you ever think about leaving Texas? Even a little bit?” I ask.

“Not exactly,” Elijah says. “Everyone I love is here.”

I frown. “It’s not like you could never come back,” I say. “I just want to see more. At least for a little while.”

“Texas is home,” he says softly. “I’m not sure what else I need.”

I listen to the waves rolling onto the shore. The hushed, sleepy voices of some of my teammates just outside the tent wash over me as my eyelids start to droop.

“What even happened at that game twenty years ago?” Elijah asks into the dark. “Why did Crenshaw get into a fight with the Taylor kids, anyway?”

“Figg told me they caught wind that one of the football players’ girlfriends had gotten pregnant,” I say, my voice thick with the weight of the day. “Taylor showed up with beach balls stuffed under their jerseys, and the Crenshaw kids just went nuts. Bench-clearing brawl, he said.”

Elijah sits up on his sleeping bag next to me. “Seriously?”

“That’s what Figg said,” I yawn.

“And it was twenty years ago. When your dad was a senior,” he says. “Which means my dad was a senior.”

“Uh-huh,” I yawn again, louder this time.

Elijah is quiet for a moment. Then, “I think that might have been my mom and dad.” His voice is small.

Now my eyes are open all the way. “What?”

“I know my parents were still in high school when Frankie came along,” he says. “I mean, how many other football players would have had pregnant girlfriends at homecoming exactly twenty years ago? Meridien isn’t quite a metropolis with a million people.”