Chapter 18: Burnt Orange

They left the car in a garage off Guadalupe Street and walked the rest of the way.

The campus hadn't changed. Same pale limestone, same red-tile roofs, same squirrels so fat and fearless they practically charged rent. The Tower rose over the oaks with its clock face catching the afternoon sun, and students streamed past on bikes and scooters, earbuds in, backpacks bouncing, sunburned and completely unbothered by anything.

Harper used to be one of them.

She'd crossed this exact plaza a thousand times with a gym bag over her shoulder and chlorine in her hair, always late for something, always starving. Back then, the biggest problem in her life had been a stubborn back two-and-a-half that kept coming up short.

It took a few minutes to notice the looks.

A cluster of guys outside the student union went quiet as she passed. One elbowed another. A lanky kid on a skateboard twisted around for a second look, forgot about the bike rack in front of him, and hit it with a clang that sent him hopping in a circle, clutching his shin.

"Mm-hm," Valentina said, hooking an arm through Harper's. "You seeing this?"

"They're kids."

"They're looking, babe." Valentina tipped her sunglasses down. "Three years in beige cardigans, and you walk across campus in a T-shirt and jeans and cause a pileup."

"One kid hit one bike rack."

"That's a pileup in Austin."

Behind them, one of the guys outside the union called out, half question, half dare. "Yo! Are you the diver from the rose video?"

Harper kept walking. Valentina turned around, walked backward three steps, and blew him a kiss.

"Val!"

"What? He has good taste in viral content."

Harper's face went hot, but she didn't duck her head. She lifted her chin and kept going, and something about that felt like a small, private victory.

They cut across the lawn by the fountain, sweet teas sweating in their hands.

"Okay," Valentina said. "Remember Trevor?"

"Oh God."

"The one with the tiny mustache."

"Val, I'm begging you."

"Remember when I was dating three guys at once and I made a color-coded calendar?"

"You laminated it."

"I did laminate it." Valentina pressed a hand to her heart. "It was a beautiful system. And then Trevor and Jake showed up at the dorm at the same time, both holding flowers, and I panicked, and you hid in the closet..."

"It was my closet! I lived there!"

"You were in there forever."

"Forty-five minutes! I pretended I was looking for a sweater!"

"In August."

"I was holding a coat hanger like a sword, Val!"

That finished them both. They had to stop and lean on the fountain wall, gasping, while a professor in a bow tie gave them a long, concerned look over his reading glasses.

"Oh, oh," Harper wheezed. "And the roof."

"No."

"Locked out on the dorm roof. In towels."

"It was January. I lost feeling in my toes."

"You tried to flag down a helicopter!"

"It could have been a rescue helicopter!"

"It was Channel 7! We were on the evening news!"

"And I looked amazing on the evening news."

By the time they reached the far edge of campus, Harper's face ached from grinning, and for the first time in years, she felt twenty again.

Then they turned onto a quiet side street, and the jokes ran out.

It was a short block shaded by old live oaks, their roots heaving the sidewalk up in buckled slabs. Small houses sat behind chain-link fences, each with a porch, a patch of yellowing lawn, and at least one wind chime. Halfway down stood a white bungalow with a sagging porch, a burnt orange flag faded almost pink beside the door, and an old Ford pickup parked crookedly in the driveway, one tire up on the grass.

Harper stopped walking.

"That's it?" Valentina asked quietly.

"That's it."

Three years. Three years since she'd spoken to him.

Ted Miles had found her at a summer diving camp when she was a skinny twelve-year-old from Oklahoma who threw herself off the high board like she had nothing to lose. He'd coached her every summer after that, then recruited her to UT, then spent ten years teaching her how to fall out of the sky without breaking.

The last time she'd seen him, she'd stood in the doorway of his little gym, her arm still in a sling, and told him she was done. Myles wanted her home. It was over.

He'd gone very quiet. Then he'd said, in a voice she'd never heard from him before, "You're quitting on yourself, Harper. And you're going to regret it."

She'd walked out. She hadn't called since.

Her mouth went dry. She wiped her palms on her jeans.

"What if he won't see me?"

"Then I'll kick the door down," Valentina said, squeezing her hand. "But he will."

Harper climbed the porch steps. The second one creaked exactly the way it always had. She raised her fist and knocked.

Nothing. A TV murmured somewhere inside, a ball game. Down the street, a dog barked twice and gave up.

Then the door swung open.

"Who the hell is it?" a gravelly voice barked. "If you're selling solar panels, I swear to God..."

He stopped.

He was older than she remembered. His buzz cut had gone completely gray, and the lines around his eyes were deeper, carved in by thirty years of squinting at sunlight off pool water. He wore a faded UT shirt with a hole in the collar, gray sweatpants, and a dish towel slung over one shoulder. He looked exactly like the man who'd taught her how to fly.

Coach Ted stood frozen in his doorway.

His eyes moved over her slowly. Her face. Her hair. The faint scar peeking out from her collar. Her hands.

His mouth pulled down into a hard, flat scowl. But his eyes were wet.

He let out a long breath through his nose.

"Well," he muttered. "Don't just stand there letting the air conditioning out. Come in." His gaze slid past her and narrowed. "You too, Sparkplug."

"Hi, Coach," Valentina said sweetly.

"Don't you 'hi, Coach' me. You still owe me a window."