Page 133 of When You Wish Upon a Wideout

It’s about Grace, Sienna reminded herself, knowing she was probably still watching from the living room window.

Beau ran his thumb over her bottom lip. “If you think aftereverything—knowing what it’s like to fall asleep and wake up with you, make dreams come true with you—if you think I can just walk away now, you’re wrong. Because I won’t let you go that easily. Not when I know... ”

“Know what?”

His other hand framed her face. “What it’s like to do lifewithsomeone right in front of me instead of livingforsomeone else who’s been gone forever. I want to finish my football career with you in the stands. And I want to figure out what happens next for me with you, with Grace. Even with your brother.” Beau’s fingers stretched, winding into her blonde tresses. “If you’re going to make me run routes down the damn field and back, Sienna, I’ll do it. I’ll prove it to you. It was never about the letter. It was never about Grace. It’s only been about you.”

“Beau—”

“If I could crack open my fucking chest and show you that your name has been carved into my heart since we were little kids, I would.Thisscar,” Beau said, tapping his temple, “I’ve listened to it my entire life, and it’s about time I listen to the one in my fucking heart. I wasn’t honest about leaving in high school, and that was a mistake. I didn’t tell you about the letter, and that was wrong. But don’t even for one second thinkyouwere the wrong part when you’ve been the only right thing my entire goddamn life.”

Sienna felt the tears stinging her eyes and pulled her hand to wipe at them. Immediately Beau went to grab her hand. “No. Please don’t make a scene. Grace is watching.”

Beau fisted his empty hands and dropped his head in defeat, nodding. “Go. I don’t... don’tsayit’s over. Not now. Not when we’ve just started, please.”

Did it just start?Sienna wondered. She couldn’t remember her entire life from day one. But the point at which her memories began had to do with Beau. And even when he left, he remained the hero of the small, sleepy town of Brookwood even though he hadn’t stepped foot in it in over a decade. He remained her father’s favorite player—his best damn wideout—long after he had ever coached him.

Leaving Beau’s truck, she couldn’t give him an answer. That wasn’t just because of hurt. Sienna couldn’t say with certainty that what they had could truly ever end.

Sienna looked around the empty living room.She scrammed, she thought, turning off the lights and walking down the hallway. Grace’s door was open, her head in a book.

“School night so don’t stay up too late,” Sienna told her, trying not to frown at Beau’s baseball hat perched on a notebook atop the dresser.

Grace dropped the book, laying it on her chest. “Mom? Why did you want to go to the lantern festival tonight?”

Shrugging, Sienna shook her head. “I thought... I don’t know. Those things are kind of special. It’s been kind of a crazy time. You deserve it.”

Grace ran her fingers along the duvet and eyed her mother curiously. “Have you ever been before? Was it special for you?”

“Once, but…not super special.”It ended kind of like this. Me coming back into the house alone, preparing to stick my face into the pillow and scream and cry.

“Lights out soon, alright?”

“Mom?” Grace called out as Sienna was about to turn. “I love you.”

“I love you too. Get some sleep.”

Sienna tugged on her pajamas, plugged in her phone, and placing it on the nightstand where Beau’s book of gifted stars sat. She frowned.It really is almost like last time, she thought, turning away from the book and pulling back the covers of her bed. Beau had a place in a book in her house long ago, one that she had kept on her nightstand, never worried that Henry or her father would read it—neither of them had enough interest in what was going on in her life. Nothing like Grace. Glancing at a photo of her daughter on the dresser, Sienna wondered if she had gotten her inquisitive nature from her father’s side and not Sienna’s.

Sienna stiffened.

My diary.

Sprinting to the closet, Sienna pulled out the box of what remained of her old room and dumped the contents. Her senior yearbook, a dried flower Beau had picked from the meadow that she had pressed into the back, her old camera. But her diary was nowhere to be seen. She shuffled through the mess again, looking for the notebook with the deep navy cover, a color close to the night sky on a starless night.

Like Beau’s hat, she thought, standing.Like his hat in Grace’s room on top of a stack of notebooks.

With her pulse racing as quickly as her feet, Sienna quietly pushed Grace’s room open, finding her already asleep. She tiptoed to the dresser, lifting the Yankees hat Beau had given Grace. Below it was her diary.

* * *

“This is how she knew,” Sienna said fifteen minutes later. She had only read the first few entries, but her brain and heart were seized and strangled by emotion with each word about her mother’s death, the way it cracked the foundation of the family. And, of course, there was Beau—so much Beau.

How could there still be so many blank pages when there had been so much of our story?she wondered—but her heart knew why. Sienna had written irregularly—an entry here, an entry there—because Beau had pulled her attention and words from the page.

She flipped through the notebook again, only this time, Sienna paused at a back page written by a different hand. Her breath bawled up deep within her throat as she traced the familiar, swirly handwriting—the same she had found on the letter in Beau’s nightstand.

Dear Mom,

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