The wind picked up, blowing red and gold autumn leaves off of the tall maple trees. They seemed to swirl and fall around Harry Styles and Maggie Prescott. Harry had an old football with faded laces cradled in his athletic arms and he ran straight at her. Maggie stood firm, ready to make the stop and she did, tackling him to the ground. She landed on top of his athletic body with a thud. At the opposite end, their fathers didn't notice their lips meet for the first time.
Yeah. Sure. In what universe? Maggie thought to herself. She'd been imagining those old afternoons lately but she'd been picturing things that never happened. Harry had never kissed her and she knew now that he never wanted to.
Looking back, she figured she was lucky to have had any relationship with him at all. It wasn't like they were close anymore. Even before Harry had met Kendall Black at the beginning of their freshman year, things had long gone since changed between the formerly inseparable friends.
Maggie wasn't exactly sure why Harry had stopped hanging out with her, but she had her fair share of guesses. She knew it didn't have to do with how she looked, her friends, or his. If she had to choose only one explanation, she'd guess that it had everything to do with their past.
Harry and Maggie had grown up together, sharing everything from green Play-Doh to dripping vanilla ice cream cones. They had lived just a few house apart, their mothers sat on the PTA together, and their fathers played golf on Saturday afternoons in the Spring.
And in between, Harry and Mr. Styles and Maggie and Mr. Prescott played football every Sunday morning in the park.
Maggie remembered every last detail of that day. She didn't know how anyone could forget it. It was June 16th and the Styles' and Prescotts were at the park, getting ready for the start of the NFL season. It was a typical summer morning; there wasn't a cloud in the sky and the temperature promised to climb well into the nineties.
Harry and Maggie had been teasing each other all morning like they usually did, each putting their most impressive moves on display trying to outdo each other. They didn't notice when Mr. Prescott collapsed.
He died of a heart attack on the field.
And at the time, Maggie hadn't known that her friendship with Harry would die along with her dad. She'd always thought he'd be there forever, but nothing could have been farther from the truth and now the two most important men in her life had vanished, though they both certainly left their traces.
Harry and Maggie hadn't spoken in over two years. On that first Sunday of the NFL season just two weeks after her dad's death, Maggie had hoped that Harry would call early that morning asking what time their run for traditional greasy cheeseburgers and fries before they settled down to watch their beloved Washington Redskins open the season against the division rival Dallas Cowboys.
But the call never came.
June 16th marked the end of everything Maggie had ever known and loved. That day meant the end of almost an eleven year friendship, and the end of Maggie's love for football.
Things weren't the same with Harry and Maggie's parents anymore. While they were still kind in passing, it never went beyond pleasantries. Her relationship with the Styles didn't feel right anymore. Nothing that reminded her of Harry really felt right, not even their memories.
Harry no longer looked at her when their paths crossed and she tried to return the favor. His lack of acknowledgment wasn't okay, but Maggie did her best not to dwell on it.
Her life had changed, yes, but things weren't as bad as they could be, as they had been. She had friends who wouldn't leave the second things got tough. The constant sound of tears coming from her mothers bedroom at midnight had stopped. Mrs. Prescott was dating again; their lives were finally falling back into place in ways neither of them had imagined.
If you had told Maggie two years ago that Harry Styles would eventually become one of those jocks who treated those guys who weren't on the football team like they didn't matter, she would have laughed in your face and walked away. That was how things were not. Harry had become the conceited football jock, the typical star athlete. He was the very definition of the stereotype.
The Harry Styles who walked the halls of Pine Creek High School wasn't the same Harry Styles who used to play football on Sunday mornings in Pine Creek Community Park two years ago.
And that was something Maggie was finally learning to live with.
