Spring Into Summer - Macklin Celebrini
A love story that takes place over seasons and years and places. I've been working on this for like two months so I hope you like. Word count: like 10k or 11k... not exactly sure.
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The first thing you noticed when you got back to Vancouver was that everything felt smaller. Not worse. Not different, exactly.
The streets you used to bike down seemed narrower than they had when you were twelve. The elementary school looked half the size you remembered. Even the houses in your neighborhood felt somehow shrunken beneath the towering cedar trees that lined the road.
Maybe that was what happened when you were away for school.
You built a life somewhere else. New routines. New friends. New places to call home.
Then one day, you came back and realized the places that had once felt enormous had simply stayed the same while you kept growing.
The city greeted you with a light drizzle.
Your mother laughed when she picked you up from the airport.
You smiled as you dragged your suitcase through the rain.
The word still felt strange.
You had spent the last few years chasing internships and jobs and apartments and opportunities, convincing yourself that home was wherever you happened to be living at the moment.
But Vancouver had a way of making that argument feel flimsy. The smell of wet pavement. The ocean somewhere beyond the buildings. The mountains hidden behind low clouds.
Some places settled into your bones and refused to leave.
Your parents' house looked exactly the same.
The flower boxes beneath the windows and the chipped blue mailbox and the wind chime hanging beside the front door.
You spent the first week unpacking boxes.
The second week was easier.
You settled into familiar routines, including morning coffee and walks through the neighborhood. Runs along the seawall.
Slow afternoons spent helping your mother reorganize things that didn't need reorganizing. The kind of days that passed quietly, and the kind of days that made you feel twelve years old again.
Which was probably why you should have expected his name to come up eventually. Instead, it caught you completely off guard.
You looked up from the peaches you were slicing.
The knife paused against the cutting board.
Not long enough for anyone else to notice.
Your mother reached for a dish towel.
"Apparently they're back for a few weeks. Macklin just got back from competing at Worlds."
You focused very carefully on the peach in front of you.
Mothers had a special way of making a single syllable carry an entire conversation. You could practically feel her watching you.
"He's had quite the year."
You laughed despite yourself. That might have been the understatement of the century.
Everyone knew who Macklin was now. People who had never watched hockey knew who Macklin was.
You had watched his draft from your living room couch. The same couch you used to have movie nights on every Sunday.
You had watched interviews pop up on social media.
Highlights, articles, and photos.
Every now and then, his face would appear unexpectedly while you scrolled on your phone, and it always felt slightly surreal.
Because to the rest of the world, he was Macklin Celebrini.
The rookie. The prospect. Round one, pick one. The future.
To you, he was the kid who used to leave his bike in your driveway because he could never remember where he put it. The boy who had convinced you to jump off his dock, even though you were terrified. The twelve-year-old who cried when he thought nobody was looking after his family told him they were moving to California.
You hadn't spoken in years. Not really. A birthday text here. A reaction to an Instagram story there. The occasional message that always seemed to arrive three months too late.
Life happened. That was the simplest explanation.
And somehow all those years had slipped between your fingers.
"You know," your mother said casually, "Robyn mentioned they're having people over next weekend."
You smiled down at the cutting board.
"I knew this was going somewhere."
"I don't know what you're talking about."
She grinned. You rolled your eyes.
The conversation moved on to dinner and groceries. Something about your aunt visiting next month.
But later that night, after everyone had gone to bed, you found yourself standing at your old bedroom window.
The neighborhood stretched quietly beneath the glow of streetlights.
Rain shimmered on the pavement. The same street and the same houses.
The same place where so many versions of yourself had existed. Your eyes drifted automatically toward the end of the block, toward a familiar house.
You wondered if he was there already. You wondered if he would look different in person than he did on television. You wondered if he still laughed the same way. You wondered whether seeing him again would feel strange.
Or whether it would feel like no time had passed at all.
The thought lingered longer than it should have. Eventually, you stepped away from the window and pulled the curtains shut.
Next weekend was still days away.
There was no point thinking about it now. No point wondering. No point imagining what it might be like to see your childhood best friend for the first time in years.
Still, as you climbed into bed, one memory surfaced before sleep could take hold.
A twelve-year-old boy sitting beside you on a curb.
A moving truck parked outside his house.
Both of you pretending not to cry.
"I'll be back all the time," he'd promised.
Neither of you had known then how quickly years could disappear. Or how much could change before you finally found your way home again.
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The first time you met Macklin Celebrini, he informed you that you were doing it wrong.
You didn't know there was a wrong way to play by yourself.
Apparently, according to him, there was.
It was a Saturday afternoon in late September. The kind of Vancouver day that smelled faintly like rain, even though the sun was still shining.
Your older brother, Carson, was down at the field with some of the neighborhood kids. They had claimed one of the soccer nets for themselves and had been playing for what felt like hours.
You were supposed to stay out of the way.
Which was exactly why you were sitting alone at the small playground nearby, kicking a soccer ball against the side of a climbing structure.
You'd invented an entire game around it.
The ball hit the wall. You caught it. You spun around twice. You threw it again. The rules changed every thirty seconds.
You were in the middle of what was arguably your greatest performance yet when a voice interrupted.
"You're supposed to use both feet."
A boy stood a few feet away.
Dark hair. Bright eyes. Hands shoved into the pockets of an oversized Canucks hoodie. He looked about your age. Maybe a little taller.
You weren't willing to admit that.
"You keep using the same foot."
He stared at you like you had just asked why the sky was blue.
"Because that's not how you get better."
"Then why are you doing it?"
You looked down at the tennis ball. Then back at him.
The boy seemed genuinely confused by this answer. For a few seconds, he didn't say anything. Then he picked up the ball before you could stop him.
He tossed it in the air. Caught it. Tossed it again.
"If you're going to play soccer, you should do this."
"I'm not playing soccer."
"You have a soccer ball."
You narrowed your eyes. The boy narrowed his right back. For a full ten seconds, neither of you moved. Then he suddenly grinned.
Not a polite grin. A troublemaking grin.
You told him. He nodded. Then pointed toward the soccer field.
"My brother's over there."
You followed his finger. One of the older boys was sprinting across the grass.
Mack immediately perked up.
You weren't sure why that mattered. Apparently, it mattered very much to Mack.
"He should've scored three."
"So he could've scored three."
You laughed before you could stop yourself.
His expression softened immediately.
Like he'd been waiting for proof that you weren't completely impossible.
You glanced around. "There's nobody else here."
It came out so matter-of-factly that you almost missed it. Like it was the most obvious thing in the world.
You considered saying no.
Mostly because he'd been very annoying for the last ten minutes.
Instead, you shrugged. "Fine."
That was how it started. Not with some big meaningful moment. Not with instant friendship. Just a soccer ball and a playground, and a boy who couldn't stand watching someone do anything incorrectly. Including having fun.
A month later, everyone on the street knew each other.
At least, that was how it felt. The Celebrinis had settled into the neighborhood quickly. Their house sat only a few doors down from yours. Close enough that your mothers could wave to each other from opposite driveways.
Close enough that Mack somehow appeared everywhere.
You'd wake up on a Saturday morning, and he'd already be outside. You'd come home from school and find him kicking soccer balls in circles around the cul-de-sac. You'd look out your bedroom window, and somehow there he'd be, dragging a hockey net down the sidewalk.
One afternoon, he knocked on your front door three separate times.
The first time, he wanted Carson.
The second time, he wanted a soccer ball.
The third time, he had forgotten why he'd come over in the first place.
The friendship really settled into place when school started. Neither of you had expected to be in the same class. You still remembered spotting him across the room on the first day. He had immediately pointed at the empty desk beside him.
Every morning became the same.
You'd meet outside. Walk to school together. Listen to him talk the entire way. Mostly about sports.
If a ball - or puck - existed, Mack probably had an opinion about it.
By Halloween, the leaves had turned brilliant shades of orange and gold. The sidewalks disappeared beneath them. Every afternoon, you and Mack would kick through piles of leaves on the walk home. Sometimes racing. Sometimes collecting the biggest ones.
One afternoon, your teacher accidentally handed your mittens to Mack at dismissal. Neither of you noticed until halfway home.
He looked down. Sure enough, he was carrying them.
You held out your hand. He stared at it.
Then shoved the mittens into his own backpack.
"I'll bring them tomorrow."
"So you don't lose them."
"You lost your lunch twice."
"That happened one time."
You opened your mouth. Then, it closed it. Because, unfortunately, he was right.
Mack looked entirely too pleased with himself. You never admitted that he had a point. He never stopped reminding you anyway.
Years later, when people asked what Macklin Celebrini had been like as a kid, there would be plenty of answers.
Competitive. Driven. Focused. Obsessed with sports.
But what you remembered most was something else. The way he was always looking out for people. The way he never liked anyone being left out. The way he seemed genuinely confused by the concept of doing things alone.
Because every afternoon, without fail, he'd wait for you outside the school doors.
Leaves crunching beneath your shoes. Backpacks bouncing against your shoulders.
The two of you making the familiar walk home through the neighborhood.
Sometimes talking. Sometimes arguing. Never walking in silence thanks to Mack.
Neither of you knew it then.
But years later, when entire oceans of time would separate those afternoons from the people you became, those simple walks would remain.
Small and ordinary. The kind of memories that never seem important when they're happening. The kind that end up lasting forever.
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If Fall belonged to soccer and school and afternoons spent racing through piles of leaves, Winter belonged to the Celebrinis.
At least, that was what your mother always said, because the moment December arrived, the Celebrini house transformed.
White lights wrapped around the porch railing. White lights draped over bushes. White lights wound around the giant cedar tree in their front yard until the entire thing glowed against the dark Vancouver evenings.
Then came the music and the baking and the endless stream of people coming through the front door.
By the second week of December, it felt like someone was always celebrating something.
You loved it. Mostly because it meant you could walk into the Celebrinis' house without knocking. Robyn had stopped pretending to be surprised years ago.
You pushed open the front door one afternoon and immediately got hit with the smell of cinnamon.
You dropped your backpack by the stairs and headed toward the basement.
A hockey game was playing on television.
Mack sat cross legged on the floor.
Neither looked up. "They're losing." That was the first thing Mack said.
"That doesn't seem like a big deal."
"Because they should be winning. They only have 14 shots on goal."
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The annual Celebrini Christmas party happened the week before school let out for break.
Every year, the adults insisted it was a small gathering.
Every year, roughly forty people showed up.
Your parents arrived carrying dessert. Carson immediately disappeared with the older kids.
The adults filled the kitchen. And within ten minutes, you and Mack were bored.
The two of you escaped before anyone could stop you. The second floor felt quieter. Distant laughter drifted up from below. Christmas music echoed faintly through the vents. You sat on the floor of Mack's room. He was showing you a new hockey card when someone knocked on the door.
Mack pointed toward the hallway.
The door closed again. You waited until his footsteps disappeared. Then burst into giggles. Mack joined in immediately. Neither of you even knew why. Maybe because being eleven made everything funny. Maybe because it felt nice having a secret place away from the noise downstairs. Maybe because some friendships were easiest when nothing important was happening at all.
A week later, Vancouver woke up to snow.
Not much. Just enough. Mack showed up at your front door before breakfast.
"I don't really know how."
The confidence with which he said it made you suspicious. Still, an hour later, you found yourself standing beside an outdoor rink with borrowed skates dangling from your hands. The air stung your cheeks. Your breath floated in white clouds. Christmas lights hung from nearby trees. Music drifted softly through speakers.
The whole place looked like something out of a movie. Then you stepped onto the ice.
Immediately slipping and nearly dying.
Mack caught your arm before you hit the ground.
"You've been skating for three seconds."
He laughed loud enough that two people turned around.
"You said you'd help me."
You nearly slipped again. His hand shot out automatically, steadying you before you could fall. For the next hour, he skated backwards in front of you. Patiently explaining things and showing you where to put your feet. Holding your hand whenever you got nervous. Never making fun of you when you struggled.
By the time the sky began turning pink, your legs felt like jelly.
You collapsed onto a bench.
Mack grinned. Then frowned.
He unwound the blue scarf from around his neck. The Canucks scarf he wore constantly. He draped it around your shoulders.
Warmth immediately settled around you.
"You just said I was freezing."
"That's different. I’m used to it."
You laughed. Mack smiled, then looked away. The two of you sat quietly for a moment, watching skaters move across the ice. Watching lights flicker against the growing darkness and listening to distant Christmas music.
At eleven years old, neither of you knew that moments could become memories while they were happening. You didn't know that one day you'd look back on that winter afternoon and remember every detail.
The scarf. The lights. The cold.
The way friendship could feel so simple when you were young. All you knew was that you were warm. And that Mack was sitting beside you.
Which, at eleven years old, felt like the same thing.
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The funny thing about Mack moving to California was that eventually it stopped feeling like he had moved at all.
At least when you were on the phone.
There were still moments that caught you off guard. Walking out of school and instinctively looking for him before remembering he was eight hundred miles away. Seeing something funny and reaching for your phone because he would’ve laughed at it. Passing the soccer field where the two of you used to spend entire afternoons, and feeling like something was missing.
But mostly, life settled into a routine.
And somehow the two of you still knew everything about each other’s lives.
You knew which teachers he hated and which teammates annoyed him. You knew which basketball player he was currently obsessed with, whose highlights he kept sending you. He knew which girls in your class were causing drama and knew when you failed a science quiz.
The distance never disappeared. You just got better at working around it.
Most afternoons, your phone rang sometime between dinner and homework. And most afternoons, it was Mack.
That was usually how the conversations started.
Not hello. Not how are you. Just immediately diving into whatever story he couldn’t wait to tell.
One Thursday night, you answered while curled up on your bedroom floor.
“You’ll never believe this.”
“I’m serious.” You could hear him grinning.
“Coach made us run suicides for twenty minutes because somebody forgot their sticks.”
“Okay, but in my defense-”
You laughed so hard you nearly dropped the phone. On the other end, he started laughing too. And the two of you spent the next fifteen minutes talking about absolutely nothing.
Which happened more often than either of you realized.
Sometimes you called each other because there was something important to say. Most of the time, you called because you couldn’t think of a reason not to.
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The problem with being fourteen was that other people had opinions. Lots of opinions. Most of them annoying. You discovered this one afternoon when your phone buzzed during lunch.
It was blurry. Terrible lighting.
His hockey bag had exploded across a locker room floor.
A second message appeared.
Your friend glanced over.
“So…” She dragged the word out.
You immediately knew where this was going.
“I didn’t even say anything.”
You nearly choked on your water.
Which was somehow worse. You threw a napkin at her. She laughed the entire rest of lunch.
Unfortunately, Mack wasn’t having much better luck.
One evening, he was sitting in the backseat of a car after practice when your name flashed across his phone screen.
One of his teammates noticed immediately.
Mack looked down at the screen again.
The teasing started instantly.
“There was definitely a smile.”
The boys in the backseat erupted.
Mack hated when people did this. Mostly because it made absolutely no sense.
You were you. His best friend.
The person he’d known practically forever. The person he called after every game. The person who knew every embarrassing story from his childhood. The person who still reminded him about the time he forgot his backpack three days in a row.
Which apparently wasn’t a good enough answer for anyone.
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Spring Break arrived faster than expected.
For weeks, your parents had been talking about visiting California.
For weeks, you had pretended not to care. Then suddenly, the trip was only a few days away, and you found yourself standing in your bedroom trying to decide what to pack.
Which was ridiculous. You were visiting family friends. Not preparing for some major event. Still, when your phone rang that night, you answered immediately.
You smiled despite yourself.
On the other end, you heard him laugh too.
Then the conversation drifted somewhere else.
School and Hockey. A movie he’d watched. The usual things. The easy things.
The kinds of conversations you’d had hundreds of times before.
Yet later, after the call ended, you found yourself smiling at your dark bedroom ceiling.
Thinking about California. Thinking about seeing him again.
Thinking about how strange it was that someone could live so far away and still somehow be woven into every part of your life.
At fourteen, you didn’t have a name for the feeling.
But somewhere between the phone calls and the visits and the way both of you always seemed to reach for your phones first, something had started to change.
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By sixteen, Mack had become the kind of person strangers recognized. Not everywhere. Not all the time.
Enough that every few weeks you’d open Instagram and see someone posting highlights from one of his games.
Enough that hockey analysts were talking about him.
Enough that your friends occasionally sent screenshots and asked:
As if there were multiple options. As if he hadn’t occupied a permanent space in your life for nearly a decade.
You usually rolled your eyes. Then secretly watched every clip anyway.
The first time you saw him that summer was at the airport.
Your family had flown down to California for two weeks at the beginning of July.
The moment you walked through security, you spotted him. Or rather, you spotted his height. Which was annoying because somehow he’d gotten taller.
You stopped beside your suitcase.
Mack looked up. Then grinned. The same grin.
His grin widened. Then he pulled you into a hug before you could say anything else. For a second, your brain short-circuited. Not because he’d hugged you, he always hugged you. But because suddenly he wasn’t fourteen anymore.
His shoulders felt broader. His arms felt stronger. His voice sounded different when he laughed. The realization arrived unexpectedly. And immediately made you want to walk directly into traffic.
The next few days felt normal.
At least, that’s what you kept telling yourself. The two of you spent hours together. Beach days. Basketball in the driveway. Late-night walks. The usual.
But every now and then, something strange happened.
You’d catch yourself staring. Not on purpose.
At the way his forearms flexed when he picked up a hockey bag.
At the way his hair curled when it got wet.
At the way his voice had settled into something lower over the last year.
And every single time you noticed, you immediately hated yourself. Because this was Mack, your best friend. The same person he’d always been. So why did everything suddenly feel different?
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A few days into the trip, Mack invited you out on a boat with some of his friends.
That should have been your first warning. Because whenever someone said something would be fun, it usually wasn’t. At least not for you.
Mostly because Mack looked genuinely excited. And unfortunately, you had a hard time saying no to him. Always had.
The marina was packed when you arrived. Music drifted across the water. Boats rocked gently against their docks.
The California sun reflected off the waves.
And waiting beside one of the boats was a group of boys. The second they spotted you, their expressions changed.
Subtly, but enough. Enough that you immediately became suspicious.
One of them grinned. Another laughed. A third looked like he was trying very hard not to say something.
The boys exchanged glances.
Mack groaned immediately. “No.”
One of the boys finally cracked. “We just hear about you a lot.”
“He talks about you constantly.”
“You called her during a road trip because you saw a dog.”
“It looked like her dog.”
The entire group dissolved into laughter. Mack looked like he wanted to launch himself into the ocean. You, meanwhile, couldn’t stop smiling. The teasing continued all day. Not mean. Just relentless.
The kind only close friends could get away with.
Every story somehow involved you. Every joke somehow circled back to you.
And the longer it went on, the more one realization settled uncomfortably in your chest.
Maybe they weren’t wrong. Because if someone had asked you how often you talked about Mack, the answer would’ve been embarrassing.
Later that afternoon, everyone jumped into the water. Everyone except you. You sat on the edge of the boat. Watching and thinking. Trying very hard not to think about the fact that Mack had somehow become unfairly attractive.
Which was a terrible development.
A truly terrible development.
The splash beside you made you jump, and Mack surfaced beside the boat. Water dripping from his hair.
He snorted. Then reached up and grabbed your ankle.
There it was. The grin. The exact same one he’d worn at seven years old, and the same one at eleven. At fourteen. The same stupid grin.
And suddenly something settled.
Because underneath everything else, underneath the height and the hockey and the attention and all the ways he was changing, he was still him. Still your person.
Still the boy who never let you sit by yourself, the boy who called when something funny happened, and the boy who remembered every little thing about you.
For a moment, neither of you said anything.
The lake stretched endlessly around you and the boat rocked gently beneath you.
Summer sunlight danced across the water.
And for the first time, you found yourself wondering what would happen if things kept changing. If one day, he wasn’t just Mack anymore.
The thought startled you enough that you looked away immediately.
Some questions were easier not to ask.
At sixteen, this was one of them.
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There had been a time when you knew exactly where Mack was. It was strange, the things you missed. Not the big things like birthdays, holidays, or vacations.
The small things. The ordinary things. The things nobody thinks to appreciate while they’re happening.
At seven years old, he was usually three houses away.
At eleven, he was either at the rink or sitting cross-legged on your bedroom floor.
At fourteen, he was a voice on the other end of the phone every evening.
Predictable and constant.
Now, at seventeen, he seemed to exist everywhere at once.
Chicago. California. Michigan. Toronto.
Development camps and showcases and interviews and tournaments.
You would wake up and see a photo of him posted from a city you’d forgotten he was even traveling to. Every week seemed to bring another announcement. Another article. Another ranking. Another conversation about where he might go in the draft.
The future followed him everywhere now.
Sometimes it felt like the entire hockey world had already reached out and grabbed him. Sometimes it felt like you were standing on the shoreline, watching him drift farther out to sea.
Not because he wanted to leave, just because that was what happened when people grew up.
Even when you wanted desperately for them to stay.
The texts still came every day.
Ok, maybe not every day, but most days, anyway.
A picture of a hotel room. A complaint about airport food. A blurry photo from a bus window. A random thought that apparently couldn’t wait.
you would hate this coffee
you would probably drink it anyway
You smiled despite yourself.
His response came instantly.
The conversation continued.
As it always did. As it always had. And yet.
Something felt different.
Couldn’t point to a specific moment and say there, but you could feel the crack forming.
It was more like watching daylight change. You never noticed it while it was happening. Then suddenly it was evening.
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One rainy afternoon, you found yourself scrolling through old photos.
It wasn’t intentional. At least, not at first. You had been looking for something else. A screenshot. A receipt. A note from class.
Instead, you stumbled across a picture from years ago.
Mack standing on an outdoor rink, snow caught in his hair. His scarf was missing because he’d given it to you ten minutes earlier. The photo was blurry and poorly framed. One of those pictures nobody would normally save. Your thumb lingered over the screen. You remembered the exact way the air had felt that day.
The sharp cold against your cheeks.
The Christmas lights reflected off the ice.
The sound of his laugh after you’d nearly fallen for the hundredth time.
You remembered how small and simple the world had seemed. At eleven years old, you hadn’t thought about the future. Hadn’t imagined drafts and rankings and interviews and flights. You had only been thinking about making it around the rink without falling.
Funny how life worked like that.
The moments that mattered most rarely announced themselves.
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You answered immediately.
The background noise nearly swallowed his voice.
“That’s usually how questions work.”
You laughed. Then heard him laugh too. You felt warm. For a moment, it felt familiar and comfortable. Your eyes caught the Canucks scarf hanging off your dresser.
Then he started describing the arena. The city. The hotel. The game tomorrow. And halfway through the story, you realized you couldn’t picture any of it.
Not really. The places changed too quickly. The schedule changed too quickly. The details slipped through your fingers before you could hold onto them. It was hard to keep up.
You listened anyway because it was Mack. Because hearing his voice still felt like coming home. Even if home sounded farther away these days.
The draft wasn’t for another year. And even though everybody knew that, everybody talked about it anyway. The conversations followed him everywhere. People discussing his future as if it already belonged to them.
You hated those conversations, not really because they were wrong. Most of them were probably right. You hated them because they never sounded like the Mack you knew. It was like the Mack they talked about was polished and perfect. Carefully packaged. A future superstar. A generational prospect. A name. A headline. A prediction.
You wanted to tell them about the kid who forgot his hockey stick. The kid who couldn’t keep track of his gloves. The kid who spent an entire afternoon trying to convince you that dogs would be better at hockey than cats.
That was the Mack you carried around. Not the one in the articles. Yours felt more real.
Some nights, you found yourself waiting for his texts. You’d be working on homework or college applications. Watching television. Lying in bed.
Then you’d glance at your phone.
Just once. Then again and again and again. Hoping, waiting.
And eventually his name would appear. Relief arrived before you could stop it. Which felt ridiculous. You talked almost every day. What exactly were you worried about?
The feeling sat somewhere between the two. The awareness that life was changing faster than either of you could control. It lived in the soft blur of summer evenings that stretched like taffy, where streetlights flickered on one by one and fireflies stitched gold thread through the dusk. Childhood had been a watercolor left too long in the rain, edges bleeding, colors softening, moments melting into one another until it was impossible to tell where one memory ended and the next began.
You could still taste the metallic tang of blood from the time he accidentally kicked you playing mini sticks, still feel the scrape of cold rink ice on bare knees, still hear the distant chime of the ice-cream truck warping through humid air like a half-remembered song. Everything then had carried that hazy, honeyed glow, as if the whole world existed inside a snow globe you and Macklin had shaken together just to watch the glitter fall.
This feeling of longing for the proximity was bittersweet, a quiet ache that bloomed and twisted at once. You wanted the old closeness back. The easy way you used to fit together like two pieces of the same puzzle. But you no longer knew how to step into that picture without feeling like an outsider in your own memory.
The edges had shifted. You had shifted. The feelings were too complicated now, layered with too many versions of yourself and too many versions of him that no longer quite aligned.
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The funny thing about growing up was that life never seemed to get smaller. Every year, it expanded. New cities. New people. New responsibilities.
At nineteen, it felt like everybody was becoming someone. Mack was at Boston University. You were at Michigan. And sometimes, when you looked at a map, the distance between the two seemed almost ridiculous.
A line stretching across a few states.
When you thought about your relationship, or friendship, or whatever you were, you saw miles, and time zones, and flights, and long car rides. Entire lives unfolding in opposite directions.
The first semester had disappeared before either of you really noticed.
One minute, you were unpacking boxes. Next, it was midterms. Then finals. Then, suddenly, snow covered everything, and another year was ending.
Michigan felt nothing like Vancouver. The wind seemed determined to cut through every layer you wore. You found yourself missing home. Those were usually the days you called Mack. Not because he could fix it. Just because he understood.
Somewhere between childhood and college, your conversations had changed. At fourteen, you talked about everything big and small and in between. At sixteen, you still knew every detail of each other’s lives.
Now? Now there were gaps. Entire weeks, you forgot to mention and stories that never got told. Little pieces of life slipping through the cracks. There simply wasn’t enough time. You had classes and internships. Friends. Group projects. Late-night study sessions.
Mack had practices and travel. Games. Media obligations. Classes squeezed into whatever spaces hockey left behind. Life kept filling itself up. Every available corner.
One night in January, you were sitting cross-legged on your dorm room floor studying for an economics exam when your phone lit up with Mack’s name.
The background noise was immediate.
A door closing somewhere.
You let out a sigh in agreement.
“You already know I scored.”
You could hear the smile in his voice, and for a moment, the distance disappeared. The years folding in on themselves. Just two kids talking.
Then somebody called his name in the background. Another voice. Then another. Life pulling at him from the other side of the phone.
The words arrived quicker than either of you wanted.
And it was. That was the problem. It had to be okay. There was always a reason. Always somewhere else to be. Always something waiting.
“Good luck on your exam.”
“Good luck this weekend.”
The room fell quiet again.
You stared at the dark screen for a second longer than necessary. Then returned to studying.
The draft had happened the summer before.
And somehow, despite everyone expecting it, despite every mock draft and ranking and prediction, it still felt surreal. You watched from home. Heart pounding harder than it probably should have. The same way you’d watched every major moment in his life from a distance. When his name was called first overall by San Jose, you cried.
Which felt embarrassing. Nobody else in the room understood.
Nobody else knew the seven-year-old who corrected your soccer technique. The boy who cried when he left Vancouver. They only knew the player.
You knew all the versions.
After the draft, everything seemed to accelerate.
The future that had always existed somewhere on the horizon suddenly felt real.
San Jose. The NHL. You could practically see the shape of the life waiting for him after BU.
The strange part was that California no longer felt temporary. For years, some small part of you had always assumed he’d come back. Not physically. Maybe not even consciously. But somewhere deep down, Vancouver still felt like the center of the story. The place everything would eventually circle back to. Now, for the first time, you realized that wasn’t true.
His life was moving forward.
And it wasn’t pointing home anymore.
The two of you still talked.
Sometimes not even every week. But whenever the calls happened, they slipped into place effortlessly. Like no time had passed at all.
That was the thing nobody warned you about. How friendships could remain exactly the same and completely different at once. How someone could still feel like your person while becoming a stranger to parts of your life. How you could know someone better than almost anyone and still miss entire chapters of who they were becoming.
One snowy night, you found yourself walking back to your dorm after a late study session. The campus was quiet. Fresh snow blanketed everything.
Just Boston covered in snow.
For a moment, memories rose so quickly they stole your breath.
Christmas lights. Outdoor rinks. Wet Vancouver sidewalks. Leaves crunching beneath sneakers. Bike rides. Phone calls. Boat docks. Scarves. All the little pieces of childhood you’d carried with you.
The typing bubble appeared immediately. Then disappeared. Then appeared again.
Eventually his message arrived.
You looked out at the snow-covered campus around you.
At a life that already felt different from the one you’d imagined when you were younger.
And for a moment, standing there beneath the falling snow, you could almost see the two kids you used to be. Walking home through Vancouver. Completely unaware of how big life was about to become.
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When you saw Mack that spring, the first thing you noticed was that he looked tired. Worn around the edges by a year that had moved too quickly.
He was moving on from Boston; the draft was behind him. San Jose waited somewhere just over the horizon. Everything about his life seemed to exist in the future now.
A world that had once felt impossibly far away had somehow become real. You were sitting on a patio overlooking the water when he arrived. The afternoon sun painted silver streaks across the surface of the bay.
Boats drifted lazily in the distance. The air smelled faintly of salt.
For a moment, neither of you moved. Then Mack smiled. And suddenly he looked exactly the same.
The years folded in on themselves.
And just like that, the awkwardness disappeared.
The strange thing was that spending time with him still felt natural. The conversations came easily. The jokes landed in the same places. The familiar rhythm was still there. Yet every now and then, something would catch. Like a sweater snagging on a nail. A reminder that things had changed while neither of you were looking.
You found it in small moments.
The way strangers occasionally recognized him and the way his phone never stopped buzzing. The way conversations drifted toward contracts and schedules and things that felt far bigger than the neighborhood where you’d met. Sometimes you caught glimpses of the life waiting for him. The life everyone else saw. The one that no longer seemed theoretical.
And every time you did, you felt something strange. The awareness that the future was arriving, whether either of you were ready for it or not.
A few days later, the two of you found yourselves walking along the waterfront after dinner. The evening had settled softly around the city. The sky glowed pink and gold. The water reflected everything. You walked without any real destination.
For a while, neither of you spoke.
The silence wasn’t uncomfortable.
Eventually, he shoved his hands into his pockets.
“Dev camp starts in a few weeks.”
The words sat between you. You had known it was coming. Everyone had.
Still, hearing it out loud felt different. More permanent somehow.
“I think I’m signing soon.”
His voice was careful and hesitant. Like he wasn’t entirely sure how to talk about it. You glanced toward him. The setting sun caught the side of his face. For a second, he looked younger. Not like the first overall pick. Just Mack. Your Mack. The boy who somehow remained stitched through every stage of your life.
“That sounds more honest.”
The two of you continued walking. The water lapped gently against the shore. You wanted to say something.
You weren’t entirely sure what. Maybe that you were proud of him. Maybe that you missed him. Maybe that lately every version of him seemed to exist inside your head at once. You didn’t know how to voice this feeling of missing someone right in front of you.
Instead, you said nothing.
And somehow that felt safer.
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The hardest part wasn’t realizing your feelings had changed. The hardest part was realizing they had changed a long time ago. You had just been too busy growing up to notice.
It happened gradually. Then all at once. Like spring becoming summer. Like daylight stretching later into the evening. One day, you woke up and found yourself looking at him differently.
Not because he was famous. Not because everyone else saw something special in him. Because somewhere along the way, he had become the person you measured everyone else against.
The person who still felt like home.
The realization settled quietly.
The morning he left, the two of you stood beside his Dad’s car.
Suitcases packed. Flights booked. The future waiting impatiently.
Neither of you seemed particularly eager to say goodbye. Which was ridiculous considering you’d said goodbye a hundred times before. California. Chicago. Boston. Michigan. It was practically second nature at this point.
Still, something felt different. Each goodbye seemed to carry a little more weight than the one before it.
Mack adjusted the strap of his bag. You looked anywhere except directly at him.
The word hung there uselessly.
Then, before either of you could overthink it, he stepped forward and pulled you into a hug. The kind of hug shared countless times. Yet this one lingered. A second too long. Maybe two. Long enough to notice. Long enough to feel his heartbeat beneath your cheek. Long enough for every thought you’d spent years avoiding to briefly rise to the surface.
Neither of you moved. Neither of you said anything. Because what could you possibly say?
That you missed him before he’d even left?
That every goodbye seemed harder than the last?
That somewhere along the way, friendship had become something larger and stranger and far more complicated?
Eventually, he stepped back, just enough to look down at you.
His expression looked almost unreadable.
Neither of you mentioned how much life could change between now and then. Neither of you mentioned the things you were actually thinking. Instead, he climbed into the car. You watched him drive away. And for a long time afterward, you stood there in the morning sunlight.
Caught between who you’d been and who you were becoming. Wondering when exactly the boy from the end of your street had become the person it was hardest to leave behind.
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The dinner invitation arrived three days later.
Or rather, your mother informed you that dinner was happening and neglected to mention that your opinion on the matter wasn’t particularly relevant.
“They’re coming over Friday.”
You looked up from your laptop.
The smile she gave you answered the question immediately.
Her expression remained entirely innocent.
“Robyn and the boys haven’t seen us in forever.”
“The boys.” You deadpanned.
The truth was that you hadn’t really spoken to him in almost a year.
Not really. There had been birthday messages. A quick congratulations after milestones. Tiny points of contact. Like darts thrown at a board, each landing far from the one thrown before. Enough to know the friendship still existed. Not enough to know what his life actually looked like anymore.
That realization sat uncomfortably in your chest. Because there had been a time when you knew everything. What he ate for breakfast. What movie he had watched the night before. The details that make up a life. Now there were entire months you knew nothing about.
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Friday arrived warm and bright. You spent an embarrassing amount of time deciding what to wear before finally getting annoyed with yourself and choosing the first thing you had picked.
At least that was what you told yourself.
The doorbell rang a little after six and conversation drifted through the house almost immediately. Robyn’s voice. Your father’s laugh. Aiden saying something that made everyone groan. Carson shooting out about a million questions about BU. For a moment, you remained exactly where you were.
Your stomach twisted unexpectedly. Then footsteps approached the kitchen.
You turned. And there he was. For a second, everything seemed to overlap. The years and the memories. The different versions of him you’d carried around for so long. The little boy from Vancouver. The teenager from California. The player you’d watched on television from halfway across the continent. And the person standing in front of you now.
That was your first thought. Not bad or unhappy. Just tired. Like someone who hadn’t stopped moving in a very long time. Then he smiled. And suddenly all you could see was Mack.
The word came out softer than you intended.
His smile widened slightly.
For a moment, neither of you seemed entirely sure what happened next.
And somewhere behind you, your mother and Robyn exchanged a look that made it painfully obvious they had been planning this for weeks.
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The funny thing about reconnecting with someone is that it doesn’t happen all at once. Movies like to pretend otherwise. Two people saw each other after years apart, and suddenly everything snapped back into place. Real life isn’t like that. Real life is slower. More careful, maybe? Definitely more awkward.
The dinner lasted longer than anyone intended. Or maybe exactly as long as your mothers intended. By the time dessert appeared, the conversation had drifted from childhood stories to college to hockey to careers and back again. Aiden and Carson eventually disappeared. The parents migrated toward the living room.
The evening softened around the edges. And somehow, without either of you noticing, it became easier to talk. Not effortless. But easier, like rediscovering a language you hadn’t spoken in years. The vocabulary was still there. It just took a little time to remember it.
You found yourself carrying plates into the kitchen while Mack followed with the rest. The moment the door swung shut behind you, the noise from the living room dulled. For the first time all evening, it was just the two of you.
For a minute, neither of you spoke. Then he looked over.
“I wasn’t sure if this would be weird.”
His shoulders loosened immediately.
“I thought maybe I was the only one.”
The smile that crossed his face was familiar enough to make something ache.
For the first time all night, it felt exactly like before.
The next morning, he texted you.
You stared at the message.
Then laughed. Another message arrived.
starting to think you’ve become too cool for me?
The coffee shop sat near the water.
A small place tucked between storefronts and old brick buildings. You spent two hours there. Then another hour walking. Then another sitting by the marina. The conversation wandered everywhere. Michigan. Boston. San Jose. Mutual friends. Family. The years you’d missed.
At one point, Mack leaned back against the dock railing and laughed.
“I can’t believe I missed so much.”
You looked out at the boats rocking gently in the water.
For a moment, neither of you spoke.
The realization hung between you. Years had passed. Entire moments had existed without the other person there to witness them. That couldn’t be changed. The only thing either of you could do was keep moving forward.
Mack looked down. Then back at you.
The words caught you off guard.
“For disappearing, I guess.”
You smiled softly. “We both did.”
The truth settled between you quietly.
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After that, the days began to blend together. Not forgettable at all, but in the way summer always had. One coffee run became three. Three became seven. Movie nights reappeared naturally. Long drives with no destination. Walks through neighborhoods you knew by heart. Hours spent sitting at the end of the dock with your feet dangling over the water while the sky turned gold.
And slowly, almost without realizing it, the distance began to disappear.
Somewhere along the way, it became normal to find him stretched out on the floor beside your bed in your childhood room, talking about absolutely nothing while the rain tapped against the window.
It became normal to fall asleep halfway through movies in his apartment and wake up to find neither of you had bothered turning the television off.
Normal to reach for your phone the second something funny happened because he was the person you wanted to tell.
Normal to have him beside you.
Neither of you seemed to notice it happening.
Or maybe you both noticed and chose not to say anything. Because saying it out loud would mean acknowledging that this summer felt different from every other one before it.
It wasn't just that you were spending time together again. It was the way the distance had disappeared. The way every goodbye somehow turned into another hour together. The way neither of you seemed particularly interested in being anywhere else.
One night, the rain came down harder than usual, a steady summer downpour that blurred the streetlights into soft halos. You’d ended up at his parents’ house after a long walk that neither of you wanted to end. The lights were off downstairs; his family had gone away for the weekend. It was just the two of you, damp clothes and quiet laughter, standing in the kitchen drinking hot cocoa like you were kids again.
You were teasing him about something stupid when he turned around and looked at you. Really looked. The kind of look that made the teasing die in your throat.
Macklin took one step closer, then another, until the counter pressed lightly against your back. Rain drummed against the windows like a second heartbeat. He lifted a hand, brushing a damp strand of hair from your cheek with a gentleness that felt brand new and ancient all at once.
“You know,” he said, voice low, “I’ve been trying really hard not to do this.”
The kiss was soft at first. Then it deepened, slow and hungry, years of unspoken things pouring out in the slide of lips and the quiet hitch of breath. His hand cupped the side of your neck, thumb tracing your jaw, while your fingers curled into the front of his hoodie, pulling him closer.
It didn’t stay careful for long.
Clothes were shed in a trail from the kitchen to the living room couch, damp hoodies, t-shirts, the soft sound of sweats hitting the floor. His mouth moved down your neck, warm and unhurried, tasting rain and summer skin. The couch was too small for what you both wanted, so you ended up on the floor, a blanket pulled down with you, skin against skin in the dim glow of the streetlight filtering through the rain-streaked windows.
You turned your head to look at him, laughing. He was already watching you, that same boyish half-smile on his lips, eyes soft in the dark.
You smiled, pressing your forehead to his. “Hi.”
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After that night, the summer took on a new rhythm.
Mornings still looked the same on the surface. You’d meet him at the seawall for runs that always ended with you both slowing to a walk, shoulders brushing, talking about everything and nothing. But now there were stolen kisses against the car door before he drove you home, his hand lingering at your waist like he couldn’t quite let go. The salt air tasted different when it lingered on his skin.
Afternoons blurred into golden haze. You’d help his mom with groceries just to have an excuse to be at his house, and later you’d find yourselves tangled in his childhood bed, sunlight striping across bare backs and discarded clothes.
Afterward, you’d lie there tracing the faint scars on his hands, the ones you remembered from hockey injuries when you were young, and wonder how something so familiar could feel this brand new.
At night, you’d sneak out to his summer apartment after your parents went to bed, or he’d climb through your window like you were eleven again, both of you laughing silently until laughter turned into gasps against each other’s mouths. He was careful with you, but there was a hunger underneath that neither of you had expected. The kind that came from missing someone for so long, you didn’t realize how deep it ran until you finally had them.
The summer stretched on, warm and fleeting, and you let yourself live inside it, half nostalgia, half discovery, knowing that eventually the leaves would turn and reality would come knocking. For now, though, there was only him, and the rain on the window, and the quiet certainty that whatever this was, it had always been inevitable.
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The thing about summer was that it always ended.
When you were seven, it felt unfair. At eleven, it felt tragic. At sixteen, it felt impossible. By twenty, you understood that endings weren’t really endings at all, just transitions. Another season. Another version of yourself waiting around the corner.
Still, that didn’t make the last week of July any easier.
The days suddenly moved faster. There were apartments to return to, classes to start, flights to book, and a life waiting patiently beyond Vancouver.
One evening, a few days before you were supposed to leave, you found yourself at the end of the dock again. The same dock. The same water. The same stretch of sky slowly turning a pale gold above the water. Mack sat beside you, knees bent, his shoulder warm against yours. The air smelled like him.
For a while, neither of you spoke. The silence felt comfortable. It always had. The best thing about Mack had never been the conversations; it was that the quiet between you never felt empty.
Eventually, he nudged your shoulder.
He kept his eyes on the water. “I spent years thinking I’d come home and everything would feel different.”
You smiled softly. “And?”
His mouth twitched. “It does.”
You let out a small laugh that carried across the water. “That’s not exactly reassuring.”
“No, wait-” He turned toward you, voice softening. “It feels different because we’re different.”
The words settled between you, simple and true. You thought about all the versions of yourselves layered on top of one another: the kids walking home from school, the teenagers talking on the phone until midnight, the college students who let years slip away, and the two people sitting here now. None of those versions had disappeared. They were all still here, part of the same story.
Mack bumped your shoulder again.
“I hated it, you know. The years we stopped talking.”
Your heart squeezed. He stared down at his hands. “I kept meaning to call.”
“Then something would happen.”
A practice. A class. A flight. An exam. A game. Life. The simplest explanation, and somehow the most frustrating.
Mack shook his head. “We’re idiots.”
“Okay… a lot.” His grin appeared, the same one that had survived every version of him. The one that still felt like home. You watched the sun sink lower, orange melting into pink, pink into blue, the water reflecting it all back. When he spoke again, his voice was quieter.
“I’m done with goodbyes.”
You turned to him. “What?”
“I’m serious.” He looked a little embarrassed. “Every time we leave, we act like we’re never going to see each other again.”
You laughed. “You’re dramatic.”
He gave you a look, and you immediately lost the argument.
“Fine.” You smiled. “So what are you saying?”
“I’m saying we don’t have to do that anymore.” His eyes met yours. “The uncertainty. The distance. The wondering if years are going to disappear again before we see each other.”
Life was still complicated. You’d be in Michigan. He’d be in San Jose. There would still be flights and schedules and separate worlds pulling at you both. But it felt different now. For the first time, nothing important was left unsaid. For the first time, there was a future that included both of you.
Mack reached for your hand. The movement was easy, natural, like he’d been doing it forever. Maybe, in some ways, he had.
“I’ll see you in a few weeks.”
The certainty in his voice made you smile. Not goodbye.
You squeezed his hand. “Yeah.”
“You’ll come to San Jose.”
The promise felt solid. Real. The sky darkened slowly above you, lights flickering on across the shoreline. You thought about all the summers that had led here, the soccer games, the skating rink, the missed years, the second chances.
Mack leaned over and pressed a kiss to your temple, soft and absentminded, like it was the most natural thing in the world. You rested your head against his shoulder and watched the last light disappear beyond the water.
For the first time in a long time, the future didn’t feel like something rushing you forward. It felt like something waiting patiently ahead.
You thought about that now and smiled.
Because maybe it had never been about the streets or the houses or the neighborhood shrinking. Maybe growing up wasn’t realizing that places had changed. Maybe it was realizing that home had never been a place at all.
And after all these years, after all the seasons that had come and gone, after every goodbye and every return, you finally knew exactly where to find him.
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