The Years Between Us

Red Boots and Strawberry Milk

It starts like most love stories don't — in a muddy park, with scraped knees, a crooked ponytail, and a very serious disagreement about the rules of British Bulldog.

Leah Williamson, aged seven, thought she was right. Which was nothing new.
And Meg Jones, the girl standing opposite her with fists balled in her sleeves and cheeks pink with wind and stubbornness, thought Leah was loud. Which was also nothing new.

"You can't grab someone's jumper!" Meg declared. "That's cheating."

"It's not!" Leah argued, one foot already forward in the grass like she was halfway to tackling again. "You're just scared 'cause I'm faster."

Meg folded her arms. "You're not faster."

"Am."

"Not."

"Am times a hundred."

"Times a million."

A standoff. In the middle of the school field, surrounded by the chaos of Year Twos running wild, one tired teacher trying and failing to referee, and somewhere in the distance, the faint sound of the bell that neither of them paid any mind to.

It might've ended there — two kids locked in a shouting match over playground honour — if Leah hadn't suddenly tilted her head, scrunched her nose, and said, "You wanna be on my team next time?"

A pause. Meg blinked. Her nose scrunched the same way it still would decades later.

Then, a slow nod.

And just like that, it began.

⸻

They were best friends within a week.

Leah started walking Meg home from school even though it meant going in the opposite direction. Meg started bringing two cartons of strawberry milk in her lunchbox even though she didn't like the taste. They shared one pink gel pen with feathers on top like it was sacred. And Leah — who hated writing unless it was drawing football formations — began scribbling messy little notes on lined paper and folding them into hearts.

"Wanna come to mine?"
"U scored in P.E. — u were well good."
"Miss said my reading is better. I think it's 'cause u helped."

It was the kind of friendship that outlasted absolutely everything — Leah's rise through Arsenal's youth system, awkward teenage years, their first crushes (Leah's on an older girl from her netball team; Meg's on a boy who once complimented her handwriting), GCSE stress, and a growing understanding of who they were when the world got complicated.

Leah was bright lights and energy. She could light up a room with her grin or tear it down with her honesty.

Meg was quiet magic. Not shy — just observant. The kind of person who noticed when your hands were shaking or remembered how you liked your toast. They were opposites, but never in a way that clashed.

Instead, they clicked.

⸻

By twenty-nine, their lives looked nothing like they thought they would. But still, they had each other.

Leah was England captain, Arsenal mainstay, defender of hearts and goalposts. She had an MBE, a complicated relationship with media attention, and a flat she mostly used for sleeping between matches.

Meg was a primary school teacher with ink-stained fingers, a threadbare coffee flask, and a deep belief that eight-year-olds were the best people in the world. She wore jumpers that swallowed her and carried tote bags full of stickers, lesson plans, and half-marked workbooks. She lived just outside London in a flat full of books and soft lighting.