Order is my life. You can’t just plant anythinganywhere. There’s a whole system going on under the dirt. Some roots steal the water, some give off chemicals that starve other plants.
“Your marigolds are straight as soldiers,” she mentions the plants that don’t steal the water. “Makes mine look drunk.”
“Thank you,” I say, feeling heat crawl up my neck. But it is sweltering today.
“You’ve got a gift, dear.” Mrs. Kaplan pats my shoulder, smiling under a sun hat.
“Christ,” a man mutters as he stomps past the iron spires of the garden gate.
My pulse stutters at the voice. I don’t look up. Maybe he’ll keep moving.
He doesn’t. He waltzes inside the garden and gets close to me. Too close.
“Wasting a perfectly good patch of city land on flowers.” His voice pitches louder as a bag of smelly takeout swings from one hand. “They call it a concrete jungle for a reason, you freak show.”
“It’s okay. I’ll handle this,” I whisper to my plants, protecting them.
“Talking to them, too, are you? Probably your only friends.” His words sting, sharp as the bully kids from my childhood.
Dirt freak.
Crazy girl.
I reach down into the dirt. My hands tremble with fists full of soil that I’m ready to fling at this jerk. I’m no longer nine and four-foot-eleven. My last doctor visit clocked me at five-ten. I’m also fairly strong.
“Leave her be,” Mrs. Kaplan defends me, a hand on my shoulder.
Barking a sickening laugh, he sneers, “Just you wait. I’m gonna take over this whole garden for my business. Mypermits will be approved any day. Anything is better than this loony-tune program. Forloonieslike you.”
Something hot thrums in my head. Vein pulsing, I stand up and lift the shovel. “What did you call me?”
He smirks, looking down at my dirty knees and the smudges of mud on my cheeks. “Oh, look, theloonygardener’s gonna cry.”
Mrs. Kaplan steps forward. “Permits? For what?”
“Cannabis,” he says, biting into a French fry.
“Pot,” I mutter and look at my beautiful garden.
I’d love to clock him in the head with my shovel. I’m not a violent person, but if I learned anything from the way my father treated me, it’s to fight for myself.
I couldn’t then. But I can now. No one walks all over me.
I just don’t fight Daddy. He pays for my apartment, so I don’t have to live with his ridiculous trophy wife, a step-monster named Roxy. She’s thirty. And I’m only twenty-five. But I don’t care, because now, I have the freedom to not take my medication.
If I were on my meds, I’d be rocking back and forth, out of it.
“Once I’m approved, I’m pulling out all your crap,” the fry-eating creep snarls.
“Oh, yeah?” I swing my shovel at the jerk, the pointed metal tip just missing his skull.
He stumbles back, swears, and stares at me like I’ve grown fangs. “What the hell?”
“Let that be a warning, pot man.” I smash the blade tip against the ground just inches from his foot. “Talk to me again like that, and my boyfriend will cut you into pieces. He’s an assassin.”
The guy looks at me like I’m nuts. “Is he imaginary like your friends?”
“Oh, he’s very real. Six-foot four, broad shoulders, long hair, and speaks with an accent. He kills people for theIrish mob,” I hiss, my grip white-knuckled. “By all means, test me. Lay a finger on me. You’ll get him swinging something else at you next.”
