Jayson threads his fingers with mine and brings my hand to his lips for a reverent kiss on my wrist. He leads me over to the swing and holds it steady for me to sit down.
“Aren’t we going to be late for dinner?” I ask.
“I planned ahead.”
He smiles, waiting behind me as I smooth down my dress and gently lower to sit on the polished wood board of the swing. Once I’m settled, he gives me a small push.
“You keep surprising me,” I say, tilting my head back to look up at him.
“I used to daydream about doing this when we were younger.”
“Your dream was to push me in a swing?”
“Actually, yeah. You would be wearing your blue princess dress, the one you wore the first day we met, and that plastic tiara.”
“Don’t remind me.”
Looking back, that whole outfit was embarrassing.
I straighten my legs, feeling the wind rush up my dress every time I pendulum forward.
“I liked that tiara. And stop interrupting. I’m trying to be romantic.”
“Oh, by all means, please continue.”
He playfully narrows his eyes. “Like I was saying, I would picture you in the swing like this, and every time I gave you a push, your hair would whip back, all beautiful and shit. You’d smile at me and laugh, telling me to push you higher so you could swing into the sky to catch the stars.”
He lifts a hand and plucks one of the silver origami stars down from its string.
“Open it.”
I place my feet on the ground to stop the swing from swaying and carefully unfold the paper. Inside, he wrote, “a daughter who has your eyes and your smile.”
Curious, I ask him, “What does it mean?”
Jayson bends down to my upturned face and says, “Inside every star is a wish.”
My brows scrunch together before understanding hits me. His wish is for a daughter—our daughter. Tears spring to my eyes, the emotions I feel so intense they would set the world on fire.
“Every star on our tree is filled with a wish. Wishes that I want to share with you. Spend the rest of my life giving to you. All you have to do, Liz, is reach for the stars, and I will give them all to you. I love you so fucking much.”
He kisses my ear, my neck, my bare shoulder, then my lips.
“Jayson, I don’t know what to say.” I’m so enamored with this boy. “I love you, too. So much.”
A single tear slips down my cheek, one that he captures with his finger and brushes across his lips.
CLICK.
“Liz.”
I blink. Look around. Where did everyone go?
Julien kneels beside me on the ground and wraps his arm around me. I peer down. My fingers are sunk inches deep into the fresh dirt of Jayson’s grave. I don’t remember the service, or when they lowered his casket, or when they covered him.
The wind picks up and lifts strands of my hair. They get stuck in the silent tears wetting my face, and I brush them away, inadvertently smearing streaks of dirt across my cheek. I don’t care.
“Where are Freda and Mitch?”
